Edinburgh: a festival city

The International Journal of Event and Festival Management has just published an article that I co-authored with colleagues from the School of Marketing, Tourism and Languages at Edinburgh Napier University. The article is one of eight brought together in a special issue on the festival and event experience.

David Jarman, Eleni Theodoraki, Jane Ali-Knight and I consider in ‘Social network analysis and festival cities: an exploration of concepts, literature and methods’ how social network analysis (SNA) may be used as a framework for research into festivals and events. We draw on the literature of SNA, tourism studies research, and festival industry publications, to reflect on the history of SNA, and to explore how its key concepts may be applied to festivals.

We conclude that although the importance of relationships sustained within networks has long been recognised within the industry, and that festival cities offer dynamic environments in which to investigate the workings of social networks, there is scant reflection of this in the event studies literature. A research method is proposed as suitable for application across a diverse range of festivals and events.

The full citation for the article is:

Jarman, D., Theodoraki, E., Hall, H., Ali-Knight, J. (2014). Social network analysis and festival cities: an exploration of concepts, literature and methods. International Journal of Event and Festival Management 5(3), 311-322.

The full text of the article is available from the journal web pages on the Emerald web site.