Globtroterka w wersji slow : vlog podróżniczy "Globstory" między pragmatyką nowych mediów a poetyką reportażu

Abstract

The article aims to show the specificity of travelling in the digital age and the reconfigurations taking place in women’s travel. Because it represents both aspects, the Globstory travel channel, created on YouTube at the initiative of vlogger Kaja Kraska, was chosen as the subject of consideration. The methodology of the study is to analyse the content of this vlog and its paratexts: its social media accounts and related press materials. The article also contains numerous references to the sociology of travel and media studies. The article, preceded by an introduction and an overview of travel vlogs in Poland, covers three issues. The first is the characterisation of the image of the creator of Globstory, who, pursuing the ideas of backpacking and free travel, establishes the authenticity of her accounts and distances herself from mass tourism. Next, the vlogger’s interaction with her subscribers, taking place at the level of the vlog’s content and external communication in online social networks, is discussed. The idea of the culture of participation, prevalent in the era of new media, is treated as the context for this part of the study. The last of the issues addressed are the references to the poetics of reporting visible in Kraska’s vlog, which result from a problem-based and transmedial approach to the material she produces. The article ends by considering the replacement of the mainstream image of a media celebrity traveller with that of an independent globetrotter followed on the Internet. The Globstory channel is also seen as a project complementary to the transformations of contemporary reporting, influenced by its convergence with new media.