Instagram-ing tourism : re-evaluating ‘tourist gaze’ in web 2.0

Abstract

This paper attempts to re-evaluate existing understandings of John Urry’s (2002) ‘tourist gaze’ and investigate if a ‘hermeneutic circle of reproduction’ indeed exists on Instagram by using tourist photographs of Singapore as a tourist destination as data for research. By comparing findings drawn from 200 photographs gathered from Instagram accounts of Singapore tourism institutions and tourists who have visited Singapore, this paper concludes that Urry’s theory remains valid to some extent in the context of Instagram as some tourists’ photographs were found to mimic institutions’ photographs. However, digitalized tourist photographs uploaded on Instagram were found to possess other social purposes. Tourists are found to exercise agency and authenticate individual travel experiences through varied performances of self in tourist photographs uploaded on Instagram. Instagram profiles of tourists therefore become stories narrating their travel conquests and an expression of their identities.