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Research Blog #10: Abstract and Works Cited

 Presented below are my works cited and abstract: Abstract: This research paper investigates the growth of tourist locations associated with the paranormal as viable components of local tourist economies, and how this could point towards a positive feedback loop of tourists visiting the locations, spreading the word about it, and driving more people to visit. This loop fuels both the economic revenue of the locale and supernatural lore surrounding the history there. The paper examines the four main aspects of “curiosity” to frame the discussion of the paper, and applies it especially to the Mothman Festival and Mothman Museum of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Works Cited (Note: the last two citations appear to be duplicates, but are actually for two different breakdowns of the same set of data. Since I referenced both and both are displayed on seperated pages online I figured I'd add both links): Edwards, Emily D. “Morbid Curiosity, Popular Media, and Thanatourism.” Australian Jour...
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Literature Review #5

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  Citation: Houran, James, et al. “Paranormal Tourism: Market Study of a Novel and Interactive Approach to Space Activation and Monetization.” Cornell Hospitality Quarterly , vol. 61, no. 3, Aug. 2020, pp. 287–311, doi:10.1177/1938965520909094. This journal discusses why paranormal tourism is popular in many cases, and what makes it as profitable as it appears to be. Most of the research done is more preliminary in nature, and they suggest in several different spots what they think the proper research should be in the future, but they were mostly interested in laying down the groundwork for the future. The authors also provide several tables compiling things such as the popularity of various haunted locations, some history for these locations, and what economic information some of the locations were willing to disclose at that time. Four people worked together on this journal, but the corresponding author, James Houran, is a managing director for AETHOS Consulting Group which serve...
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Extra Credit: The Mothman Prophecies

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(Available to buy or rent on YouTube)     The 2002 movie The Mothman Prophecies  is based on John Keel's novel of the same name and follows the main character, John Klein, two years after his wife died. In it, John Klein is a reporter for the Washington Post and is traveling down to Richmond for an interview when his car breaks down in the middle of the night. He finds out he was transported over 400 miles in an hour span to Point Pleasant, WV, and discovers the locals experience strange phenomena surrounding lights in the sky, a strange man called Indrid Cold that is giving out inescapably accurate prophecies of death, and a moth-like humanoid.  The movie culminates in the dramatic end scene where [SPOILERS] John realizes the messages he had been getting from Indrid Cold weren't warning for an explosion at the nearby chemical plant, but rather a warning for the collapse of the Silver Bridge. He fervently runs onto the bridge to warn as many people to get off, but ev...
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Research Blog #9: Argument & Counter Argument

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My argument for my paper is that: Tourists are curious about the paranormal and want to investigate, so the tourist locations cater to this by making enjoyable and informative tourism destinations. The tourists tend to become more open to the paranormal and share their changed view with their peers, which leads to the peers touring for themselves and starting the cycle anew. Robert Kruse argues differently in his journal, "Point Pleasant, West Virginia", where he discusses how tourism not only hides the "everyday-ness" of small towns like Point Pleasant, but also has a tendency to railroad a narrative of the area into a singular version as opposed to the nuances of life.  Timothy & Olsen argue against it in  Tourism, Religion and Spiritual Journeys, which was the topic of my third literature review, and claim that tourism is actually more beneficial then harmful.  “...the economic impacts associated with religious tourism are greater than those associated with o...
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Research Blog #8: Main Case

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My main case is the Mothman Festival, which has been held every year (except 2020) since 2002 and hosts a plethora of events, activities, and even a guided tour. It follows my theoretical frame from my last blog post as such: People gained interest in the Mothman in three main movements before the first Festival: the initial news reports that got spread across the nation in 1966-7, the release of John Keel's book The Mothman Prophecies  in 1975 which popularized the Mothman, and the buildup towards the movie interpretation of The Mothman Prophecies  in 2002 People would visit Point Pleasant because of the Mothman: one of the main ones was John Keel for his investigation, but they're not only plenty of others that either did so privately or tried to investigate and publish/share their findings, but the town also anticipated even more tourists to be inspired from the movie The Town Provides: Point Pleasant started the annual festival in 2002 to cater to Mothman tourists and have...
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Research Blog #7: Theoretical Frame

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     The theoretical frame for my paper is the four aspects of curiosity as used by Emily D. Edwards in her article , Morbid Curiosity, Popular Media, and Thanatourism .   These aspects can be broken up into two groups: what kind of curiosity is being experienced, normal or morbid curiosity, and how it is manifesting, perceptual and epistemic. Normal Curiosity is the natural and intentional desire to seek out new knowledge and experiences, while Morbid Curiosity is an abnormally strong desire for violent and gruesome knowledge and experiences that are irrelevant to one’s own life. Perceptual Curiosity is the fascination around one’s own environment as well as the desire to experience things firsthand, while Epistemic Curiosity is the fascination around knowledge one can’t learn directly through their experiences or sensing one’s environment.     I'm using this as a base point for what motivates people to do paranormal tourism, as well as a motivating factor...
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Literature Review #4

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Source Citation: Terry, Neil et al. "Bikers, Aliens, And Movie Stars: Comparing The Economic Impact Of Special Events". Journal Of Business & Economics Research (JBER) , vol 7, no. 11, 2011. Clute Institute , doi:10.19030/jber.v7i11.2356. The article explains the history of three towns in brief detail as well as the origins of each town’s respective festival, though my main interest was in the UFO Festival of Roswell, New Mexico. In the section following these backgrounds, the authors compared some economics from the residents as well as the average economic stats of each festival, and then discussed some potential reasons behind the size and profit of each festival. The biggest draw of the article was the data on the profit of the UFO Festival, which I needed to help prove that paranormal tourism is a viable economic option. All three authors are professors in Economics/Finance at the West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas. Dr. Neil Terry is also a dean at the un...
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