Paper short abstract:

In this paper I will introduce four dimensions of digital visuality in tourism studies (spatiality, temporality, sensoriality and materiality) that can help us, as researchers, study the influence digital mediation can have on our (ethnographic) research.

Paper long abstract:

Digital technologies are increasingly intertwined in everyday aspects of life across the globe, not leaving behind the tourist of today. The relative accessibility of digital technologies has, in a way, made everyone into a tourist of some sort. Tourists can travel physically, or completely virtually in the case of VR tourism, but in any case their experience is always mediated by digital technologies. This poses not only new conceptual but also methodological concerns in the study of tourism.

In this paper I will discuss the methodological opportunities and challenges of my PhD fieldwork on the Camino de Santiago. I will do so by introducing four dimensions of digital visuality in tourism studies: Spatiality, Temporality, Sensoriality and Materiality. Together these dimensions can help us reflect on how we, as researchers, can study digital visuality, and the influence digital mediation can have on ethnographic relationships.