Co-constructing the narrative experience: staging and consuming the American Civil War at Gettysburg

Consuming the authentic Gettysburg: How a tourist landscape becomes an authentic experience

“…Work on Colonial Williamsburg, for example, reports that some visitors complain when they notice inauthentic elements (Gable and Handler, 1996;Handler and Gable, 1997). Instead of this relatively passive role assigned to consumers, recent scholarship in consumer research suggests that consumers are active participants in the construction of marketplace experiences (Chronis, 2008). Our study reveals that visitors at Gettysburg are actively engaged by using specific authentication marks in order to make their judgments; by employing their pre-existing knowledge in assessing authenticity; by comparing with other heritage sites they have visited earlier; and, most importantly, by engaging their imagination in (re)constructing the story and connecting with the legendary past.…”

“…We go a step further though by illustrating that the consumers' rejection of the marketing text is an expression of their longing to contribute to the construction of an authentic story. The ''truth'' of the past in these cases and the accuracy of what happened at Gettysburg is an outcome of negotiation between producers and consumers (Chronis, 2005b;2008) and the construction of a national imagery is a collective act (Chronis, 2006). The use of Michael Shaara's book by visitors to contest authoritative narratives of the licensed guides illustrates that what is authentic heritage is not a fixed historical account transferred from the past, but rather a collective production of culture in the present.…”

Visitors’ Experience, Place Attachment and Sustainable Behaviour at Cultural Heritage Sites: A Conceptual Framework

“…These multiple benefits are found to be embedded in a cultural narrative that is formed by the information provided at the site and is mediated by imagination. Chronis [80,81] and Rickly-Boyd [82] provide insights into the co-construction dynamics of cultural narratives at heritage sites as consumption experiences emerging through the interaction between marketers and tourists. The experiential outcome of the narrative construction process is a connection with the heritage site story that provides a deeper understanding and becomes personally relevant and meaningful [83].…”

Management Challenges at Film-Induced Tourism Heritage Attractions

“…This experience, along with visitors' own prior knowledge and exposure to these sites across a variety of sources, including popular media products such as films, informs the meanings that visitors attach to these places. Therefore, HVAs are also a multifaceted social constructs (Chronis, 2008) and are "privileged objects of tourist pilgrimages" (Mazierska & Walton, 2006, p. 5), where visitors can, somewhat similar to television and film viewers (Davin, 2005), travel backwards in time (Mazierska & Walton, 2006), and, in the case of film tourists, explore the blurred boundaries between history and fiction. Importantly, in the context of film-induced tourism at HVAs, existing management complexities might be further exacerbated by the popularization of a site through its exposure in popular media products.…”