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Abstract
Tourism is the way we understand the world: tourists travel in an increasingly mediated environment in which ubiquitous promotional material and other popular artifacts employ stunning images and romantic travel narratives to describe local environments. Tourist texts “sell” local landscapes to entice visitors, employing an environmental aesthetic that urges travel. With its mission to “explore the planet,” the National Geographic Society contributes to this tourist aesthetic. This essay examines three special issues on Africa simultaneously published by the National Geographic Society: its official journal, National Geographic, and its sister magazines, National Geographic Traveler, and National Geographic Adventure. The photographic images and travel narratives in these tourist texts produce an environmental aesthetic that positions the traveler at the center of these environments. This essay first analyzes how National Geographic constructs Africa's environmental landscapes. These magazines depict Africa as a vast desert plain, a wilderness theme park, and a part of the global scenery. The second part of the analysis examines how National Geographic locates the tourist in these environments. I discuss how National Geographic positions the tourist as protagonist, expert, and hero of Africa's environment. In the conclusions, I argue this environmental aesthetic renders Africa invisible through anthropocentric distance, and I discuss the need for more critical readings of tourist discourse.
Notes
1. There is debate in the blogosphere regarding the use of Yelp (the user recommendation website www.yelp.com) as a verb. See also the Washington Post's coverage of the launch: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/14/AR2007081401782.html.
2. See Tracy Stephenson Shaffer's intriguing 2004 essay on backpacker culture and the quest for meaning (in references).
3. Interestingly, National Geographic has magazine, website and television media devoted to kids. Children's tourist discourse presents an interesting problem for another essay.
4. In this essay, I refer to the different magazines as: National Geographic, Adventure, and Traveler. I occasionally use “National Geographic” (unitalicized) to refer to the National Geographic Society.
5. In truth, only National Geographic, and Adventure arrived in my mailbox. I spotted Traveler in my library's current periodicals section a few weeks later. I wish to illustrate how these magazines simultaneously entered public discourse.
6. See Nash's (Citation1967) description of wilderness as a state of mind (in references).
7. Heidegger refers to this as phusis. See Heidegger (Citation1971, pp. 57–110). A full Heideggerian analysis of National Geographic is beyond the scope of this paper.
8. If this analysis focuses on images, then articles become extended captions.
9. Photos described throughout the essay are published in the magazines, but some are also available: www.nationalgeographic.com
10. The full explanation of Heidegger's phusis is for another article.
11. See www.nationalgeographic.com for full audience demographics.
12. While television commercials portray America's phone networks to be supported by an army, readers of this article can surely recall a time when they would have climbed a tree for better reception.
13. Save the Elephants allows tourists to shoot a tranquilizer dart, help scientists attach collars on elephants, or follow the movements of elephants online.
14. UNEP offers a basic, but extensive discussion on the environmental effects of tourism on its website: http://www.uneptie.org/pc/tourism/sust-tourism/environment.htm
15. At a European news conference, in 2001, President George W. Bush said, “Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease.” The New York Times covered this verbal slip without comment: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/world/deep-us-europe-split-casts-long-shadow-on-bush-tour.html
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Anne Marie Todd
Anne Marie Todd is an Associate Professor of Public Communication in the Department of Communication Studies at San José State University
