Radicalization and attenuation in the construction of tourism employment images: a multi-level frame analysis

Purpose Tourism employment is very diverse ranging from precarious, exploitative study to high-quality workplaces. However, poor employment images dominate the tourism industry, which makes attracting employees difficult. This study aims to examine the processes that lead to such image construction. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative methodology, the study develops a multilevel framing cycle comprising a media analysis of newspapers and magazines (macro-level), a conversation analysis of peer communication/negotiations (meso-level) and a content analysis of single employee/manager interviews (micro-level); and a comparative analysis of the macro-, meso- and micro-level findings. Findings The multilevel frame cycle identifies image-construction processes that pass through working conditions, payment, seasonality and human resource problems. These processes are shaped by the two cross-level dynamics of radicalization and attenuation. The latter consists of rationalized and repressed framings of tourism employment images (TEI) and the former consists of ideological and emotional framings. Practical implications Tourism stakeholders should support and participate in a pragmatic and open dialog to overcome the radicalization and attenuation of tourism employment. The key players require a new deal to end the “information warfare” on tourism employment, inaugurating a new era of collaborative and constructive employment relations. Originality/value This study develops a holistic and dynamic understanding of TEI by exploring how media products, peer groups and employees/managers jointly construct these images. It demonstrates how attenuation and radicalization shape poor employment images in tourism. It argues that these dynamics “lock in” the status-quo, create mutual recrimination between employers and employees and counteract common strategies that could otherwise improve employment structures and the image of tourism.

City Image Analysis of Food in Guangzhou – Taking Yamaha Fish Stall as an Example

In the representation system of city image, food has become a huge influence in the process of city image construction. In the construction of “food as the sky” as the city image of Guangzhou, it includes three forms: prototype image, conceptual image, and symbol image. There are several differences in the three forms, and the myth of “eating in Guangzhou” is constructed in the specific visual practice.

State Image of Mongolia: Between National Identity and Globalization

The article studies the construction of the state image of Mongolia and its peculiarities. Mongolia is a country undergoing social and cultural transformation that includes reevaluation of image strategies. State image is an international statement based on highlighting one’s original characteristics that make a country attractive to investors and international partners. At the same time, it should reflect real cultural practices and allow for advancing national interests. The present study deploys the methodology of case study, SWOT analysis, thematic analysis of connotations that form the external and internal image of Mongolia. The purpose of this article is to investigate the strategies of image construction in today’s Mongolia. The article is aimed to give a semantic vision of the external image of Mongolia by identifying the most common words and expressions that are used in media to describe modern Mongolia. The second objective was to lay out the problematic aspects of creating an image of Mongolia as a promising and growing country despite the fact that now it goes through a challenging period of its history. The third objective is to investigate the ways Mongolia attempts to address these problems. For this purpose, the authors analyze government programs set to form and establish a modern image of Mongolia. These programs include a variety of documents, such as the National Program for the Promotion of Mongolia Abroad and others. Another line of research included the analysis of the work on the inclusion of Mongolian natural and cultural heritage on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The novelty of the research comes from a unique perspective on the construction of state image of Mongolia as an ethnic and cultural brand from the point of view of marketing strategies. The authors conclude that building brand and image of Mongolia is based on the civilizational approach. This approach to re-evaluating and re-creating Mongolia’s image leads to combining opposite characteristics. The country is presented as both ancient and modern, traditional and responsive to change. Such combination of controversial aspects makes allows for implementing archaic elements into the discourse of the catch-up modernization resulting in a positive state image. Mongolia’s experience in making a new image shows the potential of equating national and ethnocultural identity.

Post-Coloniality: Projection of Ghana In Video-Films

The rise of the mainstream video industry has been significant towards socio-cultural and economic development in Ghana; however, this study will not focus on the impacts of the video industry of Ghana. This article primarily examines the image construction of Ghana in video-films. Over the past few years, videofilms in Post-colonial Ghana have often been critiqued by film scholars and critics for reinforcing superstitious beliefs and instigating backward tendencies that derail national development. Normative scholarships have critically explored the visuality of Ghanaian video-films and their themes. Nonetheless, these normative scholarships have often overlooked the nexus between the Ghanaian society and video texts. It is against this scholarly gap that this study engages the meta-question of how video-films project Ghana in their texts. This article will engage a critical textual reading of a few popular films from the Pentecostal and Occult genres to contextualize the ideological sub-texts and the image construction of Ghana in these selected video-films. I argue that major ‘postmodern’ thematic concerns in Ghanaian video-films considerably denigrate and malign Ghana’s image, as well as neglect issues of national interests.

Study on the linkages between microstructure and permeability of porous media using pore network and BP neural network

In applying porous media air bearings (PMABs), designing the pore microstructure of porous media to obtain the desired permeability is challenging. The key parameters in this design are to map the pore microstructure characteristics to permeability and adapt to manufacturing process with the characteristics. For this purpose, a framework is proposed to characterize pore microstructure with morphology descriptor and predict permeability. 3D digital images of porous media are obtained using X-ray micro-computed tomography and various image construction techniques. The complex pore microstructure of porous media is represented with a pore network. Permeability is calculated based on the pore network. Sixteen pore microstructure morphology descriptors are initially calculated to characterize pore microstructure. A back-propagation neural network (BPNN) is built to learn the correlation between morphology descriptors and permeability. Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) and feature importance scores of morphology descriptors are obtained based on the dataset and trained BPNN. The results demonstrate that the prediction performance of BPNN is excellent. The following six morphology descriptors (porosity, coordination number, average pore diameter, average throat diameter, average pore throat ratio, average throat length) are reserved to characterize pore microstructure. Finally, two types of pore microstructure are designed with the help of knowledge obtained by this research.

Hierarchical Fusion Process of Destination Image Formation: Targeting on Urban Tourism Destination

Image has been widely accepted as a combination of perceived elements that are commonly discrete and static ones. ‘Discrete’ means that the elements are treated as separate ones with each other, with no interactions among them. ‘Static’ means that the elements would not be changed into other forms in the process of destination image formation. This study, thinking outside the box, tries to explore destination image formation through perceived elements and take their interactions and corresponding changes into account. Machine learning, as the core of artificial intelligence, is applied for data analysis in this study. Urban tourism destinations are targeted because of their variety and abundance of perceived elements. Data are collected from both interview and questionnaire surveys of tourists. Through several phases of analysis, this study finally finds that perceived elements do interact with each other and change into new forms level by level in tourism destination image formation. Specifically, there are four levels from bottom to top in the whole process of destination image formation, i.e., the individual-landscape layer, compound-atmosphere layer, dual-factor layer, and overall-image layer. In the bottom stage, elements are commonly numerous, separate, and concrete. With the interactive effects of the elements, they integrate with each other and generate some new forms in higher levels, which would be more general and abstract. Based on the findings, the dynamic fusion process and pyramid hierarchy of destination image formation are disclosed. This study explores destination image formation from a new perspective, considering perceived elements within a dynamic, synthetic system, and therefore provides practical insights into destination image construction in a more comprehensive and targeted way.

Sociocultural and political aspects of urban space formation: images «inside» and «outside»

The purpose of the article is to analyze the phenomenon of the city as a communicative environment that creates images. Concrete historical examples of the formation of the image of the city, both from the side of the internal observer and from the side of external actors, are considered. The morphological analysis used in the study makes it possible to consider in more detail the elements of image construction and their interconnection. According to the results of the study, the author concluded that the formation of the image of the city takes place from two positions in relation to it – «inside» and «outside». Each of them defines the city as a unique environment at different levels. The first way of constructing the image of the city is based on personal understanding and reading, which makes the city understandable in terms of its use. The second type of image is associated with the formation of a city brand, which is based on a strong archetype or dominant that makes it unique and recognizable. Correctly constructed images are beneficial for the authorities, since attractive cities can be a magnet for investment, which in turn entails the socio-economic development of both the city and the region as a whole.

The Rich Kids of Instagram: Luxury Travel, Transport Modes, and Desire

The Rich Kids of Instagram (RKOI) portray luxury lifestyles on social media. The potential roles of travel and transport within these online displays of affluence have not yet been examined. This paper’s purpose is to analyse how transport modes and luxury travel are depicted and interrelated through RKOI images. Co-occurrence analyses were conducted using a data set of Instagram posts with RKOI as a hashtag (2012–2018) to visualize the roles of transport modes and luxury travel in RKOI image construction. The findings demonstrate that both energy-intensive transport modes and luxury travel, whether through air/watercraft or luxury cars, play a vital role in signaling RKOI’s self-image on Instagram, with gendered differences. The article contributes an original conceptual model of how RKOI construct their image using transport modes and luxury travel. Implications for the social normalization of carbon-intensive transport choices, coupled with luxury destinations as a backdrop, are discussed.