Journeys into authenticity and adventure : analysing media representations of backpacker travel in South America

The article is concerned with unpacking the widely circulating images and discourses that presumably inform travellers' preconceptions about South America. Specifically, by examining a variety of media commonly utilised by independent travellers and backpackers, this paper explores the ways in which South America and the individual countries it comprises are represented to potential tourists and youth tourists around the world.To this end, the following section provides an overview of the relationship between tourism and the media, and between media images and the tourist imaginary. The media sources analysed as part of the current research will then be outlined and the results of this analysis will be presented. In particular, emphasis is placed on dominant discourses of authenticity, adventure and risk, and the potential implications of these images and imaginings for independent travellers and the tourism destinations they pass through.