Deconstructing symbolic consumption: Exploring ...

Deconstructing symbolic consumption: Exploring the anti-synthetic space between meaning and meaninglessness*

Author Information:

CLINTON D. LANIER, JR. (Primary Contact/Corresponding Author) Associate Professor of Marketing Opus College of Business University of St. Thomas 2115 Summit Avenue, MCH 316 St. Paul, MN 55105-1096 Phone: 651-962-5887 Email: [email protected]

C. SCOTT RADER Associate Professor of Marketing Western Carolina University 1 University Way, Forsyth 224E Cullowhee, NC 28723 Phone: 865-789-4999 Email: [email protected]

* This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Consumption Markets & Culture on August 21, 2016. The article is available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/10253866.2016.1217198

Abstract Meaning is a fundamental aspect of symbolic consumption and lies at the heart of consumer culture theory (CCT). Although consumption meanings are considered dynamic, heterogeneous, and contextual, meaning itself is considered an inherent aspect of consumer culture and a constitutive force of consumer experiences. Utilizing deconstruction as a critical strategy, this paper interrogates the concept of meaning in the CCT literature and contends that meaning is not only present in consumption practices, but it is also absent. As meaning circulates in the infinite possibilities of language, meaninglessness emerges as an important aspect of this process. The dialectical tension between meaning and meaninglessness, though, does not converge within a particular consumption practice, but continuously diverges in the anti-synthetic space between them. We empirically explore the consumption of this anti-synthetic space in three popular culture exemplars. We conclude by discussing the broader implications of the deconstruction of symbolic consumption for CCT.

Keywords Ambiguity, Anti-synthesis, Consumer Culture, Deconstruction, Meaning, Meaninglessness, Popular Culture, Symbolic Consumption

Introduction Meaning is a fundamental aspect of symbolic consumption and lies at the heart of consumer culture theory (CCT) (Arnould and Price 1993; Belk 1988; Belk, Wallendorf, and Sherry 1989; Holbrook and Hirschman 1982; Holt 1997; Kozinets 2001; Maclaran and Brown 2005; McCracken 1986; Mick 1986; Peñaloza 2001; Sherry and Schouten 2002; Thompson and Tian 2008). As the primary theoretical orientation towards this phenomenon, “CCT explores the heterogeneous distribution of meanings and the multiplicity of overlapping cultural groupings that exist within the broader sociohistoric frame of globalization and market capitalism” (Arnould and Thompson 2005, 869). Although cultural meanings are considered creative, contextual, and even contradictory (McCracken 1988; Mick and Buhl 1992; Thompson and Haytko 1997), meaning itself is considered a fundamental aspect of life that serves as both the foundation of consumer culture and the primary driver of symbolic consumption practices (Askegaard and Linnet 2011; Holt 1997; Thompson, Arnould, and Giesler 2013). Despite its complex and nuanced understanding of meaning (and the meaning-making process), CCT maintains an implicit assumption that meaning is not only a very real phenomenon (i.e. it can be discovered, interpreted, and communicated), but that the symbolic structures on which meaning is based form the primary gestalt within which we exist (Thompson et al. 2013). This is not to imply that there is an ultimate meaning to which all individual meanings subscribe, but that meaning itself serves as a fundamental aspect of symbolic consumption practices and cultural processes (Arnould and Thompson 2005). Likewise, although CCT contends that the symbolic structures and functions of culture do not wholly determine consumers’ actions, it maintains that these structures and functions create a sphere of action that frames consumers’ potential behaviors through the meanings that are ascribed to specific consumption spaces and activities (Bourdieu 1990; Featherstone 1991; Hannerz 1992). While there is no doubt that CCT has produced a very compelling narrative (or at least a central theme in the “heteroglossia” of narratives) concerning the importance and power of meaning in consumer culture, the assumptions underlying this narrative may be preventing us from considering other aspects of consumption that are untold in this deeply embedded story. Considering CCT’s approach to meaning as a broader socio-historic narrative (i.e. the story of meaning) rather than simply as the unit of analysis (i.e., the meaning of a story) (Arnould and Thompson 2005), it is possible to uncover and critique the assumptions behind symbolic 1

consumption by: (a) utilizing the schools and methodologies of literary criticism to interrogate the broader CCT narrative of meaning (Eagleton 1996) and (b) interrogating the major theorists (namely the various structuralist and poststructuralist thinkers) who inform the applicable schools of literary criticism and the corresponding narrative of meaning in CCT. More specifically, this paper utilizes the critical approach of deconstruction developed by Derrida (1976, 1978, 1982) as both a theoretical lens and a critical strategy. Deconstruction is appropriate to this interrogation since it does not simply focus on specific meanings, but on meaning and meaning systems per se as well as their underlying assumptions (Stern 1998). Anathema to any definition, deconstruction refers to a strategy of reading and writing that undermines faith in convergence by exposing the indeterminacy of language and symbolic systems (Stern 1996a, 1998). This is typically achieved through the detailed analysis of the inherent binary oppositions within a particular discourse (Derrida 1976, 1978, 1981). While deconstruction has typically been applied to the analysis of advertisements (Kates 1999; Stern 1993, 1996b), rarely has it been used in consumer research to interrogate the philosophical assumptions and key concepts of a particular paradigm (for a noted exception, see Hill and Cromartie 2004). No doubt, the deconstruction of meaning in CCT is an epic undertaking that requires an in-depth analysis in order to fully do it justice. But as Stern (1996a, 332) writes, deconstruction can provide “a needed revaluation of unquestioned assumptions, for disruption of the status quo may be a necessary cathartic for ridding scholarship of outworn ideas.” The intellectual history of CCT reveals not only the centrality of meaning to the underlying narrative of the various theoretics, but also the privileging of meaning while effectively silencing its opposite, namely meaninglessness. This was accomplished early in the formation of CCT through the establishment of the potentially false dichotomy between meaning and function (Levy 1959). Meaning and function are not necessarily opposites, but are often complementary. For example, anthropological theory provides detailed accounts of how cultural meanings and symbols serve very distinct functions (Douglas 1966; Geertz 1973; Turner 1969). As a result of this early attempt to distinguish itself from the dominant perspective of positivism, CCT highlighted certain binaries (e.g. objective/subjective, universal/relative, and explanation/understanding) (Hudson and Ozanne 1988), while inadvertently suppressing others (e.g. meaning/meaninglessness, presence/absence, and something/nothing), an oversight that has directly affected research on symbolic consumption ever since. Interestingly, in its attempt to 2

distance itself from its own purported opposite, CCT has failed to recognize what it has in common with positivism, namely an enduring faith in presences (i.e. something versus nothing) (Derrida 1976). While it is true that CCT focuses on multiple, contextual, and dynamic presences (e.g. socio-historically situated and changing meanings) versus singular, nomothetic, and eternal presences (e.g. universal meaning), it falls short of fully capturing the absence that lies behind all presences. For example, research that explores the contradictions inherent in meaning-based systems (e.g. Thompson and Haytko 1997) focuses primarily on convergence of meaning (i.e. resolution of contradictions into an alternative presence) rather than divergence of meaning (i.e. dissolution of contradictions into absence). In addition, research that acknowledges the actual meaning/meaninglessness binary focuses more on revealing silenced voices (i.e. presences that are absent) rather than on revealing the silence behind all voices (i.e. absences that are not present) (e.g. Stern 1996a). In fact, some have even denounced “post-modern” critiques for destabilizing meaning and undermining research on symbolic consumption (Miles 1999). Indeed the interrogation of the meaning/meaninglessness binary, as well as the broader binaries of presence/absence and something/nothing, has profound implications not only for the future narrative of meaning in CCT, but also for other important concepts such as culture and power. The purpose of this paper is to explore these implications by leveraging deconstruction to reveal the centrality and privileging of meaning in CCT, to subvert this central term in order to explore the meaninglessness that lurks behind it, and to destabilize the binary altogether through an anti-synthetic dialectical tension that exposes the free play of opposites underlying symbolic consumption (Derrida 1978). Such a critical approach, in turn, forces us to rethink not only the way that we conceptualize important terms (e.g. meaning, meaninglessness, and ambiguity), but also the very assumptions regarding symbolic consumption itself. At the same time, it is important to note that we do not assert that meaning no longer plays a role in consumption or that consumers do not desire or structure their actions in terms of meaning. Instead, we propose that consumers are at least tacitly aware of the problematic nature of meaning-making (i.e. a process that attempts to establish meaning while denying meaninglessness) and proceed in spite of, rather than necessarily because of, some singularized meaning. In fact, we argue that some consumers directly engage the anti-synthetic dialectical relationship between meaning and meaninglessness in order to open up the limitless possibilities in their consumption practices.

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One prevalent place where we find direct engagement of this anti-synthetic space is in the consumption (and production) of popular culture. While we contend that this dialectical process is at play across all types of consumption practices, popular culture offers an ideal context to explore the anti-synthetic aspect of these practices since meaning has been proposed as the fundamental driver of these types of consumption activities (Brown, McDonagh, and Shultz 2013; Holt 2004; Kozinets 2001). In line with this assumption, popular culture has been conceptualized as “the active appropriation, modification, and elaboration of a mass-produced commodity (i.e. mass culture) that alters both its meaning and intended use” (Lanier and Schau 2007, 325). Within the realm of popular culture, we focus specifically on three exemplars of digital fandom (i.e. fan fiction, fan wikis, and fan-character personas) as these virtual environments are considered primarily symbolic venues in which meaning, rather than materiality, plays a fundamental role in such consumption practices. Our critical reading of these exemplars reveals that rather than provide a venue where consumers focus exclusively on constructing meanings or, alternatively, asserting the meaninglessness of these activities, digital fan practices allow consumers to set the poles of the symbolic binary (i.e. meaning/meaninglessness) against each other and revel in the anti-synthetic space between them. In the next section, we describe how we utilize literary criticism, and specifically deconstruction, as a strategy to interrogate symbolic consumption and how this approach influences the structure of the paper. We then provide a “close reading” of the CCT literature to reveal how meaning is privileged in the symbolic consumption process. After this, we utilize a structural criticism of the theoretical foundations on which the various perspectives of symbolic consumption in CCT are based in order to reveal not only what is present in the conceptualizations of meaning, but also what is absent. By deconstructing the related concept of ambiguity in the CCT literature, we reveal the inherent relationship between meaning and meaninglessness and propose that any synthesis of these two is impossible, but that they exist in an anti-synthetic dialectical tension that underlies all symbolic consumption. In order to ground the conceptual arguments of the paper, we provide an examination of three exemplars of this anti-synthetic process in the consumption of popular culture. Lastly, we conclude with a discussion of the implications of the paper for CCT.

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Literary criticism and deconstructive strategy In support of the famous dictum that “there is nothing outside the text,” (Derrida 1976), our analysis operates under the assumption that all socio-cultural institutions, practices, and perspectives are inherently textual (Hirschman and Holbrook 1992) and can be analyzed using the schools and methods of literary criticism (Stern 1996a). This approach is appropriate for the present study because literary criticism, or the systematic study of the structure and functions of a text (Culler 1986; Eagleton 1996 Frye 1957), allows us to analyze not simply the meaning of a single consumption text (e.g. the meaning of an ad) (Stern 1989), but to interrogate the very concept of meaning across multiple texts (e.g. the broader narrative of meaning within CCT). While there are certainly other approaches to the analysis of meaning (e.g. anthropological, sociological, and historical), literary criticism is uniquely suited to analyzing meaning qua meaning by focusing on it as the primary unit of analysis rather than as a by-product of other, non-textual forces. As one of the most advanced schools of literary criticism (Stern 1989), deconstruction is a strategy that interrogates the structures and functions of a text in order to identify and critique its underlying assumptions (Derrida 1976; 1978; 1981). As such, it is an appropriate strategy to explore how meaning has been conceptualized in the CCT literature and to expose the inherent limits of these conceptualizations. Namely, deconstruction is used to explore what has not been said about meaning, and further, to provide an “undoing” of these conceptualizations in a deconstructive act (Stern 1996a). In terms of actually “doing” deconstruction (Stern 1996a), it usually begins by employing the New Criticism strategy of “close reading” to explore the key elements of a text and determine the established perspective of the phenomenon of interest. It then turns to a structuralist analysis to identify the underlying foundations of the text that provide a convergent perspective of the phenomenon. It ends with a deconstructive critique that exposes the absences and underlying divergence in the perspective (Stern 1996a; 1996b; 1998). “Close reading” of meaning in consumer culture theory (CCT) We begin our deconstruction of symbolic consumption by providing a close reading of the concept of meaning in the CCT literature. This analysis reveals not only the importance of meaning in the CCT paradigm, but also the prevalence of the concept throughout the various theoretics (Arnould and Thompson 2007). We begin this process by focusing on the historical 5

development of meaning in CCT and then examine alternative perspectives on the various sources of meaning in symbolic consumption.

Evolution of meaning in CCT While CCT embodies a variety of approaches to the study of consumer culture, they all admittedly share “a common theoretical orientation” based on a set of key concepts and philosophical assumptions (Arnould and Thompson 2005, 868). One of the primary concepts underlying this theoretical orientation is the concept of meaning. In fact, most scholars agree that the seminal work that launched CCT is Levy’s (1959) HBR article, Symbols for Sale, in which he argued that “People buy things not only for what they can do, but also for what they mean” (118). For many scholars in the consumer research community, this was a considered a watershed moment that signaled a major shift from the dominant functional perspective to the symbolic perspective (Hirschman and Holbrook 1981). In fact, this work presaged marketing’s “paradigm wars” of the 1980s and the attempts to distinguish the “positivist” approach to knowledge (e.g. objective universal explanation) from the “interpretive” approach (e.g. subjective relative understanding) (Anderson 1986; Holbrook and O’Shaughnessy 1988; Hudson and Ozanne 1988). Although “interpretive” research expanded greatly during this time (e.g. Belk, Wallendorf, and Sherry 1989; McCracken 1988; Mick and Buhl 1992; Thompson, Locander, and Pollio 1990), the concept of meaning played a fundamental role in the development of this new paradigm. For example, CCT researchers have utilized various anthropological and sociological theories such as Geertz’s (1973) “thick description” to understand how the different cultural systems in which consumers are embedded affect consumption meanings (Cayla and Eckhardt 2008; Oswald 1999; Sherry 1990) as well as Turner’s (1969) ritual theory to explain how meanings are constructed in a variety of consumer experiences (Arnould and Price 1993; Belk and Costa 1998; Kozinets 2002). Likewise, CCT researchers have utilized Mauss’ (1954) theory of the gift to explain how the socially embedded obligations of gifts affect their meanings (Belk and Coon 1993; Joy 2001; Sherry 1983) as well as Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical perspective to explain how consumers construct, modify, and adapt different meanings of the self (Belk 1988; Schau and Gilly 2003; Schouten 1991).

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Through the explication of the postmodern turn in consumer research, Firat and Venkatesh (1995, 259) move beyond this initial bifurcation of function and meaning by asserting that we exist entirely in a symbolic world: …the subject makes sense of the world in terms of symbols, meanings, and experiences, as opposed to unmediated encounter with objects and ideal forms . . . Our conceptualization of the object therefore needs to be in terms of the symbol rather than the concrete form. Consequently, our focus is on the symbols that objects themselves have become, in one way or another. This is the crux of postmodernism and of our analysis of postmodern consumption as symbolic activity. The choice for consumers is apparently no longer between function and meaning, as meaning not only determines the function of an object, but also its very existence (Holt 2004). As a result, consumption is now viewed exclusively as a symbolic activity embedded in systems of meaning (Brown 1995; Hirschman and Holbrook 1992; Thompson 2000). In fact, this perspective on the overriding importance of symbols and meaning has become a fundamental aspect of the CCT “brand.” As Arnould and Thompson (2005, 868-869) write: [CCT] refers to a family of theoretical perspectives that address the dynamic relationships between consumer actions, the marketplace, and cultural meanings. . . . Rather than viewing culture as a fairly homogenous system of collectively shared meanings, ways of life, and unifying values shared by a member of society (e.g. Americans share this kind of culture; Japanese share that kind of culture), CCT explores the heterogeneous distribution of meanings and the multiplicity of overlapping cultural groupings that exist within the broader sociohistoric frame of globalization and market capitalism. Although CCT promotes the idea that systems of meanings are heterogeneous and relative to the socio-cultural discourses in which they are situated, it still maintains that meaning itself is not only an underlying aspect of consumption, but that it is also a fundamental source of consumers’ behaviors and identities. Interestingly, despite the prevalence of research on consumption meanings in the CCT literature, a clearly articulated conceptualization of meaning is rarely provided. This is perhaps due not only to the need to emphasize the contextual and dynamic nature of meaning, but also to the implicit nature of the concept in the CCT paradigm. As a rare example, Kleine and Kernan (1991, 312) state, “In our view, meaning is a perception or interpretation of an object. Meaning is 7

not inherent in the object itself; rather it arises from the interaction of individual, object, and context, and it is inherently symbolic, subjective, psychological, and perceptual.” This idea of meaning as symbolic interpretation underlies much of the CCT literature and is evident in the early label of the CCT theoretical orientation as interpretivist (Hudson and Ozanne 1988). A basic assumption of CCT is that since we do not have unmediated access to reality (Firat and Venkatesh 1995), it is our interpretation of reality rather than reality itself that influences our behavior (Hudson and Ozanne 1988). At the same time, CCT holds that these interpretations of the phenomenal world are not purely subjective, but are grounded in historically situated sociocultural contexts, frameworks, and patterns that directly influence the meanings of our consumption practices (McCracken 1986; Holt 1997; Thompson 2000). That is, in order for symbols to function, there must be a set of conventional ways of interpreting and relating experience among a group of people (Douglas and Isherwood 1979). In terms of consumption, it has been proposed that this is accomplished through inter-subjectively shared cultural frameworks that “organize interpretations of consumption objects and how they are consumed, give meaning to consumption objects, constitute the desirability of consumption objects and the preferred ways of consuming them, and structure the felt experience of consuming” (Holt 1997, 332). In addition, it is maintained that consumption objects have no inherent meaning, and that the meaning of consumption patterns emerge through the regularity of consumption practices and relational differences to other practices (Holt 1997). Perhaps even more important than the conceptualization of meaning is the relationship of meaning to other key concepts in CCT and the philosophical assumptions that underlie these relationships. As Thompson, Arnould, and Giesler (2013, 150) write: Thus, the meaning of a term, or of more complex statements, is constituted by (1) the institutional conditions that situate speakers and audiences; (2) the broader sociocultural system that contextualizes the institutional field; and (3), last but not least, the heterglot mix of language games that have varying degrees of currency and/or legitimacy in the institutional field. When these background conditions change, so do the constituted meanings they situate. To clarify this argument, the changes in institutional conditions, unless they are in some sense revolutionary, do not lead to radical breaches in the constitution of meaning. Rather, they generate nuanced but potentially consequential

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semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic differences that need to be recognized, parsed, and explicated. As is evident in this quote, meaning does not function as an isolated variable that is merely related to other variables in a web of signification, but is enmeshed in broader systems, fields, and forces, which are themselves constituted by language. In other words, meaning is a function of culture, which in turn is a function of language (Moisander, Valtonen, and Hirsto 2009). In addition, although each of these components is extremely complex and dynamic, an underlying assumption of this overall process is that all of these components are relatively stable due to the embeddedness and co-constituting aspects of each (Thompson et al. 2013).

Sources of meaning in CCT Given the assumptions of the relative stability of meaning itself, and the ability of researchers to uncover and describe particular meanings, a fundamental issue underlying much of the CCT literature concerns the source of meaning. As noted previously, since meaning is ultimately a function of language that is manifested within specific socio-cultural contexts, it is helpful to examine this issue meta-theoretically (i.e. exploring how the issue is approached rather than how it is resolved) by examining the source of meaning in CCT from the perspective of the various schools of literary criticism. As Stern (1989) points out, these schools can be organized historically in terms of their primary focus on meaning as either a function of author, text, or reader, which can readily be substituted for company (author), product (text), or consumer (reader) in order to apply these theories to marketing/consumption. It is important to note that while most theories of literary criticism recognize all of these elements, they differ in terms of locating the nexus of meaning in one (or all) of them. Given the basic definition of meaning as a process of interpretation (Kleine and Kernan 1991), CCT developed historically as a reaction to the notion that meaning is an objective fact that is ultimately located in and controlled by the author/company (Anderson 1986; Holbrook and O’Shaughnessy 1988; Hudson and Ozanne 1988). Traditional marketing believed, and to a large extent still believes, that the company determines (often via advertisers and other marketing communicators) what message it wants to convey and the best way to transmit its message to consumers (Reeves 1961). In the spirit of integrated marketing communication (Duncan and Moriarty 1997), the message is considered univocal (i.e. one meaning) and one that consumers 9

passively receive and decode. Any problems in the interpretation of the message are attributed to issues with the communication process (Ha and Hoch 1989). Although consumers are now allowed, and even encouraged, to participate in this process, the company still considers itself the final arbiter of the message and its meaning (Thompson and Malavivya 2013). While this company-centered approach to meaning represents traditional marketing, it still continues today in modern brand management strategy whose focus is on articulating a clear, consistent, and compelling message (see Brown 2014; Holt 2004; Schroeder and Salzer-Mörling 2006). Challenging the company/author-based view of meaning, early CCT scholars (Levy 1981; McCracken 1986; Mick 1986) locate the nexus of meaning in the product/text. As Holt (1997, 327-28) writes, “In the object signification approach, consumption objects are viewed as vessels of meaning that consumers acquire when they consume the object.” As with the authorbased view, the meaning of an object is considered univocal and ultimately transcends any particular socio-cultural context. This perspective is captured in the brand personality literature (Aaker 1997), which argues that consumers choose those objects whose meanings fit with their particular social situations and lifestyles. According to Holt (1997, 333), “Consumers engage in a variety of symbolic actions to acquire, use, and enhance these object meanings for their personal symbolic project, but they do not have a qualitative impact on what the consumption object expresses.” That is, although consumers actively engage objects and their respective meanings, they are still considered relatively passive when it comes to determining the meaning of objects. While there is research to suggest that consumers actively manipulate and change the meaning of a consumption object (Fiske 1989), it still assumes an inherent meaning of an object to which consumers are reacting. In addition, meaning is not restricted to a single product, but can span across a group of objects that consumers use to guide their behaviors and express their identities (McCracken 1988; Solomon and Assael 1987). Based on the assumption of the inherent meaning of consumption objects, research also focuses on how object meaning is transferred to consumers through symbolic processes such as myths (Levy 1981) and rituals (McCracken 1986). By the 1990s, the interpretive perspective of meaning shifted from the more passive view of consumption as the transference of meaning in which consumers are either simply directed by producers on how to use a product or engage in the extraction of fixed meaning from the product, to a view of consumption as an active and productive process in which consumers exert their own meaning onto products. This move not only changed the nexus of meaning, but also the 10

nature of meaning and the symbolic process. While this consumer-based approach still acknowledges that producers have power over the material resources and economic exchange of a product, it argues that consumers ultimately have power over the symbolic resources and cultural exchange of a product (Firat and Venkatesh 1995). Rather than providing products embedded with predetermined meanings, producers were now viewed as offering symbolic resources that consumers actively rework in constructing their individual and collective meanings and identities (Belk 1988; Schouten 1991; Thompson et al. 1989). In CCT, this view of the nexus of meaning as located in the reader/consumer is clearly articulated in the application of the reader-response theory of literary criticism in which consumers construct personal meanings based on life themes (McQuarrie and Mick 1999; Mick and Buhl 1992; Scott 1994a). At the same time, the reader is not completely disassociated from the author or text, but now takes the role as a co-creator of meaning. Because the socio-cultural contexts of different readers varies, which directly affects how a text is read, reader response theory holds that texts are multi-vocal or polysemic (i.e. open to multiple meanings) and that no “correct” reading of the text is possible (Scott, 1994a). As Stern (1989, 325) writes, “The reader is thought to be engaged in dialogue with the text and a participant in meaning creation because his/her role is to fill in what the author leaves out, since no text can fully state everything the author means ... However, the text itself does provide some constraints in terms of a common body of linguistic, literary, and cultural conventions to guide readers.” Consequently, meaning is considered to be a result of the reading process itself, or the interaction of author, text, and reader. Otherwise, meaning would cease to be an interpretation and would become merely a projection of the reader onto the text (Sandvoss 2007). By the turn of the century, consumer/reader-based perspectives of meaning gave way to more integrative approaches that viewed the nexus of meaning as located primarily in the specific socio-cultural discourses in which all three aspects of meaning (i.e. author, text, and reader) are situated (Stern 1989). Two major integrative approaches to the study of the nexus of meaning are post-structuralism and deconstruction. CCT research utilizing poststructuralism as an integrative approach tends to coalesce around these three distinct features of meaning: First, rather than assume that meanings exist fully formed prior to their expression in social life, poststructuralists argue that meanings are significantly constituted by the ways in which people act in particular social contexts. . . . Second, meanings do not exist 11

separate from history. . . The meanings of a particular cultural object or action are always constructed – through a cultural process known as intertextuality – by metaphoric, imaginistic, and narrative association with other cultural objects and practices that are part of the historically accumulated cultural resources of a collectivity. . . . Third, meanings of objects and actions are never structured by a single abstracted semiotic system. Chains of meanings exist as multiple and overlapping resources from which social actors select, combine, and juxtapose. . . .So the meaning of any particular object or activity is inherently unstable and contingent since it is dependent upon which meaningful linkages are made, an interpretive process that is necessarily underdetermined by the cultural objects themselves. (Holt, 1997, 328-329) Although poststructuralist CCT researchers still believe in the presence of meaning, meaning is considered a process of social construction that is based on the interplay of multiple, and often competing, discourses (Moisander et al. 2009). As a result, meaning is both dynamic and polysemic as it is based on the particular cultural discourses that are in play at any given point of time. For example, Holt (1997) argues that consumption meanings are generated from the various cultural frameworks in which consumers are embedded. These cultural frameworks give rise to consumption patterns that allow consumers to create specific meanings, which are maintained through the regularity of specific consumption practices and relational differences to other practices. Meanings change as consumers move through different cultural frameworks, which results in changing practices and relational differences. Similarly, Thompson and Tambyah (1999) argue that meaning is a result of complex ideological discourses and power relations that implicitly structure and organize consumer practices and understandings. Differences among these ideological discourses in turn produce conflicts among consumption meanings that consumers attempt to resolve through various discursive practices (Canniford and Shankar 2013; Giesler 2008; Thompson 2003). In the process, these meanings and practices ultimately reinforce the social order (often in new power relations) in which they are embedded (Thompson 2004). Building upon the focus of meaning as embedded in the power relations of ideological discourses, CCT researchers have utilized deconstruction not only to reveal these power relations, but to subvert them in order to show how consumption meanings perpetuate classism, racism, and sexism. As Stern (1996b, 64) writes: 12

Deconstructive critics engage in the reading of “presences” (things “in” the text) only to expose the underlying “absences” (things not in the text). These absences are the gaps, inconsistencies, and contradictions at play in the binary oppositions fundamental to the denotation of meaning (e.g. man/woman, white/black, truth/error). . . [D]econstruction brings to light the alternative disenfranchised realities (e.g. those of culturally marginalized audiences such as minorities, women, lower classes, or uneducated members of society) that have been suppressed. Though as Stern (1998) points out, despite poststructuralist critics’ acknowledgment of the inherent contradictions in ideological discourses, their focus is primarily on competing “presences” among discourses and the meanings that arise in the process of reconciling these conflicts (e.g. Thompson and Haytko 1997). Notably, and from the opposite perspective, deconstructive critics focus primarily on what is “absent” in these discourses and propose that it is meaning itself that perpetuates power relations. As a result, deconstructivists argue that competing meanings based on any discourse are inherently unstable and irreconcilable, and invariably exist in the perpetual play of opposites (Stern 1998). While acknowledging the ultimate instability of meaning, most CCT researchers have used deconstruction to reveal silenced voices in various consumption practices (e.g. feminist and LGBT) and the conflicting meanings within various ideological discourses (Stern 1993; Kates 1999; Visconti 2008).

Structural analysis of meaning in CCT In keeping with our deconstructive endeavor, while we utilized the New Criticism strategy of close reading to explore the prima facie conceptualizations of meaning in CCT, we now leverage a form of structural analysis to examine in depth the philosophical underpinnings of these various conceptualizations. It is important to note that we use structural analysis not as a theoretical lens (i.e. a structuralist perspective), but as a critical strategy that interrogates systems of thought (including structuralism) to see how each informs the concept of meaning in CCT. Although systems of thought related to meaning can be traced back to Aristotle (Stern 1994), they became especially pronounced with the linguistic turn in philosophy around the turn of the 20th century (Rorty 1967). The linguistic turn followed roughly two paradigmatic paths (analytic philosophy vs. continental philosophy), which approach conceptualization of meaning quite differently. Our focus here is with the latter tradition, as it is more representative of theoretical 13

underpinnings of the CCT heteroglossia, and more specifically with those philosophers who explored the relations among language, culture, and meaning. In keeping with our historical analysis, we will begin with the father of structural linguistics, Ferdinand Saussure.

Saussure Reacting to the history of philosophy that believed in a connection between words and things, Saussure (1972) argued that the meaning of a word is not determined by its relationship with an external object, but by its relationship to other words in a system of language. More importantly, he argued that these relationships are fundamentally negative, in that the meaning of a word is not based on its positive relationship to an object, but on its negative relationship of not being other words in the system (i.e. meaning is based on differences). Saussure explains this idea by arguing that language is made up of signs, which have two parts: (1) the signifier (i.e. the sound/image) and (2) the signified (i.e. the idea/concept). For Saussure, there is no natural connection between the signifier and signified (i.e. the sound “dog” has no natural connection to the concept of dog) and the conventions that hold them together are arbitrary and based on a specific linguistic system. For example, the signifier dog could just as easily be assigned to the signifier cat. It is the fact that dog is not cat, or any other sign in a given linguistic system, which gives it its meaning. For Saussure, it is this arbitrary, though self-contained, linguistic system that constitutes the social structures in which individuals exist. While Saussure’s structural linguistics has been used directly in CCT to analyze the meaning of consumption narratives (Levy 1981), it is primarily used to substantiate the development and use of semiotics in consumer research (Mick 1986; Grayson and Shulman 2000; Humphreys 2010). At its core, semiotics is the study of the structure of meaning and the meaning-making process through signs and symbols (Mick 1986). More importantly, semiotics extends the structuralist analysis of meaning to all sign systems, including both linguistic (e.g. speaking and writing) and nonlinguistic (e.g. art and music) forms of communication, thus allowing virtually everything to be analyzed as text (Holbrook and Grayson 1986). Consequently, the broader assumption is that language, as the more general term for sign systems, not only structures the meanings of objects and behaviors within social reality, but also structures social reality itself (Mick 1986). Consequently, semiotics can be used to analyze the

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underlying sign systems and their particular relationships to reveal the structures of meanings within a given society (Humphreys 2010). While it is apparent that Saussure (1972) emphasized the structure of language, and even called for the development of the study of systems of signs, viewed historically, this “structural” emphasis is considered more of a limitation of his work rather than as its primary contribution (Culler 1986; Harris 1987). Rather, most scholars believe that Saussure’s most valuable addition to this history of thought concerns the nature of meaning as a system of differences. Ultimately, meaning itself is essentially absent (i.e. it does not exist in-and-of itself), and it is based primarily on the negative relations that define what it is not. Like a black hole, meaning is identified in reference to its surroundings rather than to itself. In addition, the systems of relations that make meaning possible are essentially negative (i.e. based on what they are not), and are inherently unstable and virtually impossible to contain (i.e. without the imposition of arbitrary boundaries). In an effort to develop a theoretical foundation to study meaning, CCT’s use of semiology focuses primarily on identifying and analyzing the relatively stable structures of meaning as a “positive” manifestation (Humphreys 2010), often implicitly based on the realist assumptions in Peirce’s semiotics (Grayson and Shulman 2000), rather than on the inherently “negative” and potentially unstable nature of meaning underlying the assumptions advocated by Saussure.

Lévi-Strauss Applying the structural linguistics and semiology of Saussure to anthropology, LéviStrauss (1963) coined the term structuralism and studied culture as a type of language system. For him, the meanings of cultural phenomena were not based on their functions in society (i.e. meanings in the practices themselves), but were derived from the relationships of differences to other cultural phenomena within socially constructed sign systems (Lévi-Strauss 1963). By understanding the underlying structures of the sign system (e.g. often as binary oppositions), one can understand the meanings of cultural practices and individual behaviors. In addition, he believed that underneath the differences in meanings of cultural phenomena lies a universal structure that applies to all cultures that one can access by decoding the individual meanings of these phenomena. For example, Lévi-Strauss (1966) argued that the symbolic structures of the “savage” mind are the same as for the “civilized” mind. In addition, he argued that these universal structures of meaning could be discovered most readily in the foundational myths of a 15

particular society, the fundamental units of which are sets of binary opposites that he referred to as mythemes (Lévi-Strauss 1978). In Hegelian fashion, myth (as well as language) achieves meaning through the synthesis of the binary opposition. As a result, myth addresses the contradictions underlying socio-cultural structures and attempts to resolve them in a meaningful way. At the same time, he believed that these binaries were fundamentally irreconcilable (e.g. life and death), as the synthesis embodies a contradiction (e.g. between life and death), thus making the meaning of the myth, at least as ultimate resolution of the binary, an illusion. In the CCT literature, structuralism has been used specifically as a method to expose the culturally embedded meanings of consumption texts (Hirschman 1988; Levy 1981) and more generally as a lens to examine the meanings of consumption practices such gift giving (Belk 1976; Sherry 1983; Marcoux 2009) and consumer rituals (McCracken 1986; Rook 1985). While structuralism per se has fallen out of favor in the CCT literature, especially in its search for a universal structure underlying all cultural forms (Firat and Venkatesh 1995), it has left an enduring legacy that underlies much CCT research to this day. As Stern (1998) writes, the basic assumptions of structuralism include the belief in a socially constructed reality in which meanings are based on the relational differences among signs that converge, at least temporarily, with specific sign systems. While its views concerning the underlying structures of meaning are much more complex than developed by structuralism, CCT still maintains that meaning is a “positive” manifestation that emerges out of the conditions (and contradictions) of an institutional field (Thompson et al. 2013). As with the reading of Saussure, the most compelling aspect of Lévi-Strauss’s work, namely the irreconcilability of binary opposites, is the least explored and most ignored aspect of his work. While contradictions among binaries are certainly noted in the CCT literature, they are ultimately “resolved” through various consumer practices, thus allowing specific meanings to ultimately emerge (Canniford and Shankar 2013; Humphreys 2010; Thompson and Tambyah 1999). At the same, this particular approach reveals the structural bias towards convergence, because one could just as easily focus on practices that exacerbate rather than assuage the contradictions. In his structural analysis of consumer myths, Levy (1981) argues that while consumption meanings appear quite clear, they do mask deeper contradictions and conflicts that always call these meanings into question. Rather than view contradictions merely as a source of meaning, which, as Stern (1998) argues privileges meaning over contradiction, why not focus on 16

meaning as the source of contradiction, leading to the conclusion that meaning is not merely irreconcilable, but ultimately indecipherable? Coupling this with the scope of semiology that reads virtually everything (including consumption) as text, the implications are far reaching.

Barthes Unlike Lévi-Strauss who believes in a universal structure of language, Barthes (1968) argues that there was no ultimate structure, but only systems of signs that create their own facts. In his own analysis, Barthes (1972) concludes that myths do not reveal the truth of the human condition, but are merely a form of ideological discourse that attempts to make cultural practices appear natural rather than as constructions. This is made possible by the idea that a sign is not simply a univocal relation of signifier and signified in a system of difference, but that the sign itself can become a signifier in a new “second-order” sign system, thus putting the meaning of a sign into play. The play of meaning is only fixed through ideological discourse that promotes certain sign systems at the expense of others (Barthes 1972). Addressing more specific cultural productions through the language of literary criticism, Barthes (1977) challenges the idea that the meaning of a text can be found in the author of a text or even in the text itself. He contends that the author is largely a modern invention instigated by the positivistic search for a definitive meaning of the text based on its source. Taking a more linguistic perspective, Barthes argues that it is language and not the author who speaks through a text. In addition, any meaning associated with a text does not exist within the text, but emerges in “. . . a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash” (146). Just as signs are based on their relationships in a sign system, the meaning of a text is based on its intertextual relationships to other texts (Eco 1985; Kristeva 1986; Orr 2003). Given that the meaning of a text is due to the indeterminate relations to other texts, Barthes considers all texts polysemic or open to multiple and even contradictory meanings and interpretations, with no definitive meaning possible (Culler 1975; Frye 1957; Scholes 1982). In fact, Barthes (1974) argues that the goal of “good” writing is not clarity and singularity of meaning, but ambiguity and plurality of meaning. As a result, Barthes (1977) argues that the meaning of a text is not based on the author or even the text, but on the reader, who interprets a text within various centers of culture.

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A major legacy of Barthes’ idea on CCT is the shift in locus of meaning from production to consumption, where it is argued that the meanings of consumption objects are determined not by how they are produced, but by how they are consumed within particular socio-cultural discourses (Firat and Venkatesh 1995). This approach to meaning is evident in the application of reader-response theory, which holds that meaning is constructed through the interaction of reader and text (i.e. in the reading process) based on the subjective interests of the reader, the sign structure of the text, and cultural context in which both are situated (Mick and Buhl 1992; Scott 1994a; McQuarrie and Mick 1999). While arguing that meaning is constrained by cultural conventions and expectations, this approach emphasizes the intertextual and polysemic aspects of meaning and argues that there is no “correct” reading of a text (Scott 1994a). In addition, Barthes’ ideas have been used to analyze the relationships between mythic structures and ideological discourses in the meaning-making process (Luedicke, Thompson, and Gieseler 2010; Thompson and Tian 2008), while indicating that the process is even more complex and dynamic than originally proposed (Zhao and Belk 2008). At the same time, this research stops short of directly challenging the assumptions underlying the structures and functions of these discourses. While Barthes (1977) championed the intertextual and polysemic aspects of meaning, these very concepts open a critical reading of Barthes himself. From a more CCT perspective, if we accept the argument that consumption is also production (Firat and Venkatesh 1995), then we must accept that the deficiencies of the production process are now an inherent part of the consumption process. In other words, if the consumer is now the producer (i.e. the reader is now the author) and meaning is generated in the interaction of consumer and product (i.e. reading is simultaneously writing), then the problems inherent in producing must also be inherent in consuming. That is, if the author is dead and the reader has now become the author, then the reader must be as dead as the author (Sandvoss 2007). To claim that one has superseded the other without manifesting the inherent difficulties of the other is untenable. Even if we grant the culturally situated nature of the reading process, reading is also destabilized as the potential meanings generated by reader-authors are re-read and re-written by other reader-authors through other cultural discourses in an endless process.

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Foucault Unlike Barthes (1977) who sought a neutral form of writing that was free of any ideological influence or fixed meaning, Foucault (1972) maintained that all meaning was situated within a heterogeneous matrix of ideological discourses. These discourses generate their own regimes of truth that normalize specific knowledge claims, which in turn govern how a society is organized and what is considered meaningful. As a result, Foucault (1980) viewed a direct connection between knowledge and power, as the matrix of discourses determine the “grid of intelligibility” and normative standards of society that exert control over people’s lives both externally and internally (e.g. the “care of the self”), which in turn reinforce and perpetuate a society’s power relationships. At the same time, these discourses are situated within broader epistemes (i.e. the total set of discursive, knowledge, and power relationships in a given historical period) that underlie the metaphysical and epistemological perspectives that govern how these discourses are interpreted and implemented (Foucault 1970). Although acts of resistance to specific discourses and meanings are possible due to conflicts and contradictions both within and among discourses, these acts of resistance are ultimately incorporated into the prevailing knowledge structures, thus making power more effective (Foucault 1980). As a result, knowledge and power are considered completely intertwined and mutually reinforcing. Foucault has been a major force in the application of poststructuralism in CCT research. Moving beyond the more unified socially constructed systems of meaning as proposed in structuralism, this research contends that consumption meanings are grounded in specific sociohistoric discourses and institutional relations that are heterogeneous, dynamic, and even conflicting (Holt 1997; Moisander et al. 2009; Thompson 2003). At the same time, this research argues that while specific meanings can be resisted, it is always done through alternative interpretations and meanings situated within countervailing ideological discourses (Thompson and Haytko 1997; Varman and Belk 2009). That is, there is not a privileged position that exists outside of ideological discourses, knowledge structures, or power relations. As Thompson (2004) concludes, although there are no meanings that stand outside of discourses of power, they are not dominated by a single discourse, but are structured by the relative relationships among discourses, thus allowing meanings to be resisted, contested, and altered. While much of the focus of poststructural CCT research is on how meaning is constructed and contested within discourses of power, it embraces the assumption that meaning, 19

knowledge, and power are ontological realities that are co-constituting forces of social reality. The argument is that it is impossible to escape this overall discursive matrix because that would imply escaping “reality” (Thompson 2000). At the same time, it is also argued that meaning and power are not monolithic, but are multiple, fragmented, and changing across time, thus allowing for a certain amount of “freedom” within the system. While this argument may avoid an essentialist problem, it creates a boundary problem in that arbitrary constraints need to be imposed upon this matrix in order for meaning and power to emerge. That is, in this view, meaning and power are based on the relationships among discourses. The problem is that such an assumption requires appeal to some extra-structural means to determine the specific discourses and relationships that underlie particular meanings and power structures. Making matters even more complex, this approach has been extended in CCT through the application of Actor Network Theory (ANT) (Law 2009) and its focus on the plethora of assemblages and their endless number of connections. Despite ANT’s attempt to account for the relational effects of everything in existence, the sheer number of idiosyncratic assemblages suggests that the convergence of meaning (as well as knowledge and power) is virtually impossible. From an alternative perspective, it is possible that these poststructural approaches to consumption meaning are confusing language (and even material structures) as a vehicle of discursive meaning with its function of providing stimuli for action (Crosby 1988). If we assume that language is not an end in itself (i.e. language is not simply an aesthetic form), but rather a means to an end (i.e. to facilitate human action), then our perspective on meaning radically changes. That is, if we accept that the function of language is to facilitate human action, then meanings (at least in the traditional sense of being normalized, shared, and understood) may not be a necessary condition for people to act. In fact, meanings can be completely absent as long as the particular type of action that language intends to facilitate occurs.

Derrida While both structuralism and poststructuralism assume that language can ultimately arrive at a convergent meaning, Derrida (1982) directly challenges this assumption by revealing how the structures of language actually undermine its very function. Based on his study of writing, Derrida (1976, 1978, 1981) finds this assumption of convergent meaning problematic for two reasons. First, he agrees with structuralism that all signs (i.e. the basic elements of 20

language and source of meaning) are fundamentally constituted not by what they are, but rather by what they are not. That is, the meaning of a sign (i.e. its presence) is based primarily on its difference from other signs (i.e. its absence) (Derrida 1976). From this perspective, signs exist as both presence and absence. Further, given the vast number of signs that any given sign is not, he argues that signs and their meanings are more absent than present. Second, extending this analysis through his concept of différance, Derrida (1982) contends that the meaning of a sign is not only based on its difference from all other signs, but that it is also endlessly deferred, since a signifier does not lead to a signified, which would complete the sign and lead to its presence, but instead leads to an endless string of other possible signifiers, highlighting the perpetual absence underlying all meaning. In the end, meaning can never be fully present or absent, but is instead endlessly deferred in the vast absence of language. To address this, Derrida (1978) developed the strategy of deconstruction to reveal both the presence and absence of language and, thus, the indeterminate nature of meaning. Relational differences in language are often depicted as binary oppositions such as male/female, nature/culture, and life/death (even Consumer Culture Theory/Behavioral Decision Theory). In order to achieve meaning, all forms of what Derrida (1976) labels “logocentricism” privilege one of the poles of the binary while subordinating the other. For example, Firat and Venkatesh (1995) do not deny the existence of modernism, they just relegate it to the subordinate pole of the binary in order to substantiate and elevate the meaning of post-modernism. Echoing both Barthes and Foucault, Derrida (1976) argues that this privileging of one of the poles is perceived as natural, but that it only masks the cultural manipulation of power. By reversing the binary, deconstruction unmasks this cultural manipulation to show that the opposite can be just as reasonably asserted. Deconstruction, though, does not stop here but goes one step further by showing how the binary oppositions break down and collapse into each other, as neither of the poles can maintain its own meaning without an appeal to the other. As Derrida (1982) argues, since both terms in the binary simultaneously rely on (presence) while denying each other (absence), the meaning of the terms cannot be found in one or the other, in both, or in neither -but nowhere at all. Within the CCT literature, deconstruction has been used primarily to subvert the accepted meaning attributed to particular consumption texts (i.e. its presences) by exploring their gaps, inconsistencies, and contradictions in order to expose their underlying absences (i.e. alternative 21

meanings not represented in the text) (Stern 1996a). This approach is often used to critique the dominant voices in consumer research in order to reveal the repressed voices and the politics of suppression (Kates 1999; Stern 1993; Visconti 2008). Although these researchers are clearly cognizant of the intricacies of deconstruction, their studies stop short of problematizing all voices and meanings and fully opening the space between presence and absence. This is evident in Stern’s (1996a) argument that the major implications of deconstruction for consumer research include subverting dominant modes of thought in order to establish subordinate perspectives, revealing and projecting silenced voices, and uncovering hidden assumptions and hierarchies underlying theory and practice. For Derrida (1976), the circulation of signs does not simply deny an ultimate meaning (e.g. transcendental signified), it denies the possibility of any fixed meaning at all (e.g. any signified). That is, rather than simply subvert a binary opposition by elevating the subordinate term over the dominant term (as in the CCT literature), deconstruction unhinges the binary altogether by revealing its inherent indeterminacy and undecidability (Stern 1996a). Rather than consider this a pessimistic conclusion, Derrida (1982) finds it quite liberating as it maintains that all interpretations are open-ended, infinite, and ultimately inconclusive. At the same time, this lack of fixed meaning still permits signs to produce various effects by engaging our longing for presences while maintaining the absences that allow this process to exist.

Deconstructive critique of meaning in CCT: Ambiguity and symbolic consumption The final step in our deconstructive strategy is not simply to offer “divergent interpretive possibilities” of meaning (Stern 1996a), but to “undo” the very possibility of meaning by exploring the différance in the double-edged words on which interpretations of meaning hinge (Derrida 1976). While the concept of meaning in CCT hinges on a variety of such double-edged words, we focus on the more recent examination of the concept of ambiguity and its relation to symbolic consumption (Brown et al. 2013, Denegri-Knott and Parsons 2014; Harrison et al. 2015). Research into ambiguity is not new, though it has been examined primarily as a rhetorical strategy that is used to influence consumer interpretation of advertisements (Ha and Hoch 1989; Kahn and Sarin 1988; Peracchio and Meyers-Levy 1994). In this case, ambiguity is not an inherent aspect of meaning that is somehow beyond our control, but quite the opposite, is considered as something that is identifiable, manipulable, and predictable (e.g. creating an ad 22

that simply asks a question versus one that provides an answer) (Hoch and Ha 1986). Unlike these studies which view ambiguity as a relatively straightforward (an unambiguous) phenomenon, current CCT research views it as something much more problematic. What makes ambiguity a key concept in our analysis of meaning is that it historically has two competing definitions. As Stern (1996a) argues, deconstruction focuses on words that have multiple or contradictory meanings in order to pry open gaps between signifier and signified to reveal the instability inherent in a text. For Derrida (1978), this instability is situated in the perpetual struggle between presence and absence, in which the desire for meaning based on a clear relation of signified and signifier (i.e. presence) is always undermined by relational differences that are endlessly deferred (i.e. absence). By utilizing the concepts of presence and absence, it is possible for us to describe two types of ambiguity. The first type, which we call ambiguity of presence, is ambiguity that exists due to a phenomenon that can be can be understood in two or more possible ways due to the indistinct and equivocal nature of sign systems. This type of ambiguity is based on the inherent difference of signs and the arbitrary relationship between signifier and signified. In this case, meanings are derivable from the particular discourse in which they are situated, but the existence of a variety of discourses means that multiple meanings are possible and must be negotiated in some fashion. The foremost theorist on the ambiguity of presence is the New Critic William Empson (19061984). Despite outlining seven different types of ambiguity, Empson (1947) contends that all of them are based on multiple, and clearly delineated, meanings that are ultimately resolved in three ways: 1) by acknowledging the different, though equally legitimate, discourses from which the various meanings derive, 2) by choosing one meaning over another by elevating one discourse and subordinating the other discourse to justify that meaning, or 3) by combining the different meanings and discourses into a coherent whole. Utilizing Empson in their study of the Titanic brand, Brown et al. (2013) generally refer to these three methods of dealing with ambiguity of presence as confusion, contradiction, and cumulation, respectively. In CCT literature, ambiguity is often approached as an example of the first type (i.e. confusion) via the argument that ambiguity is not an inherent property of texts/objects, but a problem of classification in which an object/text can be legitimately subsumed into different classification schemes that are presumed to be unambiguous, thus altering its meaning (Slater 2014; Ross 2014). Other scholars explore ambiguity in terms of incommensurate meanings (i.e. 23

contradiction) that are resolved by either choosing (or even alternating between) one meaning over another (Harrison et al. 2015) or by acknowledging the contradiction and deriving meaning by “reading between the lines” (Brown 2014). Lastly, it is argued that the value of ambiguity lies in its ability to mobilize forces to resolve the tensions that ambiguity produces in order to establish a new creative order (i.e. cumulation) (Denegri-Knott and Parsons 2014). In each of these cases, the meanings produced from the ambiguity of presence stimulate a variety of consumption practices from consumer resistance and creativity (Harwood and Garry 2014) to institutional and hierarchical civic redevelopment (Brown et al. 2013). Despite the various meanings that are generated via this type of ambiguity, all of them exhibit some form of presence. While it is true that these meanings are not considered absolute, fixed, or singular, but are conceptualized as relative, dynamic, and plural, this makes them no less identifiable and describable. In addition, while we agree that ambiguity is not the same as polysemy (Brown et al. 2013), ambiguity (of presence) is directly related to polysemy and could even be considered its cause. That is, ambiguity of presence lays the foundation for polysemy by allowing for, and even stimulating, multiple present meanings. For as Brown et al. (2013, 600) argue, the ambiguity surrounding the Titanic provides “something for everyone,” which clearly favors the generation of presences (something) rather than absences (nothing). A deconstructive reading might suggest that the everlasting appeal of Titanic lies in the fact that it offers nothing for anyone, which might have even more allusions to the gloominess of the entire affair. In fact, one could argue from a deconstructive position that this rhetorical position (i.e. something rather than nothing) is a way to deny ambiguity its own polysemic, and equivocal, meanings. Although ambiguity of presence dominates the CCT literature, it is possible to identify a completely different type of ambiguity, which we label ambiguity of absence. While ambiguity of presence is based on the inherent (spatial) differences in the relationship of signifier and signified within a sign system, ambiguity of absence is based on the endless (temporal) deferral of both the relationship between signifier and signified as well as the sign system itself. As a result, ambiguity of absence is ambiguity that exists due to a phenomenon that cannot be understood at all since both the phenomenon and the discourse that gives it meaning are endlessly deferred in the process of signification. In other words, in ambiguity of absence, meaninglessness prevails because both the sign and sign system in which it is situated are fundamentally indeterminate and undecidable (Stern 1996a). Although many scholars attempt to 24

stop this process and impose some type of order by appealing to extra-linguistic phenomenon (see Stern 1998), a deconstructive reading would argue this is merely another logocentric attempt to assert meaning via ambiguity of presence rather than to accept meaninglessness via ambiguity of absence. While one could counter that the very process of defining ambiguity of absence reveals the ability to stabilize the system (and elevate presence over absence), deconstruction would counter that this is mere appearance, since any definition is inscribed in the logocentric language of presence. As Derrida (1978, 280) writes, We have no language - no syntax and no lexicon - which is foreign to this history; we can pronounce not a single destructive proposition which has not already had to slip into the form, the logic, and the implicit postulations of precisely what it seeks to contest. While we fully acknowledge the contradictions in any definition that denies meaning, the fact that language can be used to contradict itself provides evidence for the instability of language and the ambiguity of absence on which it is based. Rather than end on what might seem like a somber note where meaning is forever absent (which could in turn be translated as some final presence), deconstruction goes one step further by showing how ambiguity of presence and absence rely on each other while simultaneously denying each other, thus creating a space in which the différance between the two is forever unresolved (Derrida 1979). What we encounter is a type of dialectical relationship between ambiguity of presence and ambiguity of absence that does not lead to the positive synthesis of Hegel (1977) or even the negative synthesis of Adorno (1973) (both of which favor presence over absence) or to some nihilistic void (which favors absence over presence) (Crosby 1988), but rather to a form of anti-synthesis where any interpretive act hovers between these two via the free play of language. To be clear, this is not the postmodern free play of multiple meanings in reproducible and perpetual presences (Firat and Venkatesh 1995), but the deconstructive free play in which meaning hovers in the irresolvable space (and time) between presence and absence (Derrida 1978). It is this dialectical anti-synthesis between presence and absence that lies at the heart of différance. As Derrida (1982, 13) writes: It is because of différance that the movement of signification is possible only if each socalled ‘present’ element, each element appearing on the scene of presence, is related to something other than itself, thereby keeping within itself the mark of the past element, and already letting itself be vitiated by the mark of its relation to the future element, this 25

trace being related no less to what is called the future than to what is called the past, and constituting what is called the present by means of this very relation to what it is not: what it absolutely is not, not even a past or a future as a modified present. An interval must separate the present from what it is not in order for the present to be itself, but this interval that constitutes it as present must, by the same token, divide the present in and of itself, thereby also dividing, along with the present, everything that is thought on the basis of the present. For Derrida, it is in the space between presence and absence, between meaning and meaninglessness, that the activity of existence takes place. From a CCT perspective, it is not meaning (or even meaninglessness) that drives and directs consumption activities and consumer behaviors, but the perpetual movement within the interval/space between meaning and meaninglessness, presence and absence, and even something and nothing. In fact, resolving the tension between the two would not lead to more multiple and dynamic consumption activities, but to oppressive inactivity and stagnation. From a broader cultural perspective, rather than view this endless process in a negative light, it can be viewed as quite liberating in that it provides us a means to transcend the hegemonic attempts to fix this process in determinate and unequivocal meanings by exposing the indeterminate and equivocal foundations on which all symbolic activities rest (Derrida 1978). We will now examine three exemplars to support the view that rather than be driven by meaning or meaninglessness, consumption often takes place in the space between the two. Digital fandom: Exemplars of “anti-synthetic” consumption In order to ground this theoretical discussion, we provide an empirical consideration of three exemplars of ambiguous consumption. Since the purpose of this paper is to engage in a deconstructive reading of symbolic consumption rather than provide a formal research study, the exploration of the exemplars is more suggestive than formulaic (Stern 1989). Also, while we contend that this particular reading can apply to all forms of cultural consumption, we focus primarily on the consumption of popular culture. This context was selected because popular culture is considered a type of symbolic consumption that directly addresses the meanings of a cultural text and provides and creates a space for consumers to co-create their own meanings (Brown et al. 2013; Kozinets 2001; Lanier and Schau 2007). This is especially true of “fans” of 26

popular culture, who are viewed as more committed than the average consumer to the meanings attached to popular texts (Hills 2002; Jenkins 1992; Sandvoss 2005). Historically, the creation of fan meanings occurred through physical media (e.g. fanzines, fan fiction, and fan art) and direct interactions among fans (e.g. conventions) (Coppa 2006). Today, many of these fan practices have moved online, suggesting that meaning has become the epicenter of fandom via these immaterial and virtual realms. Consequently, one of the best places to explore anti-synthetic consumption in popular culture is in the various forms of digital fandom (Booth 2010). Various digital platforms (e.g. blogs, wikis, and social networks) have not only created an infrastructure for the diffusion of fan meanings, but have also created a highly ambiguous space that calls these meanings into question (Lanier and Fowler 2013). Through the examination of three popular forms of digital fandom (i.e. online fan fiction, fan wikis, and fan/character personas), this section highlights the dialectical process of symbolic consumption by focusing on how these particular fan practices provide not only for the convergence, construction, and consolidation of meaning, but also for the potential deconstruction, destabilization, and disintegration of meaning in the free play of language. In the process, we demonstrate that consumers not only participate in the determinate and unequivocal meanings of ambiguity of presence, but also directly engage the indeterminate and equivocal meaninglessness of ambiguity of absence. The outcome of these consumption practices is not some ultimate synthesis, but a perpetual anti-synthesis that situates symbolic consumption somewhere between the either/or (Derrida 1982).

Online Fan Fiction As one of the earliest forms of fandom, fan fiction is the label given to original stories created by fans based on some aspect of a commercial media text (e.g. novel, movie, or television show) (Jenkins 1992). For example, fans have written both short stories and novels utilizing the characters, places, and plotlines of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Harry Potter (for examples, see Lanier and Schau 2007). While once limited in scope (Coppa 2006), the practice and popularity of fan fiction has exploded as it has migrated to the internet, primarily through websites that provide a blog-style platform (Booth 2010). Blogs (short for “web logs”) are a form of online self-publishing where the blog author (i.e. blogger) creates a series of sequential posts and provides a forum for readers to comment on the posts (Serfaty 2004). As blogs began to 27

become more specific and focused on specialized, subject-oriented topics, they became an ideal platform for fan fiction (Booth 2010; Cooper 2007; Jenkins 2006). Unlike social media platforms (e.g. Facebook and Twitter), blogs encourage lengthy prose, archival of entries, and deeper engagement from readers (Serfaty 2004). Blogging also facilitates several authors, even anonymous ones, to collaborate on and extensively develop a blog post (Arsel and Zhao 2013). More importantly, blogs provide a space (typically at the end of a post) for public reaction to the work, which creates a dialog between blogger and reader (Jenkins 2006). This author/reader exchange facilitates a reflexive and documented critique of the blog narrative, with roles constantly shifting as the author of the blog becomes a reader of visitors’ comments, and readers become authors through their comments (Booth 2010). The interest and excitement that can build results not only from the ongoing development and potential resolution of the issues within the storylines of the blog, but also from the critical analysis and exploration of the unresolvable tensions of the narrative. One of the most prominent websites of online fan fiction can be found in the blog-based community at Fanfiction.net. With tens of thousands of fan bloggers making good on the site’s call to “Unleash your Imagination,” over 2 million threads of fan-created content can be found spread across 18 vibrant communities organized by media type such as books, movies, comics, and TV shows. Notably, the site is organized by two broader types of fanfiction content: traditional and “crossover.” Whereas the former deals with situating stories within the conventional boundaries of a fictional world (e.g. the Star Wars universe), the latter explores the ambiguity involved in juxtaposing and/or amalgamating two or more otherwise separate worlds (e.g. Star Trek characters entering the Star Wars universe). As an example of one of these Fanfiction.net based communities, Star Wars alone has over 40,000 interactive stories (each containing numerous interactions and iterations among author-readers) that both conform to and challenge the meta-text (i.e. all of the stories associated with a particular media franchise) through additions, alterations, or exploitations of both the original work (i.e. canon) and other fan creations (i.e. fanon) (Jenkins 1992). Taking the central character of Luke Skywalker as a point of examination, over 1000 stories on the character exist, typically comprised of multi-part, serial entries by fan authors. Some of these stories attempt to address the ambiguity of presence by “fleshing out” or resolving existing issues in the saga (e.g. reflections in his personal journal, post-Return of the Jedi, where Luke tries to make sense out of 28

Han Solo’s romantic involvement with his sister, Princess Leia), while others often promote an ambiguity of absence by departing entirely from the motifs and plotlines of the meta-text by providing unresolvable scenarios and speculations (e.g. Luke considering all of the potentially positive and negative implications of this relationship). These particular stories do not attempt to create meaning by addressing issues left unresolved in the canon (or fanon), but actually seek to exacerbate these issues by undermining the meanings of the meta-text. This is accomplished via stories that often generate doubt, skepticism, frustration, and even angst over the meaning of the text for fans (particularly those who have invested their identities in clear and concise meanings of the meta-text) (e.g. Kozinets 2002), while other fans (particularly those who are less ego involved) truly enjoy the virtual meaninglessness that results from playing with the endless possibilities of such manipulations. For example, fans have created seemingly disrespectful (and even vulgar) jokes involving Luke (e.g. “Two men walk into a bar in Tatooine …”), developed storylines that actually undermine other fan’s identity-work by including Luke in the author’s actual life scenarios (e.g. “My friend Jimmy, wearing his usual Metallica t-shirt and torn jeans, walks up to Skywalker and asks him about his favorite bands”), and introduced unlikely or preposterous characters and situations that can never be resolved (e.g. reflections of Luke on his deathbed with the Grim Reaper). One particularly telling example occurs in a popular fan-created blog in the “Humor/Romance” sub-category (though it is really fully neither) entitled “Vader’s Kids,” which is comprised of a whopping 739,421 words across 156 chapters, that addresses the query: “Anyone think that Darth Vader’s kids were making a fool out of him? Let’s explore the Sith Lord’s relationship with his twins Luke and Leia Skywalker. How tough of a father is he, really?” As community members tell it, the story is “surreal” and “full of twists and surprises” and includes subplots such as reincarnated Anakin returning to build a Death Star with Luke (described as “Something he never got to do”) and an “It was all a dream” surprise ending. The enthusiasm, activity, and value of these types of stories comes not from “winning” the debates (and consequently seeming to reach some resolution of meaning which is never achieved on the blog), but rather from the ambivalent, equivocating, and prevaricating celebration and struggle over the meanings of what seems like “non-sense” in the storyline (from the perspective of both the canon and fanon as well as within the fan-created story itself). One fan sums up the thoughts of many of the other readers by commenting, with both frustration and awe, on the mix of 29

ambiguity presented by the work: “I am just trying to wrap my head around this chapter [#155]. It seems so different from the rest of the story. I almost felt like I stumbled into the ending of another story.” The excitement and consternation that is generated by this highly popular piece appears to come not so much from how the story resolves the issues of the meta-text (which it does not attempt to do – as one reviewer notes: “[Story is] funny, but this can’t be taken seriously”), but rather from how it manipulates its myriad possibilities, especially via literary tropes, juxtapositions, and absurdity (e.g. a reviewer notes: “I didn’t like this [manipulation of the meta-text] at first, but after a second read I’m liking the bizarre ending even more”). While it is true that some fan-authors deliberately seek to address the ambiguity of presence and attempt to construct meanings through their online fan fiction, and others utilize the process to explore the ambiguity of absence and highlight the meaninglessness within a metatext, the very structure and function of online fan fiction exposes the anti-synthetic dialectical process in this particular form of symbolic consumption. Unlike traditional fan fiction, which was typically distributed at fan conventions as a finished product (Coppa 2006), online fan fiction is fragmented across blog posts, suggesting that meaning is always partially unresolved, with many stories left unfinished, hinting at the ultimate irresolvability of meaning. This is evident not only in blogs by fan-authors invested in ambiguity of absence, but also by those invested in ambiguity of presence, as they realize that any resolution of the issues of a story into definitive meanings is an impossible task as these meanings are always open to critique and deconstruction by community members. Whether confused, irritated, or inspired by the unresolved issues and possibilities of the new narratives, other fans often respond beyond the blog-posts by considering them “jumping off points” for part or all of their own stories. This suggests that the ambiguity of presence and ambiguity of absence often feed off each other and create an endless anti-synthetic play that excites and perpetuates these fan activities.

Fan Wikis Unlike fan fiction, which originated offline and has a considerable history prior to the emergence of digital fandom, fan wikis are inherently an online phenomena in which fans consolidate, archive, and link information about a commercial media text on a dedicated website (Mittell 2009). Whereas blogs typically develop content in an essentially linear manner (i.e. originating as a single post on a specific topic and followed by related contributions via replies in 30

a structured thread), wiki technology provides for the decidedly non-linear provision of content through the hyperlinking of text both inwardly to other pages within the wiki and outwardly to other web content (Booth 2010). In addition, wikis go further than blogs by emphasizing the collaborative creation of content by a multitude of users (who create, examine, edit, and remove content) across a variety of types of media (e.g. words, images, and videos), thus providing for the ultimate “transmedia” fandom platform for classifying, modifying, and subverting aspects of a meta-text (Jenkins 2006). Given the dynamic and interactive nature of wikis, content is never stable, but is constantly in a state of flux as wiki users develop, debate over, and delete material in a perpetual process (Mittell 2009). Consequently, the information and meanings associated with a particular wiki are inherently decentered and dispersed through a virtually endless network (Landow 1994). Given its immense popularity, it probably comes as no surprise that one of the largest fan-based wikis is based on the Star Wars universe. Wookieepedia, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2015, experiences updates nearly every 5 minutes and has over 128,000 usergenerated pages of content (e.g. characters, worlds, and technology), almost double that number of “Talk” pages (where internal debates are waged by wiki developers over content pages), over 5000 community forums (where external discussions by wiki users over the meanings of content pages take place), and more than 50,000 images and other multimedia assets that serve as resources for these various activities – all managed by over 350,000 fans. Focusing again on Luke Skywalker as an example, the character’s main wiki entry includes a plethora of information such as his age (measured in Birth Years, a fan-generated time scale germane to the Star Wars universe), family tree and constellation of relationships (including childhood friend and fellow X-Wing pilot Biggs Darklighter and brief romantic fling with pilot Nakari Kelen), personality traits (“reckless but idealistic”), and nickname (young Luke was known as “Wormie” by his friends on Tatooine). While “factual” information about Luke is drawn from the canon (i.e. official sources), other “fictive” information, which as evidenced by quality and quantity of community reactions is apparently very exciting, is based on the fanon (i.e. unofficial fan sources) (e.g. his first encounter with Obi-Wan Kenobi, who saved Luke and his friend Windy from a Krayt dragon at age 12, as per a fan-created Korean web comic). Notably, “openness” to interpretation and abandonment of authority can be found in the constantly fluid, and often contentious, nature of each wiki page and its related hypertext. For example, although Luke’s 31

page is divided into two categories (“canon” versus “legends”) in an attempt to control the meanings attached to Luke by distinguishing “fact” from “fiction,” which itself is somewhat ironic for a fictional character, the over 300 interconnected hyperlinks to other entries both within and outside of the wiki suggest that this attempt is virtually impossible. While it is possible to argue that fan wikis provide the ultimate means of resolving the ambiguity of presence by codifying and enumerating every possible meaning associated with a meta-text, it could also be argued that they are the epitome of ambiguity of absence in that they open up “interruptive” versus “encyclopedic” possibilities (Bennington 2005). That is, despite its seemingly all-inclusive nature, one cannot read an entire wiki or even follow a prescribed path due to the structural openness and dynamic content of a wiki. Instead, readers often just get swept along to places that they were not intending to go and perhaps did not even imagine existed. For example, from the Luke Skywalker home page, one could just as easily find themselves in unexplored aspects of Tatooine (Luke’s home planet) as they could in the detailed lives of various Padawans (i.e. students) of other Jedi masters. By their very nature, fan wikis do not represent a single text, but a multitude of texts that have been dissected, dislocated, and dispersed across a never-ending universe of information. As a result, they provide consumers the opportunity to foray into a medium that invites both the accretion (presence) and fragmentation (absence) of meanings of a meta-text. For example, while one could argue that they have a better understanding of Luke Skywalker through the combination of bits and pieces of information spread across the Star Wars universe (i.e. thus managing the ambiguity of presence), others could use this same information to point out the inconsistencies and contradictions in his character (i.e. revealing the ambiguity of absence) that never seem to get rectified. The idea that the wiki will ultimately reach some point where all of the problems of meaning get resolved is an example of logocentric thinking that does not bear any resemblance to the anti-synthetic struggle between presence and absence in the actual fan practices that constitute the wiki or in the very structure of the wiki itself. The unresolvable tensions of fan wikis are evident in the fact that they are utilized as an outlet for speculation (which results in very popular sections of most fan wikis) concerning the meta-text (e.g. fans propose future story arcs and provide alternative readings of past story arcs). This in turn becomes an archive of conditional and unresolved textual possibilities and a potential threat to any normalized meaning (Booth 2010). For example, there is already rampant 32

speculation on the wiki about the fate of Luke Skywalker in the next movie (Star Wars VIII) based on events in the previous movie and comments by Mark Hamill (the actor who plays Luke). As a result, the presence of this speculation requires a very selective reading strategy if one is to try to maintain a normalized meaning across the various wiki hyperlinks. Add to this the normal editing of content from collective additions and deletions, and any attempt at normalized meaning is further destabilized as its foundations never remain the same. Thus, for every possible meaning that can be created, the speculative and dynamic aspects of the wiki constantly challenge and subvert this meaning. Consequently, as the ever-expanding presence of (complementary and conflicting) information confronts an inherent absence of any (definitive) structure and function of a wiki, the reader is left with a dialectical anti-synthesis in which their experience of the wiki is always conditional and incomplete. For many, though, this appears to be the appeal of the wiki and what keeps them engaged in the digital fan practice (Mittell 2009).

Fan-Character Personas The ambiguity of meaning (both present and absent) and its exploitation by fans in popular culture is also present on social network sites (SNS) (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace). Building on the functionality of blogs to post content as well as wikis to collaborate in a system of limitless hypertext connections, SNS add an emphasis on the construction of a public profile and the management of this profile among a group of other users (Boyd and Ellison 2007). While blogs and wikis focus primarily on the production of text, SNS deliberately focus attention on the production of author (and generation of reader) (Schau and Gilly 2003). As part of this process, SNS require authors to assume and present a virtual identity and to integrate a “lifestream” around that identity (e.g. images, descriptions, daily diaries, and networks of friends) (Sunden 2003). While this might suggest that SNS are all about promoting meaning (i.e. a profile requires the deliberate selection and presentation of content), a profile is based as much on what is present as it is on what is absent, thus extending the anti-synthetic dialectical tension of presence and absence, as well as meaning and meaninglessness, to the notion of identity. Seeing the potential of this digital technology to extend their fan practices, fans utilize SNS not only to establish their own personal identity to discuss and develop content around a particular meta-text (e.g. Jane Doe’s discussion of Star Wars), but they also use these sites to create personas of their favorite media characters (e.g. Jane Doe’s being Darth Vader, Luke 33

Skywalker, and Princess Leia) and interact with others as if they were the actual character (Booth 2010). Interestingly, in the pre-digital world, it was often considered inappropriate to interject yourself into a story (i.e. “self-insert fic”) or even worse, to take on the role of a particular media character (Jenkins 1992). In the digital world, though, these lines have become extremely blurred as SNS users not only embed themselves in the story arc of a meta-text, but also assume the identity of a particular character, complete with avatar, demographic information, and an ecosphere of friends (Roiphe 2010). In addition, unlike the critical feedback loop of blogs or the vetting procedure in fan wikis, no real authentication process exists to regulate a fan’s use of a media character or the particular identities that are generated (Jamar 2012). As a result, multiple, and often conflicting, profiles can be created for the same character. At the time of this writing, there were no less than ten Luke Skywalkers on Facebook (including a Red Five Luke Skywalker (the X-Wing Pilot), a Master Jedi Luke Skywalker, an elder Luke Skywalker, and several “romantically involved” Luke Skywalkers), with nearly half a million “Likes” and related pieces of content amongst them. SNS facilitate the dialectical relationship between the ambiguity of presence and absence as well as highlight the dialectical tension between meaning and meaninglessness by providing a venue for exploring virtually limitless manipulation of an amorphous persona. To begin with, the identity of the persona is inherently ambiguous (both present and absent) as it will always be an amalgamation of the fan and the character, while at the same time being neither of them. While it may be possible to stabilize the persona by designating it a new form of “virtually real” creation (Denegri-Knott and Molesworth 2010), there is no way to disambiguate this identity fully or to subsume one identity into another. The meaning of the character and the person behind it will always remain irreconcilable. Contributing further to this obfuscation, digital technology allows multiple fans to create and edit a single online persona, making the identity of the fans and the persona even more fluid and ambiguous. More importantly, fan-character personas are “built up” not simply by the fans who assume the roles themselves, but also (if not more so) by the contributions and contestations of their interconnected network of “friends.” Even if the goal of the fan-author is to normalize his/her particular meaning of the character (i.e. resolve the ambiguity of presence), there is always the possibility (and in many cases the strong likelihood) that these meanings will be undermined by the interpretation of their “friends,” for the same reason that they do not know 34

exactly who they are addressing. In fact, one could argue that it is the ability to engage what is both present and absent in the persona and play along with the charade (especially in the sense of trying to reveal what cannot be said) that makes these profiles interesting and popular. That is, the very act by fans of assuming the identities of and interacting as their favorite characters destabilizes both the meaning and identity of the character in the first place (which may explain the pre-digital prohibition of such practices as fans attempted to carve out a legitimate space for their activities), which in turn spurs on their “friends” to continue the process, ultimately exploding meaning and identity altogether and leaving them in a free play of opposites. In addition, these profiles also pit meaning and meaninglessness against each other by allowing the fan-character to enact both role-appropriate and role-inappropriate behavior within the ecosphere of a SNS. For example, a fan assuming the role of Luke Skywalker could post status updates to the character’s Facebook wall indicating ongoing allegiance to the Jedi order (role appropriate behavior) while also indicating that he has followed his father’s footsteps and has given himself over to the dark side of the force (role inappropriate behavior). This fanon meaning of a Sith Jedi is incommensurable and meaningless in the official Star Wars canon, which sets up an interesting juxtaposition that can be played out in the SNS. In fact, a review of the personas suggests that most fans are not content with just maintaining the established meaning of the character (which has already been compromised by assuming the character in the first place), but prefer to manipulate the identity by adding both expected and unexpected twists to an ongoing community-based narrative that simultaneously extends, challenges, and abandons the meta-text. In the end, the appeal of fan-character personas often seems to lie in the tacking back and forth between the ambiguity of presence and ambiguity of absence through both the acceptance and rejection of this ambiguity by both the fans and their circle of friends. As a case in point, as SNS have recently cracked down on fictional personas (via “Real Names Policies”) in their hyper-logocentric quest to resolve the ambiguity of presence of their “big data” (Budnitz 2015), fans have responded by creating their own space to engage ambiguity of absence with fan texts. For example, one of the most popular areas of Wookieepedia is a forum/roleplay venue whereby participants are encouraged to join a world “unhindered by the canon” in a universe that is set “really far, far away!”

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Discussion From our deconstruction of symbolic consumption, it is evident that meaning is not the only, or even the most important, driver of consumption practices, but that meaninglessness also plays a role in the process. This critical analysis does not stop here, though, but goes on to show how meaning and meaninglessness exist in a dialectical relationship that leads to the displacement of both and creates an irresolvable tension. That is, the analysis does not attempt to displace meaning in favor of some other phenomenon, but attempts to reveal, or provide a “trace” of (Derrida 1982), what has been left unsaid about this concept and ultimately all concepts. If meaning is going to figure into our understanding of consumption, then we believe that it is important to provide a deeper understanding of how this concept operates. While critics might argue that the CCT literature has provided this deeper understanding by not solely focusing on meaning, but also on other phenomena such as myths, rituals, taboos, and identities that drive consumption (Belk 1988; McCracken 1986; Rook 1985; Thompson, 2004), most socio-cultural theorists contend that all of these phenomena are fundamentally based on meaning (Denzin 1992; Geertz 1973; Turner 1969). As Douglas and Isherwood (1979, 43) write, “The main problem of social life is to pin down meanings so that they stay still for a little time. Without some conventional ways of selecting and fixing agreed meanings, the minimum consensual basis of society is missing. As for tribal society, so too for us: rituals serve to contain the drift of meanings. Rituals are conventions that set up visible public definitions.” While others might argue that consumption practices are also grounded in various materialities (Miller 1987) or even temporalities (Cova, Maclaran, and Bradshaw 2013), most socio-cultural theorists argue that the effects of these material objects and temporal conditions are based on the interpretations and social meanings attributed to them (Douglas and Isherwood 1979). In spite of all the possible alternative explanations for consumption, we contend that they all rest not only on meaning, but also on the broader metaphysics of presence (Derrida 1976). That is, all of these explanations posit that something drives consumption (no matter how heterogeneous, dynamic or fragmented it might be), and virtually ignore explorations of nothing. In fact, most researchers are quick to denounce any consideration of nothing by associating it with nihilism and warn against the dangers of such studies (Anderson 1986; Hunt 1991; Stern 1998). Even here, critics might argue that nothing has been thoroughly explored and explicated in CCT, for example, in the deep and enduring stream of literature on death (Bonsu and Belk 36

2003; Turley 2005; Rindfleisch, Burroughs, and Wong 2009). While this literature may get close to exploring nothing, it still turns its attention to something and the various ways that consumers cope with and instantiate death. In fact, death itself is posited as something that directs consumers’ behaviors and consumption practices. In this context, we contend that if one were to truly examine nothing, one would not take death as the unit of analysis, but the nebulous space between life and death (Derrida 1994). In our exemplars, we provide a glimpse of how nothing is manifest in consumption practices by exploring the dialectical tension between ambiguity of presence and ambiguity of absence. In all three forms of digital fandom, consumers are not attempting to release the alleged horrors of nihilism upon the world, but actually revel in and exploit the lack of any clear meaning in the fan practices. For example, in online fan fiction, its serial and iterative nature allows the proposed meaning of each posted chapter to be discussed, debated, and even debased through the author-reader/reader-author dialog, which does not simply affect the meanings of subsequent chapters, but often leads to the alteration of the original chapter, leaving any understanding of the story completely displaced and hovering between meaning and meaninglessness. Likewise, in fan wikis, its inherent non-linearity and arbitrariness suggest that any attempt to locate meaning in the wiki is a futile task. In true deconstructive fashion, there is no beginning or end to a wiki, and one simply begins where one starts and ends where one stops (Derrida 1976). Even if you could retrace your path through a wiki, given its dynamic nature of constant updates, modifications, and deletions, this path would never be the same, suggesting that meaning is both present and absent. While some fans certainly find this frustrating, others appear to find it intriguing and a distinguishing feature of wikis. Lastly, while one could argue that fan-character personas are clearly present on SNS, one could also argue that they are inherently absent because what is presented is never clear as the relationship between fan and character that constitute the persona exists in a perpetual tension that can never be fixed. One can never tell exactly where the fan leaves off and the character begins. It appears that it is both the presence and the absence of meaning that make the persona so appealing to fans. While we utilized different types of fandom to situate our deconstructive criticism of symbolic consumption and our exploration of nothing, it is possible to extend this criticism to other forms of consumption. For example, it is not much of a leap to see how the implications of these three types of fandom extrapolate to the broader consumption of blogs, wikis, and SNS 37

profiles. Anyone who has read a news story online and the accompanying responses quickly notices how the discussion devolves into intellectual free-for-all as the story is criticized from every angle possible. The ever expansive and changing nature of fan wikis is still relatively myopic compared to the universal scope of more comprehensive wikis (e.g. Wikipedia) or to knowledge generation in general. The amount of information that consumers face today suggests that any understanding is always incomplete, indeterminate, and undecidable. Likewise, for those who actually know the person behind a SNS profile, the “creative editing” of presence and absence (i.e. what is and what is not included) usually becomes obvious. With the knowledge that everyone does this, this play of presence and absence becomes the accepted norm of SNS. Beyond the digital world, it is possible to extend this analysis to other forms of symbolic consumption such as fashion. For example, the infinite number of resources available (e.g. material, informational, and social) makes it virtually impossible to achieve any definitive fashion statement, especially one that withstands the critical gaze (cf. Lanier and Rader 2015). No matter what context we may explore, admittedly, nothing is not an easy thing to study or discuss. As Derrida (1976; 1978; 1982) was clearly aware, any attempt to describe it is doomed to failure as this would attempt to make nothing into something and deny its very nature. As Derrida (1982) argues, the problem is that there is no language to describe nothing. In fact, language is the problem in that it is fundamentally geared towards the production of something. At the same time, language also provides the solution to this paradox in that while its function is to produce meaning, its very structure of difference and deference makes achieving this function impossible (Derrida 1978). Consequently, nothing cannot be found in the function of language, but exists in its structure and its inability to ultimately fulfill its function. It is this inability of language to fulfill its function that is captured in the idea of the dialectical anti-synthesis that is utilized in this paper. In this case, anti-synthesis encompasses the free play of ambiguity of presence and ambiguity of absence that does not lead to a Hegelian synthesis, but to the irreconcilable differences and deferral of the two (Derrida 1982). For example, online fan fiction, fan wikis, and fan-character personas never lead to some agreed upon or identifiable meaning, which incidentally would close off the process, but swirl around in the nebulous space between meaning and meaninglessness leaving the process perpetually open.

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Implications Clearly, this interrogation of meaning has profound implications for CCT, which stakes its claim on the presence of meaning and all of its related concepts (Thompson et al. 2013). For once one throws the concept of meaning into question, everything else loses its footing and precariously teeters on the edge of the precipice. The critical reaction to this unsettling situation is to argue that this deconstruction of meaning is merely a language game itself and does not reflect the deeper grounding of meaning in social reality (Foucault 2009). In this case, meaning is postulated as an obvious and unquestionable aspect of cultural existence. But as much as it seems to be beyond question, we are quickly reminded that the same type of argument was used by the positivists to defend the concepts of reality and truth (Hunt 1983). For many, reality and truth are beyond any doubt, but these ideas were clearly challenged (Anderson 1986), with the alternative “post-positivist” paradigm laying the foundation for CCT (Hudson and Ozanne 1988). In fact, one could even trace the deconstruction of meaning not to some positivistic rebuttal of CCT, but to CCT’s own genealogical discourse. As we have documented in this paper, CCT has moved through the view of singularized meanings of author-producer, to negotiated meanings of text/products, to polysemic meanings of reader-consumers, to fragmented social meanings across various cultural discourses, to infinitely dispersed meanings across the virtually endless assemblages in which objects are situated. At each stage, meaning has become less certain and more open to the ravages of an unstable and unresolvable dialectical process. A major implication of this questioning of the concept of meaning is that it also throws the concept of culture into question. For the symbolic enterprise of culture cannot exist without some agreed upon meanings, no matter how heterogeneous and dynamic, which are in turn reinforced through cultural myths, rituals, and taboos (Douglas and Isherwood, 1979). This coconstructive and mutually reinforcing system is clearly dependent upon the presence of each of these concepts. But once we inject absence into this question, we must acknowledge that which is not culture (as well as that which is not myth, ritual, or taboo) as part of this process. That is, if we accept that culture hovers between meaning and meaninglessness, then we must also accept that culture is both present and absent. Basically, what we are left with is not simply a set of competing somethings (i.e. competing cultural discourses), but the irreconcilable clash between something and nothing (i.e. culture and non-culture). In addition, this clash between something and nothing also takes us beyond the contradictions of cultural discourses (Thompson and 39

Haytko 1997) by showing that they cannot spring from culture itself (otherwise there would be no contradiction), but must come from that which is other than culture. In the end, culture and meaning are merely poles of a deeper binary that exist in a perpetual anti-synthetic dialectical struggle of presence and absence with that which is not culture and not meaning. Ultimately, we must admit that just as concepts like reality and truth could not fully capture the broad spectrum of existence, concepts like meaning and culture are also limited to a vision of existence as presence without absence. For as Derrida (1982) argues, without acknowledging absence, all understanding of presence remains incomplete. Similarly, a second implication of the deconstruction of meaning is that it also calls into question the concept of power. Power is an inherent aspect of meaning in that all meanings exist through the act of inclusion and exclusion, which establishes a power relation that in turn reinforces the meaning (Foucault 1980). Based on the concept of structural difference, meanings are as much, if not more so, about what they are not than what they are. That is, meanings must exclude all other competing meanings in order to reach a particular meaning (e.g. CCT is not BDT). As such, power relations are inherent in any meaning. As both the structuralists and poststructuralists contend, without any recourse to notions of truth, meanings become ideological discourses embedded (though often hidden) in power relations (Barthes 1972; Foucault 1980). By introducing meaningless into the mix, the concept of power becomes somewhat problematic as the domain of power is presence rather than absence. That is, power has to rule over something; for power over nothing is no power at all. In fact, the historical quest of CCT to locate the nexus of meaning is also a quest of locating the nexus of power. And while many studies examine if and how consumers can utilize market resources to “escape” these power relations (Firat and Venkatesh 1995; Holt 2002; Kozinets 2002), others argue that this is an impossible task because all meaningful activities are situated within discourses of power (Thompson 2004). Consequently, by adhering to the presence (versus absence) of meaning, CCT tacitly, if not directly, promotes power relations as the co-constituting force of social reality. In fact, one could argue that the purported inability of humans to transcend the hegemonic logic of capitalism is not due to persistence of modernity and markets, but to the persistent and singular focus on the presence of meaning (Cova et al. 2013). The way out of this situation is unlikely to be found in harkening back to some ultimate utopian presence, but by acknowledging and exploring the absence that lurks behind these various structures and processes. Meaninglessness, 40

and the nothingness that lies beyond it, allows us to disrupt power relations by highlighting the inherent absence of all cultural discourses on which they are based.

Conclusion In closing, one wonders where this analysis leaves CCT and where it might venture into the future. Currently, CCT is focused primarily on ambiguity of presence based on its purported purpose to describe historically situated cultural discourses, symbolic meanings, and power relations (Thompson et al 2013). Unfortunately, this approach only provides part of the picture, or at least that part of the picture that can be seen. In keeping with this visual metaphor, ironically, by claiming to address both figure and ground, center and periphery, and positive and negative space (Pracejus, Olsen and O’Guinn 2006; Scott 1994b; Thompson et al. 1989), CCT has ignored what cannot be seen and in the process denied anything that is truly other. Everything is accounted for, in some shape or form, in the CCT heteroglossia. In fact, it is the plurality of approaches and relative stances at the heart of CCT that permits nothing to escape its purview. In the rhetorical style of Derrida, the double entendre in the last sentence gets to the very heart of the matter. That is, while nothing (i.e. no thing) can escape the gaze of CCT, nothing (itself) has escaped because it can never be contained in any theoretics, no matter how heterglot. As a result, rather than attempt to reduce every aspect of consumption to some type of presence (no matter how heterogeneous, dynamic, or relativistic), it may be time to consider the idea that consumption is not a presence at all, but is itself an anti-synthetic divergent practice that takes places somewhere between presence and absence. In the end, consumption is not to be found in either functions or symbols, but lies somewhere in the nebulous time and space between something and nothing. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the editor, Jonathan Schroeder, and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable insights and constructive feedback throughout the development of this article. We would also like to thank our families for their understanding and support during this process.

Disclosure Statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. 41

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