Media-inspired imagination of Turkey as a destination for British tourists: Travel journalism and popular culture

Hamid-turksoy, N. (2012). Media-inspired imagination of Turkey as a destination for British tourists: Travel journalism and popular culture. EUPOP2012 – European Popular Culture Conference, University of the Arts London, 11-13 July, London .

Abstract: The discussions of this article are based on comprehensive empirical study, analysing media’s imagination of Turkey as a travel destination for British tourists. We present the comparative findings of 103 travel stories published by three broadsheet and three tabloid newspapers, in five-year timeline (2005-2010). Drawing on work around travel journalism, we question how travel stories facilitate to construct various meanings and create media-inspired imagination of a travel destination. The findings are interpreted in the light of the ways in which travel journalist commoditized nations and manufacture a travel destination for the purposes of economic interest. The results demonstrate that tabloid press largely target lower-middle class and naturally demonstrate cheap, all-inclusive mass tourism stories. Whilst, broadsheet press obviously criticise popular packaged bombardment and introduce an elite construct of ‘authentic’ Turkish experience, high on cultural capital and particularly class defining. Nonetheless, overall results illustrate that travel journalism is a rather political field linked to a wider economic logic, that has a mutual dependent relation with the travel industries.