Marketing material used in promotion of industrial heritage sites for tourism creates representations of said cultural heritage. In order to increase the touristic value of the historical industrial sites marketers can create or make a place attractive through careful selection of images and texts. It is believed that simplifying the image can make it comprehensible and thus more attractive to potential visitors. However, simplifying images of heritage can result in creation of stereotypical representations. This research aimed to analyse what representations of the industrial heritage of Bergslagen, in the middle of Sweden, could be found in marketing material of tourism destinations today. Post-feminist theory was applied as a tool for analysis of the content as a contextual and critical perspective in order to interpret what meanings these representations found were conveying. By understanding the data in relation to androcentric discourse and the context of Bergslagen as a patriarchal system representations of continued polarization of gender was found. By conducting a content analysis of three destinations, Långban, Engelsbergs bruk and Axmar Bruk, four dominating themes of their representations in visual and textual promotional material were found. The narratives in the re-imagination and reproduction of the sites and their industrial heritage were also discovered during the analysis. The findings thus indicated that the marketing perpetuated stereotypes of the inherent gender roles that have existed in the past but were accentuated even through the modern mediums. As tourism is a tool for rejuvenation of industrial heritage sites it is important to note that, the need for increasing the attractiveness by consciously or unconsciously deciding which narratives should be told, marketers act as facilitators of generic ideas and impositions. When trying to simplify something as complex as a heritage, meaning can become lost in translation. The representations can become distorted, which they have in Bergslagen, according to the findings of this research. Representations can thus inform us of what is being marginalized. The understanding and interpretations of the representations can therefore become a resource in the marketing the real and genuine heritage.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:du-28382 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Funk, Minéa |
| Publisher | Högskolan Dalarna, Turismvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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