The tourism semiotics for visual analysis

Abstract

Humans are symbolic beings who seek to explain the phenomena that arise before them, particularly visual phenomena. For this, they rely on semiotics for assistance in this path of interpretation. In the tourist universe, photographs emerge as evolution in representing, recording, and documenting what can attain the eyes or beyond. In this sense, this research seeks to demonstrate how the semiotics of tourism contribute to deepening visual analyses in the field of tourism. Therefore, it aims to confer the usability of the semiotics of tourism in visual analyses, as well as the application of this method, its categories, and its use in the production of meaning. This qualitative research conducted a visual analysis of photos of Christ the Redeemer taken from Instagram. Among the main results, it was possible to verify the usability of tourism semiotics as a methodological contribution for research with visual content. This applicability made it possible, through categories, elements, and composition, to identify three interpretations along with the photos of Christ the Redeemer: (i) as representation (semiotic sense); (ii) as a background (semiotic screen); (iii) as a scenario in the dynamics with tourists.

Keywords
Photography; Signification process; Methodology; Instagram; Christ the Redeemer