Connie Zeanah Atkinson

“Whose New Orleans? Music's Place in the Packaging of New Orleans for Tourism”
in Tourists and Tourism
Ed. Abram
1997

get Robins 1991 “Tradition and Translation: National Culture...”

91
discussing Robins, what are the impacts/consequences of commodifying local/regional cultures on
those actual scenes

this raises a similar question of what is the impact of digitizing and making everything about a
particular site or location available online? Are you removing its special nature or its sacral nature?
Have you changed the very thing by making it available to everyone?

Similarly, if you are presenting a specific image or set of images to the public, are these images or
representations the more simplisitic and shallow ones for surface consumption? How do you make
more complex images and representations available to travellers and consumers?

Is it possible that digital technology is capable or able to make the understanding of religious and
cultural sites deeper than they currently are? Is it possible that they can help expand the
representations and multiple identities which such sacred sites have to the diverse users who approach
the sites?

That is, is it possible to use digital technology to create something that may be along the line of Indra's
net which has numerous particles and aspects of information, and those chunks of information help
inform or directly relate to diverse sets of users who all have specific and vastly different expectations.
Thus, instead of providing or presenting one set signifyer to the visiting or readng or consuming public,
the signifiers mutate and change and adapt to the users based upon the users' desires.

105
“This look at New Orleans points out the often overlooked role of music in the way cities and places
are recognised and accepted and the influence of musical images on the portrayal and development of
culture. As towns and cities embrace tourism for economic development, decisions on how local
cultural activities are commodified for tourism consumption could become important factors in the
shaping of local identity. In addition, the way that New Orelans musicians relate to the tourism industry
points up ways that economic pressure may affect local cultural products and styles.”