Abstract
Agritourism has emerged as a significant tourism trend in Southeast Asia, with notable economic and cultural implications. However, existing research reveals a gap in examining how farmers’ lives are represented within agritourism media portrayals across the region. Using the Mekong Delta as a case study, this research investigates the prevailing sentiment and tone surrounding depictions of farmers in media coverage. This study employs a dual-method approach, combining thematic analysis and corpus-based discourse analysis, to examine agritourism-related articles published in five mainstream Vietnamese newspapers between 2015 and 2025. Findings indicate that media portrayals of farmers are predominantly positive, with minimal emphasis on the challenges they face. Such representations construct an idealized “green fantasy” for tourists, overshadowing the realities and hardships experienced by farmers engaged in agritourism. These findings suggest a need for journalism to adopt more critical communication strategies, moving beyond an exclusive focus on agritourism’s benefits to provide a more balanced and nuanced portrayal of local livelihoods.
Presenters
Mi HoangPhD candidate , College of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, China
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Agritourism; Farmer representation; Media portrayal; Mekong Delta; Media framing
