Alternative Reiseführer: Entstehung, Verbreitung und Professionalisierung von den 1970er bis zu den 1990er Jahren

Publication: Book/ReportDissertations

Abstract


The thesis explores how the consumption of symbols underlying alternative tourism is constructed and how it develops. Within the context of this thesis, an alternative travel guide meets two criteria. It is initially published outside of the conventional book industry, for example self-published – even if the publishing method has been prone to frequent change over time. Moreover, these travel guides announce through various paratexts (formats, titles, subtitles, prefaces) that they are to be considered as „alternative“. Following cultural-historical interpretations, travel guides are – as a medium – understood as an „observation academy“ (Müller). Besides other functions they develop and recommend a specific consumption of symbols to serve as the basis for a certain travel practice. In this sense, the alternative travel guide can be considered as an alternative „observation academy“ that shows what type of symbolic consumption is accepted in an alternative social environment. As such, the travel guide is more than a travel companion that helps with preparations and concrete recommendations during travels, it also offers the assurance that the reader will practice a correct type of tourism, i.e. a type of tourism that is accepted in the social environment. At the same time, the travel guide must exist for this environment and be accepted as an adequate alternative „perception manager“ (Gorsemann). The analysis of the alternative „observation academy“ expounded on in the present thesis focuses on both media paratexts as well as core texts. A certain promise or announcement of the alternative consumption of symbols is provided paratextually. This allows for an assessment of the extent to which this is realised or implemented in the core text. This analyses focuses on the medium of alternative travel guides and how far they deviate from the perspectives of the bourgeois original medium to medially construct and convey a new, alternative mode of touristic orientation.
Original languageGerman
Place of PublicationEssen
PublisherKlartext Verlag
Number of pages241
ISBN (Print)978-3-8375-2273-0
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Publication series

NameVeröffentlichungen des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen. A. Darstellungen
Volume66

Citation