Scandals, the mass media, and the politics of extreme visibility: conflict and controversy at the Niagara Parks Commission

Adam Weaver

Current Issues in Tourism, 2017, vol. 20, issue 9, 981-1001

Abstract: This paper explores the political and media scrutiny of management-related activities at the Niagara Parks Commission (NPC) in Niagara Falls, Canada. This commission is the quasi-autonomous body responsible for the operation of tourism-oriented amenities around the Canadian Horseshoe Falls and along the Niagara River. Between 2009 and 2011, the management of the NPC became politically contentious and certain incidents were publicised by the media. There were accusations of impropriety with respect to the use of an expense account, disputes about untendered contracts, and complaints about conflicts of interest. These incidents could be described as scandals, breaches of accepted rules of conduct that are communicated to a wider audience via the mass media. Three dialectical tensions were identified when these scandals were analysed. The tensions, it is argued, are expressions of a wider trend: a politics of extreme visibility. Scandal-related visibility is different from the forms of visibility that have been previously addressed by tourism scholars. Publicity related to alleged misconduct is typically unwanted by tourism managers. Controversies about the management of the NPC demonstrate that practitioners must be alert to the damaging potential of extreme visibility. Fear of scandal, however, may simultaneously stifle enterprise. Managers must strike a careful balance.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13683500.2014.987735 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rcitxx:v:20:y:2017:i:9:p:981-1001

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rcit20

DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2014.987735

Access Statistics for this article

Current Issues in Tourism is currently edited by Jennifer Tunstall

More articles in Current Issues in Tourism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().