Abstract

Through their nature, people are inclined to seek human interaction
and to have social connections. There are many types of communication, but they
all require interaction, which leads to the communication being categorised in
only two greater categories, intrapersonal and interpersonal communication.
Kory Floyd (2013:48) defines interpersonal communication as “the
communication that arises between two persons, in the context of their
relationship, and evolving, it helps them negotiate and define their relationship”.
Because of the need of people to interact and build social connections, technology
has developed so much that the social interactions begin to know a new way
through which they can be achieved, social media and the different platforms
dedicated to this phenomenon are increasingly spreading and developing due to
the large use by the people. Nowadays, almost every person who has access to the
internet has an account and uses at least one social media platform. Comparing
both the traditional media and the social media, we can conclude that, in the
traditional way, the user or the recipient of the content was merely a receptor,
and the communication happened unidirectionally, from the sender of the
message to its recipient, without any interaction of any kind between the two.
Now, due to social media, communication has a greater degree of interaction, the
sender of the message and the producer of the content which is later delivered to
the receiver can engage with its audience and can interact with them. Momoc
(2014:26) renders a definition of social media, claiming that “social media refers
both to the social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and to the contentoriented
networks like YouTube or Flickr”. Because people seek interaction, social
media come in and provide it for them in such a way that physical distance or
any other barriers are removed. Moreover, besides social media, the blog has
developed, which allows people to share thoughts and experiences with the
followers. One of the most addressed topics concerning blogs is travel. According
to Raluca Tudor (2013): “travellers use blogs for communicating their
experiences, for offering objective evaluations and subjective opinions about the
characteristics of visited destinations. They use social networks to increase the
visibility of their blogs in the virtual space. Travel blogs represent a cheap and
accessible information source about a travel destination, and bloggers participate
in producing and broadcasting the tourist destination image in the virtual space.
Analysing travel blogs and their constitutive elements, our main goal is to
observe what kind of relationship is created between the author of the blog and
the readers of the articles posted on it.