Interpretation/Reception

Abstract

lens of “reception studies” in communication and cultural studies, which contextualize the active role of readers and viewers within the wider circuit of culture This approach conceives of the production and reproduction of meaning at the levels of the macro (political economic), meso (groups, communities), and micro (everyday lifeworld) as part of a dynamic and mutually reinforcing cycle, in contrast with the linearity of the sender-message-receiver model more commonly adopted in audience research. The concept of interpretation lies at the heart of a range of different disciplines. It draws particularly on philosophy and later the literary humanities, in which scholars have theorized the nature and role of people’s understandings in everyday life, as well as the interpretation of literary texts. Interpretation has found a place in history, theology, anthropology, sociology, art, and linguistics, among other fields. It has even occupied the interests of cognitive researchers, who have often been criticized for reducing the question of interpretation to purely individual differences. The