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1 – 10 of over 1000The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understandings of how documents are experienced by looking to work in reception studies for methodological examples. Based on a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understandings of how documents are experienced by looking to work in reception studies for methodological examples. Based on a review of research from literary studies, communication studies and museum studies, it identifies existing approaches and challenges. Specifically, it draws attention to problems cited in relation to small-scale user studies and suggests an alternative approach that focusses on how infrastructures influence experience.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents data collected from over a year of ethnographic work at a cultural archive and exhibition space and analyses the implications of infrastructural features such as institutional organization, database structures and the organization of physical space for making available certain modes of reception.
Findings
This research suggests that infrastructure provides a useful perspective on how experiences of documents are influenced by larger systems.
Research limitations/implications
This research was conducted to explore the implications of an alternative research methodology. Based on the ethnographic study presented, it suggests that this approach produces results that warrant further work. However, as it is intended only to be a test case, its scope is limited, and future research following the approach discussed here should more fully engage with specific findings in relation to the experience of documents.
Originality/value
This paper presents an alternative approach to studying the experience of documents that responds to limitations in previous work. The research presented suggests that infrastructures can reveal ways that the experience is shared across contexts, shifting discussions from individuals and objects to technical systems, institutions and social structures.
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The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on John B. Thompson's “tripartite approach” for the analysis of mass media communication, highlighting how this methodological framework…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on John B. Thompson's “tripartite approach” for the analysis of mass media communication, highlighting how this methodological framework can help address some of the shortcomings apparent in extant studies on accounting which purport to analyse accounting “texts”.
Design/methodology/approach
By way of example, the paper develops a critique of an existing study in accounting that adopts a “textually‐oriented” approach to discourse analysis by Gallhofer, Haslam and Roper. This study, which is informed by Fairclough's version of critical discourse analysis (CDA), undertakes an analysis of the letters of submission of two business lobby groups regarding proposed takeovers legislation in New Zealand. A two‐stage strategy is developed: first, to review the extant literature which is critical of CDA, and second, to consider whether these criticisms apply to Gallhofer et al. Whilst acknowledging that Gallhofer et al.'s (2001) study is perhaps one of the more comprehensive in the accounting literature, the critique developed in the present paper nevertheless highlights a number of limitations. Based upon this critique, an alternative framework is proposed which allows for a more comprehensive analysis of accounting texts.
Findings
The critique of Gallhofer et al.'s study highlights what is arguably an overemphasis on the internal characteristics of text: this is referred to by Thompson as the “fallacy of internalism”. In other words, Gallhofer et al. draw inferences regarding the production of the letters of submission from the texts themselves, and make implicit assumptions about the likely effects of these texts without undertaking any formal analysis of their production or reception, or without paying sufficient attention to the social and historical context of their production or reception.
Originality/value
Drawing on Thompson's theory of mass communication and his explication of the hermeneutical conditions of social‐historical enquiry, the paper outlines a range of theoretical considerations which are pertinent to researchers interested in studying accounting texts. Moreover, building on these theoretical considerations, the paper delineates a coherent and flexible methodological framework, which, it is hoped, may guide accounting researchers in this area.
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Doris M. Merkl-Davies and Niamh M. Brennan
The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework of external accounting communication in the form of a typology based on perspectives, traditions, and theories from…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework of external accounting communication in the form of a typology based on perspectives, traditions, and theories from the discipline of communication studies. The focus is accounting communication with external audiences via public written documents outside the audited financial statements, i.e., annual reports, press releases, CSR reports, websites, conference calls, etc.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical framework is based on two broad research perspectives on accounting communication: (A) a functionalist-behavioural transmission perspective and (B) a symbolic-interpretive narrative perspective. Eight traditions of communication research are introduced which provide alternative ways of conceptualising accounting communication, namely (1) mathematical tradition, (2) socio-psychological tradition, (3) cybernetic/systems-oriented tradition, (4) semiotic tradition, (5) rhetorical tradition, (6) phenomenological tradition, (7) socio-cultural tradition, and (8) critical tradition. Exemplars of each tradition from prior accounting research, to the extent they have been adopted, are discussed. Finally, a typology is developed, which serves as a heuristic device for viewing similarities and differences between research traditions.
Findings
Prior accounting studies predominantly focus on the role of discretionary disclosures in accounting communication in the functioning of the relationship between organisations and their audiences. Research is predominantly located in the mathematical, the socio-psychological, and the cybernetic/systems-oriented tradition. Accounting communication is primarily viewed as the transmission of messages about financial, environmental, and social information to external audiences. Prior research is mainly concerned with the communicator (e.g. CEO personality) and the message (e.g. intentions and effects of accounting communication). Research from alternative traditions is encouraged, which explores how organisations and their audiences engage in a dialogue and interactively create, sustain, and manage meaning concerning accounting and accountability issues.
Originality/value
The paper identifies, organises, and synthesises research perspectives, traditions, and associated theories from the communication studies literature in the form of a typology. The paper concludes with an extensive agenda for future research on accounting communication.
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Rein Demunter and Joke Bauwens
Through investigating how Belgian LGBTQ people evaluate gay-themed print and television advertising in mainstream media, the purpose of this study is to explore how gay-themed…
Abstract
Purpose
Through investigating how Belgian LGBTQ people evaluate gay-themed print and television advertising in mainstream media, the purpose of this study is to explore how gay-themed advertising strategies are evaluated in relation to context.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 17 Flemish self-identified lesbian, gay male and bisexual people.
Findings
Findings of this research demonstrate the importance of the situated context in which LGBTQ people receive and evaluate gay-themed advertisements. By offering a common stock of social knowledge and experience, context creates a framework against which LGBTQ people evaluate gay-themed advertisements. In this specific research that was conducted in a Western-European LGBTQ-friendly society (Belgium), critical evaluations of gay-washing and the dirty laundry effect were found. The positive evaluations of explicit gay-themed and inclusive advertisements also highlighted the importance of advertising an inclusive society.
Research limitations/implications
In considering how gay-themed advertising evaluations relate to context and lived experiences, this research contributes to current knowledge on gay-themed advertising and its reception within LGBTQ groups.
Practical implications
This research offers valuable insights to marketers on how to target sexual minorities in LGBTQ (un)friendly societies.
Social implications
Findings highlight the social importance of minority-oriented advertising. Not only can such advertising promote civic inclusion and social recognition of minority groups, it also has the potential to play a key role in the construction and normalisation of identities.
Originality/value
In an effort to reinvigorate current marketing debates on gay-themed advertising, this study builds on theoretical insights gained via reception research and LGBTQ studies. In doing so, this research yields a more nuanced and contextualised understanding of LGBTQ people’s engagement with various gay-themed advertisements. Considering within a Western European society the relevance of context when researching gay-themed advertisement reception, the results add to primarily US-based research on this topic.
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The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how designers attempt to engage audiences through different media in TV idents; and to explore how the human mark (such as drawing and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how designers attempt to engage audiences through different media in TV idents; and to explore how the human mark (such as drawing and model making) in a hybrid with digital media can not only revitalise traditions in design, but also the reception of illusion in this context.
Design/methodology/approach
The study focuses on the work of RedBee Media, a company that has a global market and reputation. The phenomenology of how BBC Three and BBC 2 Christmas were rebranded was examined through interviews with the designers and animators involved. Taking a media industry studies lens to examine an art/technology divide the author will expand the visual culture theory of Manovich’s (2007) metamedium.
Findings
The influence of technology on television graphic design is contested and continual. Designers might begin to question rather than rely on technology through the process of design. They can confront generic software solutions and apply more critical skills to explore fusions of heritage and digital processes in a metamedium.
Research limitations/implications
This research was focused on a UK broadcaster and a single UK creative agency with a global influence. Future research should examine leading creative practice in other international markets.
Practical implications
The significance of this research is in understanding the materiality and creativity in the artform of TV idents and how designers attempt to engage audiences through different media.
Originality/value
Academics in media and design history are acknowledging the cultural significance of television branding. Design practitioners need to understand why and how in the work of others.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of a multidimensional model from the field of media reception for analyzing how a value statement in a Danish windmill company led…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of a multidimensional model from the field of media reception for analyzing how a value statement in a Danish windmill company led to employee identification as well as organizational antecedents that influenced this identification. Further, the paper evaluates whether the proposed model can enhance understanding of the study of employee identification in a specific organizational situation and context.
Design/methodology/approach
The identification model extends a multidimensional model for media reception originally proposed by Schrøder in the field of media reception studies. The proposed model includes the following reception dimensions: comprehension, discrimination, implementation, motivation, and position.
Findings
This paper illustrates how employees from a Danish windmill company receive a value statement. A systematic application of the multidimensional model makes it possible to gain detailed insight into the active and complex process of employee identifications with organizational texts and how they may fluctuate in a specific context.
Research limitations/implications
This analysis only focuses on the reception of a value statement. Future research could include the analysis of employee readings of other types of organizational texts.
Originality/value
The multidimensional identification model is an extension of a media reception model and is new in the field of organizational identification. The model offers a method for analyzing the complexity and multiplicity of employee readings of different types of organizational texts. This may be crucial for both researchers and managers as the model may help to uncover the antecedents that influence how employees receive organizational texts while taking the historical and situational context of the organization into consideration.
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Philip J. Kitchen and David A. Yorke
Explores UK audience reception data provided by the Broadcasting Audience Research Board (BARB) and questions it with regard to new technology. Discusses technological innovations…
Abstract
Explores UK audience reception data provided by the Broadcasting Audience Research Board (BARB) and questions it with regard to new technology. Discusses technological innovations with reference to changing from passive to interactive television viewing, and notes developments to remote control television, teletext, video recorders, computers, cable television and micro‐TVs. Puts forward the development of new technology and spotlights its possible growth areas but does warn that, at present, new technology is still at the innovation stage. States also that video recorders and remote control equipped televisions are presently in an early stage of development and use. Assesses types of households and selects four for questionnaire use. Gives tabular typology for types and illustrates these in depth. Concludes that technology is affecting audience receptivity to commercial breaks on television, and that media planners and commercial advertisers must regard current audience data as inconclusive.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of translation equivalence in extant research on translation in accounting: What is the equivalence that is expected of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of translation equivalence in extant research on translation in accounting: What is the equivalence that is expected of translation, and how is it assumed to come into being? This paper presents a coherent, theoretically informed approach to how different views on equivalence are connected to the objective of international comparability in financial accounting and how related, often-underlying assumptions intertwine in this discussion.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper takes an interdisciplinary approach by utilizing equivalence theories from the discipline of translation studies. It canvasses two dichotomy-like approaches – natural versus directional equivalence and formal versus dynamic equivalence – to compose a theoretical framework within which to analyze 25 translation-related papers discussing accounting harmonization published from 1989 to 2018.
Findings
This paper presents evidence of theoretical contradictions likely to affect the development of translation research in accounting if they go unrecognized. Moreover, the analysis suggests that these contradictions are likely to originate in the assumptions of mainstream accounting research, which neglect both the constructed nature of equivalence and the socially constructed nature of accounting concepts.
Originality/value
Despite the significance of translation for the objective of international comparability, this paper is the first comprehensive theoretical approach to equivalence in accounting research. It responds to a recognized demand for studying equivalence and its limitations, challenges many of the expectations accounting research places on translation and discusses the possible origins of related assumptions.
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Consumer discourse is a narrative of generically (in)formed, goal‐directed activity. If research interprets such practice, it is often deemed to draw upon phenomenology. Returning…
Abstract
Purpose
Consumer discourse is a narrative of generically (in)formed, goal‐directed activity. If research interprets such practice, it is often deemed to draw upon phenomenology. Returning to the philosophers (Gadamer, Heidegger, Merleau‐Ponty and Ricoeur) who shaped phenomenology, the purpose of this paper is to argue that consumer studies should further cultivate their important insight – that action (particularly perceiving) is structured temporally as always already realising our pre‐given meaning. Entities are prima facie experienced as “ready‐to‐hand” “equipment” enabling “potentiality‐for‐being”. Hermeneutic phenomenology is thus a philosophical resource offering appropriate spatio‐temporal images for people responding to media marketing's branded life‐styles.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon authoritative academic resources, the paper proceeds from philosophical definition to resulting analytical methods in marketing research, using a brief Malaysian case study as an example. Philosophically, phenomenology's core perception is of persons as located in a life‐world of socially shared concepts whose employment/ emplotment is said to “fore‐structure” (Heidegger) their understanding, shaping their “projections” (Gadamer) or expectation of events. Phenomenology posits one engages in a “hermeneutic circle of understanding” – aiming at resolving contradiction between such “fore‐sight” and our subsequent perceptions of events. Consumers thematise “pre‐understood” experience in articulating their storied accounts.
Findings
Drawing on phenomenology's account of perceiving, the paper suggests qualitative marketing research unpacks consumers' generic expectation of branding narrative as equipment enabling potentiality‐for‐being, regarding narrative as addressing assumed audience expectation.
Originality/value
The paper provides a conceptual route through phenomenology's application to marketing communication research practice.
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Arts practitioners have looked for ways to engage their audiences and sustain their interests and patronage of theatre shows amidst the coronavirus pandemic that kept patrons at…
Abstract
Purpose
Arts practitioners have looked for ways to engage their audiences and sustain their interests and patronage of theatre shows amidst the coronavirus pandemic that kept patrons at home. This has led to digital engagement with audience members via social media. This research paper looks at digital audience engagement in Nigeria’s theatre using Segun Adefila’s production of Tosin Jobi-Tume’s Corona Palava which was performed on 4 August, 2020, at the Crown Arts Centre in Bariga, Lagos, Nigeria and later made available on Facebook on 22 December, 2020 and 21 December 21 2021.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on the “Arts Audience Experience Index” theory proposed by Radbourne et al. (2009). It employs netnography as its methodology. This entails observing and analysing users’ comments, communication style, frequency of engagement and dwell time while watching Corona Palava production on the researcher’s Facebook timeline “Tekena Gasper Mark” and on the Facebook group “Bolt Drivers in Port Harcourt”. Overall, 53 comments (39 from the researcher’s Facebook friends and 14 from members of the Facebook group “Bolt Drivers in Port Harcourt”) were sampled and analysed to provide insights into how the spectators experienced the Corona Palava production.
Findings
The text that accompanied the Facebook video provided viewers with information about the performance, helped them prepare for what to expect, reduced the likelihood that they would experience any unease while watching it and increased the likelihood that they would look for similar performances in the future. They were pleased with the performance; there were no functional risks, no economic risks and no psychological and social risks. Although they may have watched it at varying times, Facebook provided a space for them to engage with the performance as a group and share their thoughts in the post-performance comments.
Research limitations/implications
One of the study’s limitations is that one cannot ascertain how many of the respondents are drivers. Also, the researcher believes that the length of the video may have discouraged participation in the study. In order to increase viewership and provide better findings, future studies and artistic endeavours could consider shorter pieces (about 3–5 min) and wider locations (transportation businesses) where a larger number of drivers with active social media presence, can participate in the research.
Practical implications
This study documents an innovative approach to reaching theatre audience via social media in Nigeria.
Social implications
This research demonstrates that Nigerian theatre and arts practitioners are reinventing their approaches to play production by using the social media to reach their audiences in the post-COVID-19 era.
Originality/value
The study reveals that as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Nigerian theatre artists have looked for ways to engage their audiences and sustain their interest and patronage of arts projects through social media.
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