Discourse Analysis in Tourism Research A Critical Perspective

Cosmopolitan education, travel and mobilities to Washington, DC

“…This analytical method requires the researcher to deal with the collected data and the text very closely, and even more importantly, it requires the reflexivity of the researcher in order to maintain the validity and credibility of the research. This means that the researcher needs to keep assumptions and preconceptions in check and highlight their impact on his or her research, as well as carefully explaining the steps that were taken in the data analysis (Hannam & Knox, 2005).…”

“…We then used textual analysis (Hannam & Knox, 2005). Hannam and Knox explain that textual analysis is a 'qualitative technique concerned with unpacking the cultural meanings inherent in the material in question' while the researcher has to draw upon his or her 'own knowledge and beliefs as well as the symbolic meaning systems that they share with others' (2005, p. 24).…”

Responsibility in tourism: A discursive analysis

“…Discourse has been defined and applied in various ways within tourism (Hannam & Knox, 2005). The epistemological positioning of this paper takes direction from Foucault's (1972) theorization of discourse as a form of sense-making (Picken, 2006).…”

“…This was accomplished by taking notice of inconsistencies within analyzed texts and by actively looking for exclusions or silences (Waitt, 2005). Because ''invisibility can have just as powerful effects as visibility'' (Rose, 2007, p. 165), it was important for us to look beyond what was contained within the texts and to consider what was also left out or not obvious, as well as the mechanisms that enable these exclusions (Hannam & Knox, 2005).…”

The PTA: Promoting Swiss tours, 1888–1939

“…Specifically, we question the development of the visual commodification of travel destinations not just as products of consumption, but also in relation to a transformed understanding of the relationship between travel and how this was seen to shape social identities. In order to interpret the PTA's printed material and thus advance our understanding of tourism, we draw from a combination of discourse analysis, routinely used within tourism studies to interrogate texts (Hannam & Knox, 2005), and photographic analysis, which examines images as historical processes (Barthes, 1977). As Barthes influentially demonstrated (1977), visual analysis of photographic images must account for two levels of interpretation of an image: denotation (a descriptive level of what the image obviously shows) and connotation (interpretation in terms of wider ideology).…”