A Dangerous Business: Exploring Heroism in Travel Blogs Through Emphasis Framing

Abstract

Emphasis framing has routinely been applied to hard news. This article extends it to "softer" media texts. It considers a specific example of how travel blogs use the frame of heroism, and the underlying ideologies it reveals about how people imagine a destination and conceive of Others. We analyze 400 travel blog posts to assess how bloggers recount tales of overcoming different challenges, and how this subsequently directs their own role performances. This article offers the use of heroism in travel blogs as evidence that emphasis framing is a critical aspect of nonnews media texts, and that it can also be interpreted to offer insights into ideologies that underpin culture. This article argues for more analysis of emphasis framing in lifestyle texts as a means to identify social realities and the role the media plays in creating and maintaining them.