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44 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 6 2o20 (Travel) Rhian Waller | Postcolonial Pictures fied meanings may not be recognised as subjective. Chandler argues “we become so used to such conventions in our use of various media that they seem ‘natural’”, therefore disguising the “conventional nature” (2002: 215) of culturally determined views. Travel writing traditionally replicated and, arguably, compounded societal inequalities and colonial attitudes. It was, for instance, originally “a man’s genre, written for and by men” (McA- dams, 2014). Blanton points out early travel writers had a tendency to “carry with them the unexamined values and norms of their own culture and to judge foreign cultures in light of those habits of belief […] establishing a kind of control over them” (2013: 8). Thompson notes the “patrician” tendencies of travel writers whose “freedom to roam the globe was […] predica- ted to some extent on the privileges accruing from their social standing” (2011: 59). The privilege that facilitates the travel writer’s movements may run alongside a corresponding de-privileging of the host culture by reducing subjects to stereotype through “sweeping judgements” (Thomp- son, 2011: 90) or by encoding discriminatory racial and cultural messages, where a place or people is diminished, Othered and limited “to the role of props” (Achebe, 1990: 124). Orienta- lism (Said, 1978) and similarly problematic depictions of Africa (Youngs, 1994), wherein Asian and African cultures and people are constructed in text and images as alien, savage and inferior, are both symptoms and mechanisms of this process. The aspects of Victorian travel writing that support colonialism and western expansionism is discussed in detail by Pratt (2008), who picks apart the written subjectivities of “mastery”, some of which persist into the 20th century. Blanton is more generous toward contemporary travel writing, “where values are discovered, not imported […] where other cultures can have their say” (2013: 29). Duffy and Mangharam question the application of postcolonial analysis to modern travel writing, arguing that, as economies such as China take on roles of global dominance, new power dynamics are emerging. However, they acknowledge touristic travel reproduces the “dominance/subordination of the visitor-host relationship” (2017). It is important to note travel writing and visual art carried out within a postcolonial setting may be “informed by imperia- list attitudes and ideologies” (Thompson, 2011: 136), as cultural attitudes persist long after the structures and institutions that rely upon and uphold them crumble. Furthermore, artefacts that support ‘soft power’ and neo-colonialism may emerge as Western economies attempt to sustain “political and economic dominance over the rest of the world” (Thompson, 2011: 136). Increasing global competition may in fact encourage writers and ideologues to fall into proble- matic patterns of discourse. This ideological encoding may not be conscious or intentional, and it may not be direct. Signs do not operate in isolation. Images and text are comprised of collections of signifiers, so meaning is subject to diffusion, wherein close proximity between concepts results in a bleed- over. For instance, Jacobs (2014) argues that due to repeated association between the sign “school violence” and particular attacking behaviours, the phrase has come to be associated almost exclusively with physical violence, which minimises and ignores other forms of violence. Likewise, Lido (2006) and Dietrich et al (2006) illustrate how readers presented with a story that mentions particular people with mental illness or asylum seeker status engaging in nega- tive activities are more likely to perceive all mentally ill people or asylum seekers as a source of higher risk, despite compelling statistical evidence that this is inaccurate.