Instagram as a Tool to Counter the Image of Countries as Unsafe: the Case of #LiveLoveLebanon

The emergence of social media has created new means of intercultural engagement. On Instagram, there is a growing trend of travel pages and travel bloggers whose aim is to introduce and share the highlights of the destinations they travel to. Locals in these destinations also wish to portray their country positively and promote it as a tourist destination, particularly in certain countries of the Middle East where there is the added challenge of an ‘unsafe’ image to combat. This research focuses on Lebanon to find out to what extent Instagram can be considered a means to this end, and if users who come across depictions of Lebanon on Instagram perceive the country as a potential tourist destination. The study draws on Said’s conception of the ‘other’ (1978), Hall’s system of representations (1980) and Pieterse’s hybridization paradigm (1996), and it used a mixed methods approach combining surveys and semi-structured interviews with Canadian participants. Findings broadly show that while Instagram can effectively be considered a tool to counter the ‘unsafe’ image of Lebanon, and while the country may be branded as a potential tourist destination to users who come across favorable depictions of it, algorithm restrictions limit the potential for such contents to fulfill their potential as they do not always reach users who perceive Lebanon to be an ‘unsafe’ place.