Research assumptions

As academics, we are faced with a challenge. How do we know that the knowledge we produce is true? In what ways is truth affected by the means in which we acquire knowledge and to what extent is it possible for a given subject to be known? Alvesson & Sköldberg (2000, p. 4) believe,

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“it is not methods but ontology and epistemology which are the determinants of good social science. These aspects are often handled better in qualitative research – which allows for ambiguity as regards interpretive possibilities, and lets the researcher’s construction of what is explored become more visible” However, this view is contrasted by Patton (1990, p. 90) who deliberates,

“… in practice methods can be separated from epistemology out of which they have emerged… One can make an interpretation without studying hermeneutics… The methods of qualitative inquiry now stand on their own as reasonable ways to find out what is happening…”

These two opposing views raise problematic concerns for researchers; concerns which require a solution in order to minimise contradictions and clarify an academic’s point of view. This solution comes in the form of Thomas Kuhn’s ‘paradigm’. As per Guba and Lincoln (1998, p. 200), a paradigm is “a set of basic beliefs” that must be accepted merely on faith because there is no way to ascertain their ultimate truthfulness. A paradigm characterises the composition of the ‘world’ for its holder, their place in it, as well as the scope of possible relationships to that world and its parts.

“Paradigms can be summarised by the responses given by proponents to three fundamental questions which are interconnected in such a way that the answer given to any one question constrains how the others may be answered.” (Guba and Lincoln, 1998 p. 200)

These three questions are the ontological, epistemological and methodological questions (Shankar, Elliott, & Goulding, 2001). In this sense, the processes of data collection and analysis utilised in this thesis are guided by the underlying research assumptions expressed in this section. Research assumptions that take into consideration the cross-disciplinary connections made with psychology, sociology, anthropology, consumer behaviour and cultural studies. Foremost, they draw on the interpretivist research paradigm which represents an eclectic variety of research traditions, perspectives and disciplines; for example, ethnography, netnography, grounded theory, hermeneutics, narrative analysis, semiotics, storytelling analysis etc. (Yanow & Schwartz-Shea, 2006) some of which are explained later on in this chapter.

The dominant paradigmatic position in consumer research, as Shankar and Patterson (2001) argue, has historically been a variant of ‘positivism’. Debatably, this variant is interpretivism. Catalysed by the Consumer Behaviour Odyssey (Wallendorf & Belk, 1989) and sometimes referred to as ‘interpretive turn’ (Yanow & Schwartz-Shea, 2006), interpretivism is the

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dominant paradigmatic position in human sciences that include psychology, sociology, anthropology, and so on. Thus, it is a well suited paradigm for the cross-disciplinary elements of this project which investigates consumer behaviour and attitudes towards anthropomorphic mascots as one of its research objectives.

So what makes this research project interpretive? After all, all ‘research’ involves some form of interpretation. “This includes the interpretation of primary data, of secondary data, of our own personal experience, and of the theories and models that we encounter in research literature” (Hackley, 2003, p. 91). However, as with all paradigms, interpretivism rests upon epistemological and ontological assumptions about the nature of knowledge (its knowability) and the status of reality (its existence); assumptions that empower us to make sense of the social world and are embodied in the research traditions, perspectives and disciplines employed under the umbrella of interpretivism (These are summarised in Table 5.1). I refer to it as the ‘umbrella of interpretivism’ because there is significant blurring amid the diverse qualitative data-gathering approaches and interpretive data analytical perspectives, to the extent that Hackley (2003) affirms, the terms ‘interpretive’ and ‘qualitative’ are often used as synonyms in academia despite the fact they are not. Strictly speaking, for this thesis, ‘Qualitative’ research refers only to the kind of data being analysed. However, the analytical approaches used to analyse this qualitative data are taken from interpretive research traditions.

Table ‎5.1 Summary of Interpretivist research assumptions

Interpretivism

Ontological assumptions (nature of reality) Socially constructed; multiple; holistic; contextual

Nature of social being Voluntaristic; proactive

Axiological assumptions (overriding goal) ‘Understanding’ via interpretation but not necessarily in order to confirm hypotheses Epistemological assumptions (knowledge

generated)

Idiographic; time-bound; context-dependent; value-laden

View of causality Multiple; simultaneous; shaping

Research relationship metaphor for Interactive; co-operative; translator

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For interpretivists, the reality of the social world is inter-subjective (Tadajewski, 2008). Since two people going through the exact same encounter will experience different realities, each from their own perspective, the existence of an external concrete social world is thus de- emphasised, and instead, interpretive researchers strive to explore the social world at the level of subjective experience (Arndt, 1985). The shaping of knowledge, ideas and relations is based on consensus, shared cognition and lived experience. When it comes to consumer research, in order to ‘understand’ these lived experiences, interpretive researchers generally use qualitative methods as a methodological strategy (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988; Thompson, Locander, & Pollio, 1989; Moore & Lutz, 2000).

Arguably, the use of numerous methods allows for the capture of numerous realities; Realities that are shaped by language, meaning and culture. According to Hackley (2003, p. 91),

“…knowledge is mediated by human interpretation. In most interpretive research traditions it is further assumed that human understanding is not something we acquire alone. We derive our frame of understanding from our social interactions and cultural life. In other words, we do not invent our ways of understanding the world. We learn them from the culture around us. We adapt these ways of understanding and knowing to serve our sense of individuality but they are, nevertheless, not purely ours alone. Ways of understanding are cultural, they are shared by many, they pre-exist individuals yet they are not fixed or given. They are historical and political.”

In more recent years, Arnould and Thompson developed a framework for conceptualising the experiential, symbolic, ideological and socio-cultural characteristics of consumption and named it ‘Consumer Culture Theory’ (CCT). This framework “refers to a family of theoretical perspectives that address the dynamic relationships between consumer actions, the marketplace, and cultural meanings” (Arnould & Thompson, 2005, p. 868). Within the marketplace ideology it conveys, culture is depicted as the very fabric of experience, meaning, and action. As demonstrated in previous chapters, the culture of consumers plays an important role in the success or failure of a brand and its marketing campaigns. Consequently, a more detailed look into CCT is necessary.

For CCT researchers, culture is depicted as heterogeneous rather than homogeneous. The view that culture is a way of life, a set of shared meanings and values common between members of a certain society, for instance, the British share this kind of culture and the Chinese share this kind of culture, is an unpopular view in CCT. The common theoretical

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orientation towards the study of cultural complexity in CCT is that the distribution of meanings and values has become multifaceted and overlap several groupings of society, especially with increased globalisation and market capitalism. Although this ‘distributed view’ of meaning in culture is not the invention of CCT, Arnould & Thompson contend that it has greatly contributed to the development of this perspective through empirical studies which examine “how particular manifestations of consumer culture are constituted, sustained, transformed, and shaped by broader historical forces (such as cultural narratives, myths, and ideologies)” (Arnould & Thompson, 2005, p. 869).

Consumer culture theory investigates the way in which consumers dynamically modify and alter symbolic meanings encrypted in material goods, retail settings, brands and advertisements to establish their distinct, personal and social settings and advance their identity and lifestyle ambitions. In line with this, it is assumed that consumer interaction with anthropomorphic mascots and the marketplace provides a capacious and assorted palette of resources from which consumers fabricate their individual and collective identities. As a means of expressing themselves and attempting to portray their realities, consumers use language, engage in narrative and storytelling. After all, ‘language shapes the course and meaning of the human condition’ (O'Shaughnessy & Holbrook, 1988, p. 197). Hence, when telling a story, reality is constructed; a reality that is dynamic and subject to change each time the story is narrated; a reality that is produced by culture and bound by time/history. Hence, the following axiomatic assumptions are considered:

“…the self-telling of life narratives achieve the power to structure personal experience, to organise memory, to segment and purpose-build the very “events” of a life. In the end, we become the autobiographical narratives by which we “tell about” our lives”. (Bruner, 1987, p. 15)

“The stories that we tell about our own and others’ lives are a pervasive form of text through which we construct interpret and share experience: we dream in narrative, daydream in narrative, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, criticise, gossip, learn, hate and love by narrative”. (Schiffrin, 1996, p. 167)

“social life is itself storied and that narrative is an ontological condition of social life” (Somers & Gibson, 1994, p. 38)

It is thus fitting to consider Shankar, Elliott, & Goulding’s (2001) narrative perspective. Narrative is defined by Bennett & Royle (1999, p. 55) as a ‘series of events in a specific order – with a beginning, a middle and an end’. Our lives too are a series of stories with a

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beginning, middle and end; and it is inconceivable to imagine otherwise. According to Shankar, Elliott, & Goulding’s (2001, p. 431), since birth ‘our parents begin to tell us stories and so we become socially and culturally conditioned into understanding the narrative form… as we grow up we learn about who we are, our history and our culture through stories and by telling stories’. In their paper, Shankar, Elliott, & Goulding (2001) argue that narrative should be elevated from an interpretive or analytical tool to having ontological status. They suggest a narrative paradigm that unescapably shares likenesses with other interpretive paradigms but focuses on the manifestation of language and its structure. It endorses an ontological position whereby ‘reality’ is constructed by individuals, through language, but ‘consensualised’ (Guba & Lincoln, 1998), shaped or modified socially and culturally within the world individuals are embedded in (Murray & Ozanne, 1991). Shankar, Elliott, & Goulding (2001) also see the possibility of multiple constructed realities which denotes, any understandings or interpretations will be subjective/relative. As these realities are constructed, there is no way of capturing that reality prior to the research. Also, as researchers are part of the research process, they are inevitably part of their research. As per Guba and Lincoln (1998, p. 207), 'the investigator and the object of investigation are assumed to be interactively linked so that findings are literally created as the investigation proceeds’.

To summarise, the research perspectives and assumptions utilised in this project lie within the interpretive paradigm. They consist of a narrative ontology whereby truth is relativistic and subjective to differences in perception and consideration, and a constructionist epistemology through which knowledge is constructed and co-created. In order to access the multiple realities, the use of multiple methods/ methodological pluralism is the sensible way forward.