Communicating a global reach: Inflight magazines as a globalizing genre in tourism

Like most multinational or international corporations, marketing for airlines hinges on careful strategies of differentiation and promotion; an increasingly important part of the way this is achieved is for airlines to position themselves as ‘global’ and to promise their passengers the kudos of being global citizens and travellers. It is in this way that globalization can be seen to be not about just economic reordering, but also strategic, commercial rebranding; globalization is thus both cultural discourse and identity resource. This is exemplified by the 72 inflight magazines we examine here, and achieved by a series of discursive strategies such as: their cashing in on the global cachet (or ‘worldliness’) of English; their drawing on metonymic repertoires of global cities/destinations and celebrities; and their striking displays of global route-maps regardless of actual network. Inflight magazines are both global medium (or genre) in themselves and carriers of global messages. Drawing on the discourses of nationality and globality, they epitomize a post-modern tendency towards the ‘globalization of nationality’ as well as espousing a global lifestyle.