THE SOCIOTECHNICAL IMPLICATIONS OF WORLDMAKING: THE CASE OF SRI LANKAN TRAVEL VLOGGERS

Technology today is being increasingly amalgamated into the experiences of the traveller, necessitating the relentless shift between the physical and the digital. In such a context, this paper critically explores the worldmaking role of the Sri Lankan travel vloggers and the significant sociotechnical implications underlying this through the case study of Sheneller, a popular YouTube channel of a young Sri Lankan content creator who aims to ‘take stories of Sri Lanka to the world’. Sheneller’s high production value, cinematic travel content endeavours to promote travel to and within Sri Lanka offering sustainable travel tips, authentic local insights and lesser–known locations using advanced technology such as aerial videography. This qualitative study extends insights on the ‘tourist gaze’ through a netnography of her vlogs promoting responsible travel, engaging an ‘activist gaze’. In doing so, the paper surpasses the mere scrutiny of her worldmaking agency to emphasise the ‘sociotechnical’ through the employment of the assemblage theory and imaginaries as analytical tools to conceptualize the multifariousness of entities coming together to constitute a new whole—the vlog. As such, this study innovatively examines the connection between mobility, sociality and technology within the dynamic context of new mobile and media technologies and their role and agency in worldmaking.