Visitation to Oregon Parks is following a national Trend
The role of social media and the effect on consumer behavior is an emerging field of study. Apps, such as Instagram, expose individuals to new areas with ease, providing location data via hashtags, geolocation markers and visual indicators. The information is instantaneous and can provide current climate, air and park quality, along with many different photos capturing the natural beauty. The rise in visitation in parks in the United States coincides with the proliferation of social media. I intend to examine if social media content can explain the shift in demand.
Who is to blame?
Newspapers and park managers have placed the blame on one major social media platform.
Considering Different Social Media Platforms
When we examine the trend in popularity given different social media platforms, Instagram conincides with the increase visitation. Though other social media sites will likely have an affect on visitation, one thing that seperates Instagram apart form Facebook and Twitter is it's use of visual simulation and user generated organization. Facebook is often critisized for creating social network bubbles because they don't have the ease of searching or sharing information with groups outside your social network. Twitter was the first platform that introduced the hashtag which allowed individual users to share their information with their followers and also orginized their content with others who have also used that hashtag with all others not limited to their own social network. Instagram imployed this same tactic to allow users to share photos with their followers and also tag their photos to share with others outside their social network.
