Playfulness, immediacy, spontaneity, simultaneity and sociality: Towards an understanding of smartphone photographic practices by younger generations of (Chinese) tourists

• Published in: Cogent social sciences Vol. 3; no. 1; p. 1389623
• Main Author: Li, Mohan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Cogent 01.01.2017; Taylor & Francis Ltd; Taylor & Francis Group
• Subjects: Autoethnography; Chinese tourist; Consumption; Generations; Hedonism; Interdisciplinary aspects; Photography; Playfulness; playing; postmodern; Research methodology; smartphone; Smartphones; Spontaneity; Tourism
• ISSN: 2331-1886; 2331-1886
• DOI: 10.1080/23311886.2017.1389623

This interdisciplinary study aims to investigate the younger generations of tourists' (That is, those who were born either in the 1980s or 1990s) photographic performances other than taking a selfie. In order to achieve this aim, the innovative research method of visual autoethnography is employed. Based upon the empirical research undertaken amongst Chinese younger tourists in the UK, this study unpacks that, for Chinese younger tourists, who appear to be becoming postmodern, the smartphone has potentially become a "toy" and photo-taking a means to fulfilling their insatiable desire for hedonism in travel. Notably, in the fieldwork, the Chinese respondents were identified to play an interactive game of photo-taking and photo-sharing, casting the focus of their gaze on each other and engaging with the destination in the child-like fashion. In so doing, the playful, immediate, spontaneous, simultaneous and sociable characteristics of tourist photography in general might have been reinforced further. Also, the life-span for smartphone-based digital snapshots is found to have become much shorter, and smartphone-based digital snapshots have potentially become a kind of artifacts more suitable for instantaneous consumption than a part and parcel of representation files useful to stage myths for tourist places.