Mediating heritage

This article draws on media theory in order to theorize the role of tour guides as a form of cultural mediation. It does so by analysing the work of tour guides at a site of ‘difficult heritage’, the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg, Germany. The work of tour guides is here conceptualized primarily as a process in which guides, and the organization for which they work, are engaged in trying to encode preferred readings. The empirical study shows how this ‘encoding attempt’ is a complex, negotiated and sometimes conflictual process in which guides try to deal with the materiality of the site and the social dynamics of the tour group. This has implications for understanding the nature of mediation and of different forms of tourism.