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Abstract: Instagram is an essential visual social media platform where tourism organizations can present their destinations. These presentations could feature authentic natural and cultural sites, be user-generated, etc. Dubrovnik is a prominent tourism destination in Croatia. In 2011, it became famous as an onsite filming location for the globally popular TV series Game of Thrones. In this thesis, we investigate whether the Croatian National Tourism Organisation and the Dubrovnik Local Tourism Organisation present the city as a film destination featuring Game of Thrones or as an authentic destination featuring its heritage and nature. We explore destination image construction, including identity, authenticity, decision-making, and promotion. We also discuss film-induced tourism and the role of social media, mainly through user-generated content and Instagram. For our research, we employed content and thematic analysis using a summative approach to analyze photos from 2016 to 2020 on the official Instagram profiles of the National and Local Tourism Organisations, totaling 1.034 photos. The results show that the National Tourism Organisation uses Dubrovnik’s relationship with Game of Thrones to fabricate the authenticity of the destination image, while the Local Tourism Organisation focuses solely on heritage and nature, thus guarding its authenticity. This discrepancy highlights different communication strategies and underscores the importance of understanding these differences for effective destination marketing, providing insights for more cohesive and authentic promotional strategies
Keywords: film-induced tourism, social media, destination image, authenticity, Dubrovnik, Game of Thrones
Published in DKUM: 16.10.2024; Views: 0; Downloads: 5
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Abstract: My diploma thesis deals with the television series Mad Men and the film Revolutionary Road. The first part of the thesis consists of short summaries of both works as well as descriptions of the two married couples as main character figures from each story, the Drapers and the Wheelers. Firstly, the main part of the thesis discusses American post-war domestic ideology and the meaning of identity through a detailed analysis and comparison of the main protagonists and their relationships. Additionally, the thesis reveals how conformity, domestic containment, the banality of suburban life, consumerism, strictly defined gender roles, superficial marriages and the loss of one’s true identity lead to adultery and the destruction of the protagonists’ true selves. Secondly, alienation, a sense of frustration and silent despair inevitably culminate in the break-up of their marriages. Thirdly, the conflict between the actual and projected identities of the character roles they are bound to play becomes so major that the utopian aspirations of living their lives in the American dream are shattered into pieces. The inability to escape from their empty, hopeless lives is all there is left. Both works can be considered masterpieces, particularly in displaying conformity and the lack of that personal drive to ever escape mediocrity, mainly because they seem to be more determined by the environment than they are capable of realizing. Ultimately, I had to pose a question: Are we all living our true, actual identities, freely and autonomously, or are we just like the Wheelers?
Keywords: domestic containment ideology, conformity, identity - social character, suburbanisation, consumerism - mass culture, quest for authenticity, hopeless emptiness
Published in DKUM: 23.03.2016; Views: 1378; Downloads: 146
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