Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Communication failure and interpretive conflict
- Part II Making sense of ‘meaning’
- Part III Verbal disputes and approaches to resolving them
- 7 Meaning as a knockout competition
- 8 Standards of interpretation
- Part IV Analysing disputes in different fields of law and regulation
- Part V Conclusion
- References
- Index
8 - Standards of interpretation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Communication failure and interpretive conflict
- Part II Making sense of ‘meaning’
- Part III Verbal disputes and approaches to resolving them
- 7 Meaning as a knockout competition
- 8 Standards of interpretation
- Part IV Analysing disputes in different fields of law and regulation
- Part V Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction
A variety of standards exists in different areas of media law and regulation for fixing what the ‘authorised meaning’ of a contested discourse should be. These standards are outlined in this chapter. There are conceptual standards such as ‘truth’ and ‘validity’. There are also standards based on notional, model readers, including the meaning attributed by an ‘ordinary reader’, by an ‘average consumer’, and by the (generic) ‘reasonable man’. I show how normative interpretive guidance of both kinds reflects procedural as well as interpretive needs. But both kinds of interpretive standard, I suggest, also carry cultural baggage and can present difficulties of coherence and consistency.
Adjudicating meanings is different from interpreting
By ‘standard’ in interpretive disputes is meant the basis or criterion of whatever judgment is made in assigning a definitive meaning to a contested utterance or text. That standard is invoked on an indefinite number of occasions, whenever a decision needs to be made in a particular court action, or when a regulatory authority investigates a complaint. In principle, the process of deciding meaning in such a context is straightforward. Decide what is conveyed by the utterance or text, then decide whether that meaning meets the relevant legal test for the alleged offence or cause of action. When dealing with two meanings pleaded in contention, decide which meaning is right and which is not.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Meaning in the MediaDiscourse, Controversy and Debate, pp. 128 - 144Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010