Introduction

Chapters 1–3 (Part I: ‘Communication failure and interpretive conflict’) look at how meaning disputes arise, what causes them, and how questions about meaning are formulated. In this first chapter, I suggest that controversies over media meaning, and complaint procedures in media law and regulation, involve different kinds of speech event from spontaneous disagreement in conversation. Processes for understanding and adjudicating such contestation of meaning, I claim, should reflect these differences of speech event structure and the roles in them of the various speech event participants.

Interpretive disagreement

As they leave the cinema one evening, Anita and Bobby fall into conversation about a film they have just seen, a film which portrayed life in an English country village. Bobby finds it difficult to agree with Anita's view that the film exploits people's sentimentality about animals and misrepresents what goes on in the countryside. His opinion is that the film, which he enjoyed, appeals to public sympathy towards animals rather than exploiting it. He can't really understand Anita's overall response either. Why does she think the film gives a distorted picture of how traditional villagers and urban newcomers interact? It seems to him that the film gives a basically accurate account of how things are. In any event, if the film expresses a viewpoint, perhaps it is treating its subject light-heartedly rather than cynically.