Media Convergence: Tourist Attractions in the Making

Abstract

In the circuits of culture there are a multitude of representations in circulation. These representations are derived from a range of media products such as guidebooks and tourist brochures. Furthermore, these media products and representations continuously converge with each other. The question, then, is what representations are contained within these converged media products. This article, therefore, aims to explore representations in a range of media products associated with a tourist attraction. The selected site is rosslyn Chapel outside of Edinburgh, known from The Da Vinci Code. The empirical material is analyzed using, first, a content analysis and, second, a narrative analysis. The combined analysis shows how popular cultural media products, through media convergence, have repositioned and created new representations, with a corollary effect on tourist attractions. Thus, media convergence will have a great impact on destination marketing, attractions and tourists alike because it legitimizes what is worth visiting.