1,720,980 research outputs found
ZOOM TOURISM: A NETNOGRAPHIC INSIGHT INTO NEW CULTURAL PRACTICES AND HOW THEY ARE RECONFIGURING SMART TOURISM EXPERIENCES
No full textLa tesi comprende tre articoli. Il primo offre una revisione della letteratura, condotta attraverso software, sul dibattito delle relazioni uomo-oggetto e teorie post-umanistiche, fornendo una panoramica sulla concettualizzazione dell’oggetto, proprietà e dinamiche relazionali, nonchè un’agenda di ricerca su temi emergenti. Il secondo articolo, focalizzato sul gastro-turismo, esplora la configurazione delle lezioni di cucina svolte su Zoom durante il lockdown Covid-19. Esso rivela, attraverso una netnography sul trend “Zoom photo taking”, informata dall’Affordance Theory, tre esperienze turistiche: Ego, Contextual e Platform Tourism. Questi risultati contribuiscono ai dibattiti sullo smart tourism e Affordance Theory, dimostrando come le affordance di Zoom rendano questa piattaforma una “smart destination”. Il terzo articolo esplora con una netnografia i canoni stilistici delle pratiche di presentazione del sé e del luogo degli zoomie di turismo culturale e li confronta con quelli del travel selfie. L’analisi rivela specifiche pratiche di presentazione del sé negli zoomie classificabili in tre tipologie di turist gaze (seller, buddy ed escapist) e uniche pratiche di presentazione del luogo (vicarious o converging). Questi risultati avanzano la letteratura del travel selfie e del tourist gaze, dimostrando che gli zoomie sono un nuovo mezzo tecnoculturale per costruire le identità di una persona e di un luogo.This research thesis comprises three papers. The first paper provides a software-assisted literature review on the human-object relationships and post-humanist debates, offering an overview of the objects’ conceptualization, capacities, and relational dynamics conceived by these perspectives and a research agenda on key lines of inquiry.
The second paper, focused on gastro-tourism, explores how cooking classes, repositioned through and on Zoom during the Covid-19 lockdown, are configured. Through a netnography informed by Afoordance Theory, the paper examines the Zoom photo taking trend and uncovers three Zoom tourism experiences, characterized by specific practices: Ego, Contextual, and Platform tourism. These findings advance the smart tourism debate, highlighting how Zoom's affordances define the platform as a new smart tourism destination.
The third paper conducts a netnography on zoomies in cultural tourism, comparing and contrasting their stylistic canons of self- and place-presentation with those of travel selfies. It reveals different zoomies’ practices of self-presentation supporting a seller, a buddy, or an escapist tourist gaze and points at zoomies as carriers of vicarious or converging practices of place-presentation. These findings advance the literature on travel selfies and tourist gaze, revealing zoomies as technocultural means to construct the identities of a person and a place
Corporate Brands going Plastic-free: building sustainable brands in dialogue
No full textCommitment to environmental causes is emerging as a fundamental driver of consumption choices, especially for the younger generations. However, studies are missing that delve deeper into how young consumers, particularly Millennials and Gen Zers, dialogically frame their favor and support for sustainable brands. In this paper, we explore how young consumers shape their choices for sustainable brands and products in their social media conversations, which represent the most common ground where sustainable commitments are discussed. We conduct an in-depth netnographic investigation that provides a deep cultural understanding of the system of values, meanings, language, stories, images, and priorities that young consumers associate with sustainable choices. Considering that Millennials and Gen Zers are setting as a top priority to limit the consumption of single-use plastics, our study is set into the communities of plastic-free refillable bottles. Our findings visually map and dig deeper into the specific motivations that young consumers prioritize in conversations when they embrace plastic-free brands. In terms of contribution, our study elaborates on the notion of care as the key priority for young consumers
Corporate branding at the crossroad between socio-political engagement and consumer clicktivism
No full textIn the current scenario companies and brands are more and more expected to take a position meant as acting as people among people, as citizens among citizens by selecting sides and partnering on critical social issues and commitments. Most of the forms of social aggregations and activations are now finding an outburst of participations in techno-mediated platforms. In the connective and fast context of the social media people, stakeholders, consumers and brands can express also easy, quick, massive, clicktivist engagement. In this working paper we explore how brands partake in activism and clicktivism to get closer to their stakeholders and consumers and to assess their brand purpose in a meaningful way for society. Our aim is to critically appraise clicktivism as a contemporary form of brand participation and engagement to contribute to understand the blurred contours of contemporary marketing ethics that blend cultural branding and clicktivist digital engagement and reflect on how brand and consumer techno-mediated political discourse get currently interlaced to reinforce brand symbols, meanings and actions. To do that in this working paper, we first review the literature on societal corporate branding and brand purpose to then present some preliminary anecdotal evidence on corporate brand actions undertaken to take a stand against Donald Trump’s political and social discourse and on how these have been received, negotiated, and amplified in consumers’ discourses in networked platforms
Zoom photo-taking as a new trend in gastronomy e-tourism
No full textThe Covid19 compelled tourism providers to reconfigure their offer in fully digital formats, specifically through the use of video-conferencing platforms, as Zoom. This has led a further development of the e-tourism concept as well as the diffusion of a new trend in tourism photography. The photograph is an outline of the Zoom screen and its virality derives from the combination of the socio-technical affordances of social networks, where the photo is usually shared, and of Zoom. This study, specifically conducted in the gastronomy tourism sector, reflects on how this new trend depicts the new technologically-mediated social dynamics and how online tourists use technology to enjoy tourism experiences. The aim is to contribute to understand, through the visual and semiotic analysis of Zoom photos, how technology is reconfiguring consumption and how the relationships between technology and consumers are evolving in a time period of induced social distance and reduced physical interaction
La relazione tra marca e consumatori migranti: una visione introspettiva”
No full textGli autori hanno approfondito a livello introspettivo le dinamiche di relazione marca-consumatore che caratterizzano il rapporto che i consumatori migranti stabiliscono con le loro marche di riferimento. Per questa analisi si è utilizzato un approccio qualitativo basato sulla raccolta di diari personali generati in forma digitale. I diari digitali sono stati utili per approfondire, così come viene vissuta interiormente, l’esperienza personale di chi oggi affronta un processo di ingresso in una nuova cultura di consumo, ricordandoci quanto le marche possano essere delle potenti risorse a livello simbolico, valoriale e pragmatico per i loro consumatori
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Travel livestream influencers: a netnographic analysis of livestreamers' narrative and interactional flows to construct a destination image
No full textInfluencer marketing is a well-established destination marketing strategy, traditionally relying on the authority of travel social media influencers (TSMIs) to create inspiring destination images (Glover, 2019; Gretzel, 2017). TSMIs typically use visual social media platforms to showcase destinations (Femenia-Serra et al., 2022). However, the recent rise of audio-visual platforms like Twitch, which boomed during Covid-19, has introduced a new category of influential figures: “livestreamers” (Liu et al., 2021). Livestreamers are authorative individuals, who offer product display and purchase services through trials and experience sharing in an online live streaming room (Hu & Chaudry, 2017). From the Covid-19 pandemic, they have expanded to “travel livestreaming” (Liu et al., 2022) especially on Twitch (Deng et al., 2021), taking viewers on daily walks around cities, showcasing monuments, attractions, and local life and interacting with their audience. Through these outdoor broadcasts, livestreamers showcase a vivid image of these destinations (Zhang et al., 2021), and also offer a moment of socialization to viewers.
Therefore, I see in livestreamers a new category of TSMI, producing similarly inspirational but more interacting contents on destinations. Hence, analyzing their broadcasting trajectory can provide valuable insights into how they construct destination images, which can be useful for destination marketers (Zheng et al., 2022).
I ground this study in the burgeoning literature on travel live streaming (Liu et al., 2022; Zheng et al., 2022; Deng et al., 2021; Li et al., 2022) and TSMI (Gretzel, 2017; Xu & Pratt, 2018; Femenia-Serra et al., 2022; Jang et al., 2021). These studies highlighted the potential of this format to create a destination image encouraging future travels, and also drew similarities between livestreamers and TSMIs. However, due to the emergent nature of the phenomenon, at present empirical studies are missing that analyze the cultural production of self-presentation, commodification and socialization dynamics that livestreamers use to construct this image.
To reach this gap, I conducted a netnographic research (Kozinets, 2020) on cultural tourism, with the aims of uncovering the narrative and interactional flows, as well as the interplays between them, performed in these outdoor broadcasts and how they create meanings and elicit desire for viewers around a destination image.
I specifically analyzed 59 livestreaming on Twitch, broadcasting heritage city tours (273h of observation), and the viewers conversations on these videos (276.909 comments).
The preliminary findings reveal the travel live streaming as a techno-cultural phenomenon, with specific canonized narrative and interactional flows that occur according to four particular trajectories of the experience flow (see Figure 1). These flows not only create an inspiring destination image for viewers (Zheng et al., 2022), but also trigger self-narrative behaviors about past tourism experiences, as well as a feeling of nostalgia among them. Moreover, these flows, when fueled with intensification (Just, 2019) from livestreamers, who incorporate moments of intimate self-disclosure in the flow, trigger in viewers a sense of physical proximity to the livestreamers and the feeling of having vicariously experienced the travel journey alongside them.
This study contributes to the literature on travel live streaming and TSMI, by clarifying the nuanced dynamics of destination image construction in an outdoor broadcast. It also reveals the potential of livestreamers as a new category of TSMI, able to cultivate an emotional bond with their viewers, making livestreaming not only a tool for travel inspiration but also a conduit for travel immersion
Plastic-Free Brand Choices as a Holistic Approach to Self-Care: A Netnographic Analysis of Young Consumers’ Motivations
Full text linkYoung consumers are increasingly taking on the mantle of champions for sustainable behavior. However, notwithstanding the long-established and rich debate on sustainable consumption, studies are missing that delve deeper on how young consumers, especially Millennials and Gen Z, dialogically frame their sustainable consumption choices and their favor for sustainable brands. We conduct an in-depth netnographic investigation that provides a deep cultural understanding of the motivations and priorities that young consumers associate with sustainable choices in their social media conversations, which represent the most common ground where sustainable commitments are discussed. Considering that plastic-free refillable water bottles are emerging as the daily consumption choice that young consumers are adopting to pursue a more sustainable lifestyle, we see in that a compelling research context in which the motivations that young consumers prioritize when they embrace plastic-free brands can be explored. Our findings visually map and dig deeper into the complex constellation of the dominant themes and interplays among them that young consumers discuss in their conversations about the adoption of plastic-free refillable water bottles. Across all the conversations we analyzed, the notion of care emerges as the key priority for young consumers and sustainable consumption is depicted as a holistic form of self-care. Our paper contributes to delve deeper into those conversational dynamics in and through which the priorities related to sustainable consumption choices are shaped and constructed through the expressive and material capacities of the different social formations that are engaged into the discussion of sustainability issues. Our paper also provides a methodological blueprint for the investigation of the dialogic process of sustainable brand building
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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