A critical discourse analysis of in-flight magazine advertisements: The ‘social sorting’ of airline travellers?

Small, J; Harris, C; Wilson, E

A critical discourse analysis of in-flight magazine advertisements: The ‘social sorting’ of airline travellers?

Small, J

Harris, C Wilson, E

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 2008, 6 (1), pp. 17 - 38
Issue Date:: 2008-01-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Small, J https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6200-5398	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Harris, C	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Wilson, E	en_US
dc.date.issued	2008-01-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 2008, 6 (1), pp. 17 - 38	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	1476-6825	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/71482
dc.description.abstract	The in-flight magazine is one of many industrialised print media to which the traveller is exposed. In-flight magazines, however ‘ideologically innocent’ they may appear, can be very powerful in representing the norms and values to which travellers should supposedly adhere. This paper builds on arguments that there is a lack of research on representation in tourism and focuses in particular on how in-flight magazine advertising produces, mediates and reproduces discourses surrounding air travel. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), advertisements from a selection of Qantas and Air New Zealand in-flight magazines from 2005 were studied. The content analysis of these texts reveals that the magazine advertisements wish to speak to a certain ‘elite’ type of traveller who is mobility-rich as well as financially wealthy, with the time to pursue a raft of travel activities and the money to buy an array of expensive luxury products. Essentially, the paper argues that magazine advertisements can be a subtle (or, perhaps, not so subtle) way of ‘socially sorting’ airline travellers into those who are socially and culturally acceptable airline travellers and those who are not. The advertisements can also be seen as a means of socially sorting the airline traveller from other types of traveller and from the non-traveller. No matter which way the sorting occurs, in-flight magazine advertising appears to be a powerful medium that overwhelmingly appeals and speaks to privileged groups in society. © 2008 J. Small et al.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1080/14766820802140422	en_US
dc.title	A critical discourse analysis of in-flight magazine advertisements: The ‘social sorting’ of airline travellers?	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	1	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	6	en_US
utslib.for	1506 Tourism	en_US
utslib.for	1699 Other Studies in Human Society	en_US
utslib.for	2202 History and Philosophy of Specific Fields	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business/Management Discipline
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.issue	1	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	6	en_US

Abstract:

The in-flight magazine is one of many industrialised print media to which the traveller is exposed. In-flight magazines, however ‘ideologically innocent’ they may appear, can be very powerful in representing the norms and values to which travellers should supposedly adhere. This paper builds on arguments that there is a lack of research on representation in tourism and focuses in particular on how in-flight magazine advertising produces, mediates and reproduces discourses surrounding air travel. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), advertisements from a selection of Qantas and Air New Zealand in-flight magazines from 2005 were studied. The content analysis of these texts reveals that the magazine advertisements wish to speak to a certain ‘elite’ type of traveller who is mobility-rich as well as financially wealthy, with the time to pursue a raft of travel activities and the money to buy an array of expensive luxury products. Essentially, the paper argues that magazine advertisements can be a subtle (or, perhaps, not so subtle) way of ‘socially sorting’ airline travellers into those who are socially and culturally acceptable airline travellers and those who are not. The advertisements can also be seen as a means of socially sorting the airline traveller from other types of traveller and from the non-traveller. No matter which way the sorting occurs, in-flight magazine advertising appears to be a powerful medium that overwhelmingly appeals and speaks to privileged groups in society. © 2008 J. Small et al.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/71482