Destination marketing organizations (DMOs) increasingly rely on social media to construct place narratives, yet little is known about how these practices shape territorial visibility and governance in unequal, Global South contexts. This study examines how the Santa Catarina DMO (Brazil) constructs symbolic representations of place through its official Instagram account (@descubrasc), focusing on editorial strategy, regional representation, and engagement practices. Drawing on an interpretive qualitative design, the analysis examines 545 posts published between 2024 and 2025, selected through an adapted PRISMA-based sampling protocol and analyzed using thematic, visual–symbolic, and textual coding in NVivo. The findings reveal a visually coherent and emotionally resonant brand narrative that privileges already consolidated regions, while underrepresenting peripheral areas and constraining participatory engagement within bounded narrative frames. The study contributes a Global South-oriented perspective on digital place branding by reframing institutional Instagram communication as a form of symbolic governance and offers a transparent, replicable methodological framework, alongside managerial insights for DMOs seeking to balance brand coherence with territorial equity and inclusive destination governance.
Barrios et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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