Constructing and Promoting National Identity Through Tourism: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Indonesian Official Tourism Website

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the contribution of multimodal resources in the Indonesian official tourism website in constructing and promoting the Indonesian national identity. Data were gathered from 7 verbal (linguistic) texts and 13 visual (nonlinguistic) texts presented in the Indonesian official tourism website. This study draws on Wodak et al’s (2009) discursive strategies of national identity construction and Kress and van Leuween’s (2006) theory of visual design. The results of the study show that the combination of verbal and visual texts in the Indonesian official tourism website contribute to the Indonesian national identity construction and promotion. The constructed and promoted Indonesian national identities are 1) Indonesia as a country with the rich natural landscape; 2) Indonesia as an archipelagic tropical country; 3) Indonesia as a maritime country; 4) Indonesia as a technologically advanced country; 5) Indonesia as a modern country; 6) Indonesia as a multicultural country; 7) Indonesia as a country with cultural richness; 8) Indonesians as people who are open to strangers or foreigners; 9) Indonesians as kind and friendly people; and 10) Indonesians as modern people.

Apa yang Menjadikan Remaja Indonesia Bangga Terhadap Bangsanya?

“…Sikap seperti itu juga tercermin dari keramahtamahan orang Indonesia. Hal serupa juga di temui oleh Sukma (2021) yang mengatakan bahwa orang Indonesia terkenal dengan keramahtamahan mereka yang tidak hanya pada penduduk lokal namun juga pada turis yang berkunjung ke Indonesia. Penduduk yang ramah menjadi identitas Indonesia di mata dunia (Minardi et al, 2020).…”

How Do You Promote Tourism during the Outbreak of a Pandemic? A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Egypt’s 2020 Tourism Promotional Film

“…Wang & Feng (2021) examine the linguistic and visual resources utilized in short videos on Tiktok, a well-known social media platform to rebrand Xi'an, a Chinese city, as both a modern and a historical city. Sukma (2021) investigates the impact of multimodal resources; verbal and visual, employed by the Indonesian official tourism website to promote Indonesia's national identity. As for analyzing promotional tourism films that target Egypt's tourism campaigns, El Masry (2021) examines the promotional tourism film "This is Egypt" which was part of Egypt's 2016 tourism marketing campaign.…”

Representational and Ideational Meanings of Images and Texts of Tourism Promotion on Instagram

“…In Indonesia, researches on multimodality have been conducted in the field of education (Hermawan & Rahyono, 2019), literature (Yanda, 2018;Pujadiharja, 2013), politics (Susetya & Nurhayati, 2020), business (Ananda, Fitriani, Samad, & Patak, 2019;Hidayat, Abrizal, & Alex, 2019), and tourism (Furnama & Rosa, 2020;Sukma, 2021;Ansori & Taopan, 2019). These studies are mostly conducted on advertisements in printed media such as textbooks, novels, brochures, billboards, electronic media such as television, videos, films, and online media such as websites and Instagram.…”

“…These studies are mostly conducted on advertisements in printed media such as textbooks, novels, brochures, billboards, electronic media such as television, videos, films, and online media such as websites and Instagram. Among those researches, Sukma (2021) examines the promotion of national identity on the official website of Indonesian tourism; Susetya & Nurhayati (2020) analyse Sandiaga Uno's photos on Instagram to investigate his communication styles before and after the 2019 Presidential Election. Researches related to multimodalities as a promotion strategy of tourism destination on Instagram are still rarely done.…”