Dark tourism, selfies and moral outrageDark tourism, selfies and moral outrage
All In The Mind
Since the days of gladiator battles and public hangings, dark tourism — our attraction to places linked to death and despair — has been a part of human behaviour. But there's something in the 21st century that's causing debate… Selfies. Digital media isn't all bad though. It's also creating opportunities for authentic storytelling. Today, we examine what dark tourism is, if it's ethical, and when it is (and isn't) appropriate to snap a selfie. This episode first aired in June 2024. Guests: Dr Craig Wight, Associate Professor, Business School, Edinburgh Napier University Dr Nicole Basaraba, Assistant Professor, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies and Centre for Digital Humanities, Trinity College Dublin Dr Mariko Smith, Head of First Nations Collections & Research, First Nations Division, Australian Museum Credits: Presenter/Producer: Sana Qadar Producer: Rose Kerr Senior Producer: James Bullen Sound engineer: Beth Stewart Other information: The Australian Museum's Unsettled exhibition To read the transcript from this episode, head to its original webpage. To explore more great episodes from the award-winning psychology podcast All in the Mind with host Sana Qadar, download the ABC Listen app (Australia) or search 'ABC All in the Mind podcast' wherever you get your podcasts. There you'll find more episodes on mental health, trauma, attachment theory, wellness hacks, and family relationships. You'll also hear interviews with experts like Esther Perel, Billy Garvey and Ethan Kross. All in the Mind is created for ABC's Radio National by specialist journalists and reporters at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
29:33•7 Aug 2026
Selfies, Suffering and Self-Awareness: Rethinking Dark Tourism
Episode Overview
- Dark tourism covers a wide range of places, from cemeteries and former prisons to live war zones and disaster areas, with many different motives for visiting.
- Social media has introduced new ethical tensions, as selfies at memorials are judged heavily on pose, age, gender, and captions.
- Some digital tools, like history apps and online videos, can support more complex and accessible storytelling about traumatic events.
- Virtual dark tourism on platforms such as YouTube lets people engage with unsettling histories without physically visiting remote or difficult sites.
- First Nations perspectives highlight that the term dark tourism can be harmful and that truth-telling led by affected communities offers a more respectful approach.
“"I think it's really a history lesson, a lot of these dark tourism sites."”
How can compelling narratives motivate and inspire others? This instalment of All In The Mind leans into that question by looking at why people travel to places marked by tragedy — and why some of them pull out their phones for a selfie. Focusing on dark tourism, the episode asks why anyone might sign up for a battlefield tour in Ukraine or pose at a Holocaust memorial.
Tourism researcher Dr Craig Wight explains that visiting sites of death and disaster is "a kind of ancient behaviour that we're looking at through the lens of the modern day", stretching from public hangings in Victorian England to must-see lists that send people to Auschwitz on a city break. You’ll hear how motives range from learning and remembrance to plain curiosity and even the smell of food from a museum café.
Social media complicates things further: Craig’s study of Instagram shows how age, gender, pose and captions all influence whether a selfie at a memorial is called out as offensive. Digital media researcher Dr Nicole Basaraba then shifts the focus to how technology can support meaningful storytelling. She talks about a famine history app in Ireland and YouTube ghost-hunting channels as a kind of virtual dark tourism, letting people engage with grim histories from their sofa.
Finally, First Nations scholar Mariko Smith questions the term “dark tourism” itself, arguing that in Australia it can feel lurid, exploitative and racially loaded. She suggests reframing it as truth-telling history that gives First Nations communities control over how their stories are shared. If you’re curious about why humans are drawn to difficult places, how social media changes behaviour, and where respect ends and exploitation begins, this conversation offers plenty to chew on.
How might it change the way you behave at sites of suffering, both offline and online?
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