At the crossroads of hermeneutic philosophy and reception studies: understanding patterns of crossmedia consumption
Abstrakt
The characteristics often attributed to the Internet and digital media use such as (inter)activity, openness and freedom are examined within the context of the media ensemble. In opposition to media-centric theories of technological determinism, the epistemological framework of this study is based on Gadamer's theory that 'understanding is always interpretation'.
Using his concepts of tradition and prejudice allows a framework to be created within which (inter)activity and the encounters between (hyper)texts and (new) media users are understood. The study draws on the tradition of reception and audience studies (Morley, Jenkins, etc) using ethnographic methods in order to analyse the users' tactics that they employ in the encounter with mediated content, and employs Genette's literary theory of paratextuality to understand digital media text in its relation to texts in general.
This allows the study to redefine the notions of (inter)activity, the openness of the text and the freedom of the reader in order to show that the level of users' engagement with a particular medium / text and tactics of internet use are dependent on the users' engagement with the subject rather than with the technology. It also offers a typology of different forms of media usage, alongside an investigation of how the concepts of familiarity, recommendation and 'trusted authorship' are developed by users as part of the repertoire of 'tactics' which enable them to make sense of the vast amount of information offered by the internet.