The ideology of independence lies at the very core of the marketing agenda. For
the free market to operate as a legitimate means of social organization, the
right to be independent and to be free to enact ostensibly independent choices
is to all intents and purposes sacred. Independence is an especially critical
concept for marketing academics and practitioners to understand given the need
to reconcile consumer demand for a sense of individuality, freedom and self,
with an organization's need to commodify consumption activities in order to
realize market growth. This paper examines the ways in which a sense of
independence is successfully offered to consumers within paradoxically
mass-market communications. The study investigates what it means to be an
independent traveller by implementing a critical discourse analysis of
alternative guidebooks. Findings suggest that guidebooks construct independence
by reifying inaccessibility, interpreting value, and constructing inauthenticity
for consumers. This promulgates a powerful myth of the independent traveller as
someone who defies inaccessibility, hunts for bargains, and avoids
inauthenticity. Crucially, each of these cultural practices also acts to
engender an implicit relation of dependency between the text and the tourist
that is found to contradict, but ultimately not threaten, the whole notion of
independence that the consumption experience itself is predicated on.
Bauman, Z.
(1993) Postmodern Ethics.
Oxford:
Blackwell.
2.
Bauman, Z.
(1995) Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality
. Oxford:
Blackwell.
3.
Belk, R.W.
(1988)
`Possessions and the Extended Self'
, Journal of Consumer Research15(2):
139-68.
4.
Belk, R.W.
and
Costa, J.
(1998)
`The Mountain Man Myth: A Contemporary Consuming Fantasy'
, Journal of Consumer Research25: 218-40.
5.
Benjamin, W.
(2002) The Arcades Project.
Harvard :
Belknap.
6.
Berger, P.
and
Luckmann, T.
(1966) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the
Sociology of Knowledge. London:
Penguin.
7.
Bhattacharyya, D.P.
(1997)
`Mediating India: An Analysis of a Guidebook'
, Annals of Tourism Research24: 371-89.
8.
Borgerson, J.
and
Schroeder, J.
(2002)
`Ethical Issues of Global Marketing: Avoiding Bad Faith in Visual
Representation'
, European Journal of Marketing36(5/6):
570-94.
9.
Bourdieu, P.
(1984) Distinction.
London:
Routledge.
10.
Bruner, E.M.
(1991)
`Transformation of Self in Tourism'
, Annals of Tourism Research18: 238-50.
11.
Campbell, C.
(1986) The Romantic Ethic and Spirit of Modern
Consumerism . London:
Blackwell.
12.
Caruana, R.
(2007)
`Morality and Consumption: Towards a Multidisciplinary Perspective'
, Journal of Marketing Management23(3/4):
207-25.
13.
Caruana, R.
and
Crane, A.
(2006)
`Constructing Consumer Responsibility: The Role of Corporate Communications
in Defining Responsible Modes of Consumption'
, paper presented at Corporate Responsibility and Global Business
Conference, London Business School, July.
14.
Celsi, R.
,
Rose, R.
and
Leigh, T.
(1993)
`An Exploration of High-risk Leisure Consumption through Skydiving'
, Journal of Consumer Research20: 1-23.
15.
Chiapello, E.
and
Fairclough, N.
(2002)
`Understanding the New Management Ideology: A Transdisciplinary
Contribution from Critical Discourse Analysis and New Sociology of
Capitalism'
, Discourse and Society13(2):
185-208.
16.
Denzin, N.K.
(2001)
`The Seventh Moment: Qualitative Inquiry and Practices of a More Radical
Consumer Research'
, Journal of Consumer Research28: 324-30.
17.
Dobscha, S.
and
Ozanne, J.L.
(2001)
`An Ecofeminist Analysis of Environmentally Friendly Women Using
Qualitative Methodology: The Emancipatory Potential of an Ecological
Life'
, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing20(2):
201-14.
18.
Ellingham, M.
and
Fisher, J.
(2002) The Rough Guide to Spain (10th ed.).
London: Rough
Guides.
19.
Elsrud, T.
(2001)
`Risk Creation in Travelling - Backpacker Adventure Narration'
, Annals of Tourism Research28(3):
597-617.
20.
Firat, F.
and
Venkatesh, A.
(1995)
`Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption'
, Journal of Consumer Research22(3):
239-68.
21.
Foucault, M.
(1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge.
New York: Pantheon
Books.
22.
Frank, R.H.
(1999) Luxury Fever. Money and Happiness in an Era of
Excess. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
23.
Friedman, M.
and
Friedman. R.
(1980) Free to Choose.
London: Martin Secker and
Warburg.
24.
Friend, T.
(2005) `The Parachute Artist: Have Tony Wheeler's Guidebooks
Travelled Too Far?'The New Yorker 18 April.
25.
Galbraith, J.K.
(1985) The Affluent Society.
London :
Deutsch.
26.
Hatch, M.J.
(1993)
`The Dynamics of Organizational Culture'
, Academy of Management Review18(4):
657-93.
27.
Hirschman, E.C.
(2003)
`Men, Dogs
, Guns, and Cars: The Semiotics of Rugged Individualism', Journal of
Advertising32(1):
9-22.
28.
Holt, D.
(2002)
`Why do Brands Cause Trouble? A Dialectical Theory of Consumer Culture and
Branding'
, Journal of Consumer Research29(1):
70-91.
29.
Holt, D.
and
Thompson, C.J.
(2004)
`Man-of-action Heroes: the Pursuit of Heroic Masculinity in Everyday
Consumption'
, Journal of Consumer Research31(2):
425-40.
30.
Huxley, L.
(2005)
`Western Backpackers and the Global Experience: An Exploration of Young
People's Interaction with Local People'
, Tourism, Culture and Communication5(1):
37-44.
31.
Hyde, K.F.
and
Lawson, R.
(2003)
`The Nature of Independent Travel'
, Journal of Travel Research42: 13-23.
32.
Ibarra-Colado, E.
,
Clegg, R.S.
,
Rhodes, C.
and
Kornberger, M.
(2006)
`The Ethics of Managerial Subjectivity'
, Journal of Business Ethics64: 45-55.
33.
Jacobsen, J.K.S.
(2004)
`Roaming Romantics: Solitude-seeking and Self-centredness in Scenic
Sightseeing'
, Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism4: 5-23.
34.
MacCannell, D.
(1976) The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class .
London:
Macmillan.
35.
Marion, G.
(2006)
`Marketing Ideology and Criticism: Legitimacy and Legitimization'
, Marketing Theory6(2):
245-62.
36.
Medved, C.
and
Kirby, E.
(2005)
`Family CEOs: A Feminist Analysis of Corporate Mothering Discourses'
, Management Communication Quarterly18(4):
435-76
37.
Miller, D.
(1987) Material Culture and Mass Consumption.
Oxford:
Blackwell.
38.
Mills, A.
(1995)
`Man/aging Subjectivity, Silencing Diversity: Organizational Imagery in the
Airline Industry
. The Case of British Airways', Organization2(2):
243-69.
39.
Moisander, J.
and
Pesonen, S.
(2002)
`Narratives of Sustainable Ways of Living: Constructing the Self and the
Other as a Green Consumer'
, Management Decision40(4):
329-42.
40.
Noy, C.
(2004)
`"You Must Go Trek There": The Persuasive Genre of Narration Among Israeli
Backpackers'
, Narrative Inquiry12(2):
261-90.
41.
Oswick, C.
,
Keenoy, T.
and
Grant, D.
(2000)
`Discourse, Organizations and Organizing: Concepts
, Objects and Subjects', Human Relations53(9):
1115-23.
42.
Phillips, N.
and
Hardy, C.
(1997)
`Managing Multiple Identities: Discourse Legitimacy and Resources in the UK
Refugee System'
, Organisation4(2):
159-85.
43.
Phillips, N.
and
Hardy, C.
(2002) Discourse Analysis: Investigating Processes of Social
Construction. London:
Sage .
44.
Schnaiberg, A.
(1997) `The Expansion of Consumption', in
N. R. Goodwin
,
F. Ackerman
and
D. Kiron
(eds) The Consumer Society. Washington,
DC: Island Press.
45.
Schouten, J.
and
McAlexander, J.
(1995)
`Subcultures of Consumption: An Ethnography of the New Bikers'
, Journal of Consumer Research22(1):
43-61.
46.
Schroeder, J.E.
(2006) `Critical Visual Analysis', in
R. Belk
and
E. Elgar
(eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Marketing .
Cheltenham: Edward
Elgar.
47.
Schroeder, J.E.
and
Borgerson, J.
(1998)
`Marketing Images of Gender: A Visual Analysis'
, Consumption, Markets and Culture2(2):
161-201.
48.
Schumacher, E.F.
(1993) Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People
Mattered. London:
Vintage .
49.
Shepherd, R.
(2003)
`Fieldwork without Remorse: Travel Desires in a Tourist World'
, Consumption, Markets and Culture6(2):
133-44.
50.
Siegenthaler, P.
(2002)
`Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japanese Guidebooks'
, Annals of Tourism Research29: 1110-37.
51.
Sillitoe, A.
(1995) Leading the Blind: A Century of Guidebook Travel
1815-1914. London:
Macmillan.
52.
Sørensen, A.
(2003)
`Backpacker Ethnography'
, Annals of Tourism Research30: 847-67.
53.
Stern, B.A.
(1995)
`Consumer Myths: Frye's Taxonomy and the Structural Analysis of a Consumer
Text'
, Journal of Consumer Research22(2):
165-85.
54.
Thompson, C.
and
Hirschman, E.
(1995)
`Understanding the Socialized Body: A Poststructuralist Analysis of
Consumers' Self-conceptions
, Body Images, and Self-care Practices', Journal of Consumer Research22(2):
139-53.
55.
Thompson, C.J.
(2004)
`Marketplace Mythology and Discourses of Power'
, Journal of Consumer Research31(1):
162-80.
56.
Thompson, C.J.
and
Haytko, D.L.
(1997)
`Speaking of Fashion: Consumers' Uses of Fashion Discourses and the
Appropriation of Countervailing Cultural Meanings'
, Journal of Consumer Research24(1):
15-42.
57.
Urry, J.
(1990) The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary
Societies. London:
Sage.
58.
Venkatesh, A.
and
Meamber, L.A.
(2006)
`Arts and Aesthetics: Marketing and Cultural Production'
, Marketing Theory6(1):
11-39.
