The marketplace of interpretations: a method to trace diversity in digital interpretive traces

Over the past half century, qualitative reception studies have provided powerful in-depth accounts of the interpretive diversity of media audiences. However, despite the growing availability of digital reception traces, the field still lacks systematic tools to examine the distribution of interpreta...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Information, communication & society communication & society, 2024-08, Vol.27 (11), p.2191-2209
Main Author: Boxman-Shabtai, Lillian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Audience
Audiences
Comparative analysis
Facebook
framing
Generalizability
Herfindahl-Hirschmann Index
interpretation
Markets
Media coverage
Metaphor
polysemy
Qualitative analysis
Quantitative analysis
Social networks
Theory formation
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Summary:Over the past half century, qualitative reception studies have provided powerful in-depth accounts of the interpretive diversity of media audiences. However, despite the growing availability of digital reception traces, the field still lacks systematic tools to examine the distribution of interpretation, a lacuna which hinders theory development. This paper argues that a comparative approach to polysemy, namely - the diversity of interpretations to a media text, could increase the generalizability of reception studies. Drawing on the concept of framing and on the marketplace metaphor, it offers the Marketplace of Interpretation (MoI), a method combining qualitative and quantitative analysis to quantify and compare polysemy without sacrificing its complexity and nuance. The paper walks readers through the method and demonstrates it on a study that compared the polysemy of Facebook comment threads responding to different news stories about the same event. Potential future applications within and across audience analyses are discussed.
ISSN:1369-118X
1468-4462
DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2023.2291461