"Communication is cultural behavior: language is a matrix of meanings, beliefs and values" Deborah Schiffrin, Approaches to Discourse. p. 408

Communication can provide interesting information about the thoughts and views of a culture or society. In examining communication and discourse, and in particular, conversations, there are many aspects that could be analyzed. I chose to focus my investigation on the discourse that surrounds and is generated by travel sites on the internet. By looking at discourse analysis, how the discourse is supplied and represented, and what effect the medium has on the discourse, I can better understand how electronic media affects a topic like travel.

For this project, I chose to narrow my scope even a bit further by comparing and contrasting the travel discourse associated with two different types of travel sites. The first is the site by the Lonely Planet, a popular series of budget travel guides. The second is called Wanderlust and is located within an on-line magazine called Salon. Although these sites serve different purposes and have varying goals, they still attempt to tackle the topic of travel. It is important to understand the architecture and intention of these sites before analyzing their discourse. Each of theses site has a different origin and purpose and as a result have very different discourse associated with them.

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