Introduction

In Chapter 4 I suggested that it can be unrealistic to nurse expectations about the usefulness of ‘semantics’ in resolving public controversies over meaning. The result is likely to be only disappointment at that field's different objectives and approach. It seems preferable to acknowledge the range of processes beyond the semantic that contribute to overall meaning effects. In considering media discourse from this enlarged viewpoint, I suggest in this chapter that it is better to start with the fact of interpretive variation, rather than working from an idealised template of fixed meaning and then acknowledging situational factors and variable inference when they become inescapable. Inferential meanings are not arbitrary or random, however. Insofar as they are meanings of the discourse, rather than thoughts loosely associated with it, inferences are constrained by pragmatic considerations. Such considerations ensure that not all interpretations will be regarded as equally plausible or legitimate.

Should a hundred meanings blossom?

Consider a commonplace statement. If a hundred people watch a film in a cinema, they will end up with a hundred different meanings for that film. This can be a rhetorical point worth making in the face of the alternative idea that meaning is fixed and uniform. At the same time, such a bald statement of massive interpretive variation is vague in at least two respects. Firstly, it fails to distinguish whether there are boundaries as regards what kinds of reaction to a discourse will count as its meaning.