Place-making multimodal de Chiclana de la Frontera (Andalucía) como lugar turístico en Instagram

Abstract

In this article, we discuss with which linguistic and visual patterns place-making processes of the western Andalusian tourist town Chiclana are discursively constructed on Instagram. To answer the main question about the multimodal valorization of a specific place on social media, we used a corpus of Instagram-Posts of the official tourism account of Chiclana. We also categorized the data with MAXQDA and focused on mainly lexical aspects, language variation and the text-image combination.

The analysis shows, for example, a notable use not only of Andalusian varieties due to commodification of authenticity which is part of the whole “local experience”, but the use of different languages, such as English or Italian, to construct the image of a more international place. The visual level is characterized by pictorial representations of mainly sunsets that evoke the feeling of peace, tranquillity, and recreation. The text-image combination reveals a partial connection through recurring elements such as the sun and monuments – both religious and local – and together they convey and create a shared message: Chiclana is a unique urban place that offers peace, spirituality, community, and nature in an authentically Andalusian setting.