Qualitative Literary and Media Interaction Research

Two-fold concept

The (inter-)action theoretical foundation thus demands to adopt a twofold understanding of culture studies’ object matter: On the one hand literature, film, and the media can be conceived of descriptively and text-logically as semiotic manifestations. In this respect one may describe "the works" in their structure and contents, and map them historically, also in their inter-textual references to other "works".

On the other hand "the works" can be reconstructed in their mental and biographical functions for the people, who create and/or read them. In this second respect the texts are analysed as intentional acts of aesthetic (media) interaction, which are situated in the context of a mental author-text-reader-relationship and which are inspired by the personal and historical experiences of the participating individuals.

Thus, the "works" are "dialogue" and "conversation" not only in a merely metaphorical sense; and this has methodological implications also for the text analysis (and not only and self-evidently for empirical interaction analysis). In any event, this twofold understanding of the culture studies’ object matter offers an opportunity to respond to a recommendation which has been frequently given to the humanities which is: "to be both a text-logical and an interaction-logical discipline", as Martin Seel puts it in his contribution to the humanities debate of the year 2004.
[Empirisch gestützte psychoanalytische Literaturforschung (2006c), Der Mensch – ein Homo Narrator (2006e), Geisteswissenschaften und Psychologie (2008l)]