Mediated Film Tourists’ Experiences: Navigating Anne with an E-inspired Travelogues on Social Media

Abstract

This thesis explores film tourists’ experiences associated with a popular Canadian TV series, Anne with an E (2017-2019). Situating Anne with an E in the narrative of L.M. Montgomery's original text, Anne of Green Gables, this research follows the trajectory of Anne-inspired trips to Prince Edward Island and Anne with an E filming locations. It draws upon Urry and Larsen’s arguments (2011) on “tourist gaze” to understand the tourists’ practices in actual places (film locations) and virtual places (online). Within this framework, this research focuses on film tourists’ experiences to illuminate their performative and embodied practices. Visual and social features are central to this study, so it pays particular attention to Anne with an E film tourists’ mediation on YouTube and Instagram due to their visual and social user experience. By analyzing the travel accounts from the platforms, this research demonstrates how film tourists reflected Anne-text in their embodied experiences, and how their mediation facilitated the fans’ re-engagement with the text.