Qualitative Market Research: An International JournalEmerald Article: YouTube: an opportunity for consumer narrative analysis?Stefano Pace

Article information:

To cite this document: Stefano Pace, (2008),"YouTube: an opportunity for consumer narrative analysis?", Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 11 Iss: 2 pp. 213 - 226

Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13522750810864459

Downloaded on: 09-08-2012

References: This document contains references to 44 other documents

To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

This document has been downloaded 3745 times since 2008. *

Users who downloaded this Article also downloaded: *

Laura C. Engel, John Holford, Helena Pimlott-Wilson, (2010),"Effectiveness, inequality and ethos in three English schools", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 30 Iss: 3 pp. 140 - 154http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01443331011033337

Aryati Bakri, Peter Willett, (2011),"Computer science research in Malaysia: a bibliometric analysis", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 63 Iss: 2 pp. 321 - 335http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00012531111135727

Sandrine Roginsky, Sally Shortall, (2009),"Civil society as a contested field of meanings", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 29 Iss: 9 pp. 473 - 487http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01443330910986261

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by STAFFORDSHIRE UNIVERSITY

For Authors: If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service. Information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.

About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comWith over forty years' experience, Emerald Group Publishing is a leading independent publisher of global research with impact in business, society, public policy and education. In total, Emerald publishes over 275 journals and more than 130 book series, as well as an extensive range of online products and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.

*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

YouTube: an opportunity forconsumer narrative analysis?

Stefano PaceUniversita Bocconi, Milano, Italy

Abstract

Purpose – The aim of the paper is to discuss a possible extension of narrative analysis to a newmedium of expression of consumer behaviour, specifically YouTube.

Design/methodology/approach – Marketing and consumer behaviour studies often applynarrative analysis to understand consumption. The consumer is a source of introspective narrativesthat are studied by scholars. However, consumption has a narrative nature in itself and consumers arealso storytellers. YouTube is a new context in which subjects tell stories to an audience throughself-made videos and re-edited TV programs. After defining the pros and cons of different approaches tothe study of YouTube, narrative analysis is presented as a possible means of understanding YouTube.

Findings – Some preliminary evidence is presented by discussing several YouTube videos. Theseindicate that YouTube content can be better understood as stories, rather than example of otherapproaches, such as visual analysis, media studies, videography, and others.

Research limitations/implications – From the analysis conducted, preliminary managerialimplications can be drawn. It seems unlikely that normal TV broadcasters will be substituted byYouTube videos. For the most part, YouTube content draws its sense and shared meaning from themajor TV shows and series. The discursive nature of YouTube is also an indication of how to dealwith this new medium as a company or researcher.

Originality/value – The paper is an attempt to open up new applications of interpretive marketresearch in the form of narrative analysis. It explores a new context that is gaining relevance in boththe marketing literature and managerial practice.

Keywords Video, Mass media, Narratives, Consumer behaviour, Storytelling,Marketing communications

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionNoah took a photo of himself every day . . . for six years . . . Then he put the pictures ina mesmerizing sequence and uploaded the video onto YouTube. Noah was one of thecandidates of the 2006 YouTube Awards. What lies behind this behaviour? Whatmethod can be applied to understand the YouTube phenomenon? What happens whenvideos refer to brands and consumption?

Consumers live in a narrative world in which stories are told and they write theirown stories through deeds of consumption. In this sense, consumption is a narrativeact, a conclusion which can be drawn from the current marketing and consumptionliterature (Hopkinson and Hogarth-Scott, 2007; Shankar et al., 2001; Shankar andGoulding, 2001). Marketing scholars have acquired an awareness of the relevance ofnarrative and narrative analysis applied to consumption and to marketing decisions.Branding, communication and consumption itself have been studied as narrative acts.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/1352-2752.htm

The author is grateful to Dr Brian Bloch for his comprehensive editing of the manuscript.

Consumernarrativeanalysis

213

Qualitative Market Research: AnInternational Journal

Vol. 11 No. 2, 2008pp. 213-226

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited1352-2752

DOI 10.1108/13522750810864459

We can currently observe a new field for the evolution of narrative analysis andnarrative expression in consumption: YouTube.

YouTube is a rich repository of information and insights regarding markets andconsumption. The aim of the paper is to contribute to a debate regarding the methods tostudy this new medium. How to extract knowledge about consumers from YouTube?That knowledge is embedded in the videos posted by consumers. Qualitative analysiscan help to extract this knowledge. In particular, narrative analysis seems an interestingmethod to explore, due to the narrative nature of YouTube. The paper tries to contributeto the advancement of qualitative market research by exploring the application of thenarrative approach to this new field.

Narrative and consumptionNarrative can be considered in a continuum from an ontological perspective, accordingto which “everything” is narrative, to a tool to understand specific marketing features(such as advertisements or brands). The first end of that continuum is probably to muchwide to be operationally sound. The other end may limit the use of narrative analysis tofew applications. The aim of this section is to define the boundaries of narrative analysis,by illustrating how narrative can be found in some aspects of consumption andmarketing.

The relevance of narrative analysis within marketing and consumption studies hasbeen considered by many researchers (Grayson, 1997; Shankar et al., 2001; Shankarand Goulding, 2001). Shankar et al. (2001) suggest a narrative paradigm to understandconsumption.

Narrative has a double nature: functional and ontological. As to the former,narrative is conceptualized as a heuristic function. Narrative is a tool through whichthe researcher is able to analyze and understand consumption:

Following the footsteps of Gadamer, Ricoeur suggested that all behaviour, and byextrapolation our consumption behaviour too, could be interpreted as a text and thereforecould be subjected to a hermeneutic analysis (Shankar et al., 2001, p. 441).

Narrative can be considered ontologically as the very essence of human behaviour,including consumption behaviour. As human beings, we organize our knowledge andeven emotions, in a narrative form. Our memory stores facts using a narrative frame.Cognition is a means of giving meaning to the events of life and narrative is a structureand function to create those meanings. Narrative is not a subjective act: language - onwhich narrative is based – is determined socially through discourse. Hence, byconsidering human behaviour as narrative in nature, in this current paper we alsointroduce a social dimension. Meaning cannot be totally individualistic, but is sharedand created in the daily social agora, the public discourse where meanings are created.Completely personal meanings could be considered as close to madness, that is, amonologue not understandable by society.

Narrative and literary criticism is presently a field of interest for marketingscholars. The relevant literature should be considered by marketing scholars for tworeasons. First, one it is possible that novels can provide insights about consumptionmore effectively than research reports or scholarly surveys (Brown, 2005a). Does awriter known consumers better then marketing researchers? Sometimes, a novelistforecasts trends and future marketing practices more accurately than consultants

QMRIJ11,2

214

(Brown, 2005a). William Gibson, for instance, in his 1984 novel “Neuromancer,”forecasted human-machine interactions and networks that were a literary rendition ofthe coming age of the internet. Literary descriptions of consumers are often more vividand insightful than scientific pieces. Second, marketing is a form of narrative (Brown,2005a, b; Hopkinson and Hogarth-Scott, 2007): “the research endeavour is itself an actof storymaking and storytelling” (Hopkinson and Hogarth-Scott, 2007, p. 158). Articlesare pieces of narration with a scientific rigour. The personal style of scholarly authorsimpacts on the development of the discipline (Brown, 2005b). Hence, marketingscholars can draw inspiration and assistance from literature and literary criticism(Patterson and Brown, 2005).

The use of narrative can easily be seen in advertising and communication ingeneral. It is common knowledge that many advertisements have a plot that makethem a form of modern tale, with a problem finally solved by a hero, that is, the productor brand. It has been proven that, by structuring an ad as narrative, the message can bemore persuasive than an analytical illustration of a product’s features (Escalas, 2007).When the consumer sees ads that can refer to herself, the narrative self-referencingis less vulnerable to weak argumentations than common analytical thinking(Escalas, 2007).

Advertisements can be analyzed using literary criticism and taxonomy (Stern, 1989,1995) that are more subtle than content analysis. The narrative structure of ads is evendeeper than that. Narrative is not just a story developed along time. Even an image is astory. Scott (1994a) reflects on the use of rhetoric in the visual element of advertising.The still images used in the ads have an intrinsic rhetoric value that is coded by thesender and interpreted spontaneously by the receiver. The interpretation is rootedmore in the historical cultural context in which the subject lives, than in a naturalprocess of perception. Processes of perception are learned and not inscribed in thebiology of the seer. Visual perception is based on the conventions of symbols and signsshared by sender and receiver. As Scott (1994b) argues, an image showing a magic boxfull of jewels escaping from it, elicits in the mind of the consumer the literary symbol ofthe Pandora’s box. That meaning is built in a literary myth shared by the membersof the society. Moreover, the consumer adopts a sophisticated interpretation: the box ofthe advertisement brings beautiful objects and not illnesses like in the myth.

Branding is another field in which narrative can be seen. Brand values andassociations are often built through ads that are narratives. At a deeper level, a brandcan be perceived by the consumer as a character within a story (Shankar et al., 2001,p. 447). Literary genres can also be applied to brands in the manner of novels and tales(Twitchell, 2004). A brand is a story in itself, expressed visually (e.g. the Golden Archesof McDonald’s, the swoosh logo of Nike), through sounds and characters (Twitchell,2004).

In order to benefit from a brand and truly consume it, a subject must be knowledgeableof the story behind the brand and understand its narrative nature. This understandingimplies brand literacy (Bengtsson and Fuat Firat, 2006), in which the term clearly refers toconventional knowledge conveyed by symbols shared between advertiser and consumer.Brand literacy has three levels of skills: reading a sign; writing a sign; understanding howthe receiver would interpret a sign. The third level of ability resembles the rhetoric (Scott,1994a), that is, the art and practice of articulating a message to achieve a desired effect onthe audience. At the highest level of ability, the consumer uses the brand in a way that

Consumernarrativeanalysis

215

shows her knowledge of it and how the other persons would interpret that use. Thisrhetorical ability is particularly relevant when the consumer becomes a producer ofmeanings conveyed to other subjects, as it happens in YouTube.

Another aspect of narrative is its use as a methodological tool. A consumer is aproducer of introspective narratives that can be studied by researchers. In order tounderstand the inner emotions and experiences of consumers, researchers investigatethe introspective narratives that the subjects write (Caru and Cova, 2006). Probably moreeffectively than the answers given in an interview, the narrative of the subject canconvey the deeper meaning of a consumption experience. Based on the extensive andvaried use of personal narrative that is accumulating in marketing, some authors wouldadvocate a “literary-based perspective to the interpretive turn in qualitative marketresearch” (Hackley, 2007, p. 98). Personal diaries are another form of narrative producedby consumers which are analyzed by researchers (Patterson, 2005). Further back in thepast, service marketing developed and refined the critical incidents technique, throughwhich a service user recounts the various phases of a service process (Burns et al., 2000).

We can summarize the relationship between narrative analysis andmarketing/consumer behaviour as in Table I.

In summary, the consumer is considered as a reader of narratives that are embeddedin ads or brands, and as a writer of introspective accounts of her own experiences andfeelings. What seems less central in this broad framework of studies based onnarrative, is the consumer as a storyteller. Consumer narratives that are solicited byresearchers cannot be considered as stories as such, but as introspection produced andused for research purposes. A story, to be defined as such, should be conceived andissued by the sender with the intent to convey a meaning to an undefined audience.Brand communities are one of the contexts in which stories are told, since storytellingis one of the key features of communities (Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001; Schau and Muniz,2006). The members refer to legendary tales of their preferred brands, maintaining thetradition. However, a story can be told to a larger audience, not necessarily limited to

Table I.Narrative in marketing

Marketing fields Key concepts References

Marketing(in the broader sense)

Novels might be regarded asmarketing studies or a repositoryof marketing insights.Marketing is about writing.Literary criticism as a marketingtool

Brown (2005a, b) and Pattersonand Brown (2005)

Advertising Ads use rhetorical tools to conveymeanings.Ads can be studied throughliterary criticism

Stern (1989), Scott (1994a, b), Stern(1995) and Escalas (2007)

Brand Brands are told through stories.Brands are stories themselves.Brand literacy: the consumer isable to discern and understandthose stories

Shankar et al. (2001), Twitchell(2004) and Bengtsson and FuatFirat (2006)

Consumer Consumers write introspectivenarrative account of their ownexperiences and feelings

Stern et al. (1998), Patterson (2005),Caru and Cova (2006) and Hackley(2007)

QMRIJ11,2

216

fellow members of a community. Recently, new media provide consumers with asophisticated tool for telling their stories about consumption.

Narrative is extensively present in the marketing field, however this does not implythat all is narrative and that narrative analysis is a “recipe” for any type of marketingresearch. The limits of narrative analysis will be presented commenting its applicationto the case of YouTube.

Broadcast yourself: YouTubeA new means of self-expression is available to consumers and is gaining attention on inthe managerial practice and the consumer behaviour field: YouTube (www.youtube.com). The slogan of this new internet service is noteworthy: “Broadcast Yourself.”Subjects can upload and share personally produced videos, portions of movies and TVshows[1], creative montages of any audio-visual material that is available on TV or theWeb. Not surprisingly, this technical freedom to post any material raises questionsabout copyright infringement by YouTube users and YouTube itself. The futuredevelopment of YouTube is inextricably related to these issues and how they areresolved.

Consumption practices and brands are among the represented topics. The forms arevaried: a fan of the TV series “Grey’s Anatomy” edits images of his favourite programand creates his own story using the characters[2]; a Heineken beer bottle is droppedand filmed at high speed to show any nuances of the “phenomenon,” as in a naturalisticdocumentary[3]. The new environment of YouTube allows consumers to freely andcreatively redefine their relationship with products and brands and anything related tothem.

YouTube represents a sophisticated and visual form of “public intimacy” that onecan find in some internet-personal spaces, where people let others see their own lives.Some of these spaces are promoted directly by brands, like in the case of thecommunity MyNutella, where the fans of the most famous hazelnut spread postpictures of themselves and their passion (Cova and Pace, 2006).

YouTube is part of the visual age that we live in (Schroeder, 2002). Consumptionincreasingly includes vision as part of other acts of consumption or as a form ofconsumption in itself (watching TV or browsing in a store are autonomousconsumption acts). YouTube adds another dimension to this phenomenon, that is thedirect production of images by the subjects and not the mere consumption of images.

What is told in YouTube? Attempting a taxonomyThe example of Noah that was given at the beginning of the article is a good answer tothe question of what is told in YouTube: anything can be told. Unlike common TVshows which are framed in genres and formats, YouTube is chaotic, left to theidiosyncrasies and caprices of the users.

Nonetheless, it is possible to formulate a necessarily incomplete taxonomy ofYouTube contributions, with specific attention to consumption-related content basedon the types of stories told by YouTube users.

Creative redefinition of brand and consumptionIn this case, subjects re-use known products and brands in a new, often entertaining,way. The Mentos-Coke experiment is an example[4]. The two “researchers” insert few

Consumernarrativeanalysis

217

Mentos mints into a series of Coke bottles, creating a choreographic set of fountains.They create a renaissance noble garden, where water is substituted by Coke. Here, thecreativity technique used is that of combining two different things (Mentos and Coke),provoking a volcanic reaction. Another evident creative technique is that of thehyperbolic growing of an aspect of a given object: the carbonated effervescence of Cokeis so exaggerated, that it literally explodes.

The metaphors conveyed by this story are twofold. On one hand, there is theshowing-off of new “functions” of products discovered by consumers driven bycuriosity. It is a sort of hilarious reverse engineering of what companies put into theproduct. On the other hand, there is a hyperbolic celebration of the Coke brand.

Make your own TV series episodeThe main content repository for YouTube users are the media themselves. The usercreates self-made episodes and stories by editing together characters drawn from amovie or a TV drama. Shots from episodes are taken form aired TV shows, re-editedinto a montage that gives a new story with known characters. For instance, a user cantake scenes from one of the Harry Potter movies and the TV series “The X-Files,”adding a soundtrack from the movie “Shall we Dance” and he then creates a visualstory about romance and love[5].

YouTube is not an insulated new media, detached from common TV. It shares muchwith TV and movies. In fact, a large portion of YouTube content is the uploading –modified or not – of portions of TV series episodes and shows. It is the expression ofthe subculture of TV fandom already observed in other contexts, like the Star Treksaga (Kozinets, 2001).

Community storytellingCommunities gather around ritual, brands and places (Cova and Cova, 2002; Bagozziand Dholakia, 2006; Cova et al., 2007a, b; Schau and Muniz, 2006). Storytelling is one ofthe key features of a brand community. YouTube is used to celebrate the communityrituals surrounding a brand. For instance, a Harley Davidson rally is relived inYouTube[6]. Other forms of community are devoid of references to any particularbrand and are a mere sharing, such as personal holidays, places visited, programs seen.In these cases, there is no pre-defined community, but just a sense of sharing. Solidarityis another key feature of communities (Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001) and some videos canbe considered as just a gift to the other users. For instance, a subject posts a video inwhich he teaches practical recipes and tricks to cook a nice barbeque[7].

Debunking and spoofing marketingSome videos unmask marketing techniques or alleged marketing threats. The useremploys the rhetorical techniques of advertisers and companies against them. It is aform of high-brand literacy, that of unmasking the marketing discourse (Bengtssonand Fuat Firat, 2006) and expressing some counter-power by consumers (Cova et al.,2007a, b).

For instance, a consumer discovers a supposedly subliminal advertisement byMcDonald’s during a TV program. Subliminal ads are a classic and controversial issuein marketing. Here, a consumer allegedly proves its use[8]. Users post also alternativerendition of marketing communication and ads. As an example, a user produces and

QMRIJ11,2

218

uploads a fake video of the iPod launch, using real shot from the Steve Jobs’ speech, butre-edited and dubbed in an ironic and funny way[9].

Replicate milestones in order to celebrate themClassic, famous extracts from TV programs, music videos and milestoneadvertisements are often simply put online to be relived and seen again and againwith comments and discussion from other users.

Some videos are evergreen oldies. Portions of Charlie Chaplin’s movies[10] areuploaded and celebrated. Nothing is changed, the user does not modify anything, thepiece of the movie or the ad is just put online and enjoyed. Often it is a leap into the past, aretro-marketing nostalgia (Brown, 2004) when all seemed innocent and authentic,marketing included.

YouTube as narrative discourseYouTube content is so diverse that the categories suggested above cannot pretend tobe exhaustive. YouTube seems a collection of episodes selected randomly byindividuals, with no criterion but one’s own tastes or caprices. Nonetheless, this iscoherent with the historical evolution of writing and storytelling. Literary critics showthat tales and novels before the eighteenth century had to acknowledge one mainfeature: to repeat universal ideas and truths with no variations. Any change wouldprevent the story from being considered a story. Originality was not consideredacceptable (Rutelli, 2005). Novels and storytelling then developed from these origins.Originality became a criterion of evaluation of the quality of a story. YouTube presentsstories that can be extremely subjective, showing individual experiences and ideas thatare sometimes almost incomprehensible for a viewer. Compared to YouTube,advertising and “institutional” communication almost appear as a communicationtypical of the past, where truth (the goodness of the product, corporate values) arecommunicated and repeated over time. The YouTube videos are like novels.

Stories can be divided into three levels (Hopkinson and Hogarth-Scott, 2001). At ahigher level, there are myths that are universal values and cultural truths. At theconverse level, there are reports: narrative renditions of real facts and events. Inbetween, there are stories, narratives:

Like myths, “narratives” are not true to external reality, but are distinctive in that they are themeans through which tellers impose order upon what they see, thereby constructing realityand creating their understanding of events” (Hopkinson and Hogarth-Scott, 2001, p. 28).

YouTube videos can assume all three facets. Videos of real events (reports) and storiescreated by the user are both present. The uploading of advertisements can thus beconsidered as the rendition of universal myths constituting the “true” values of brandsas coded by advertisers. The renowned Marlboro man tries to tell us a story aboutvalues such as freedom or masculinity. It is a consumption myth. The endorser of Cokeof the 1980s, Mean Joe Greene, is another case of myth telling a story that was at thecore of the US cultural contradictions of that age (Holt, 2004). Those “myths” can thenbe modified or replicated by the YouTube user, in a celebration or in a new personalnarrative where the brand is the core.

Using another classification, YouTube’s videos can cover each cell of the rhetoricaltetrad (Table II).

Consumernarrativeanalysis

219

YouTube represents a challenge for interpretive consumer research. One of the keychallenges is that scholars have apparently not yet refined specific methods of researchfor such a new medium[11]. The form of expressions employed in YouTube, is, in fact,quite new. Users act as movie producers, directors or actors, telling stories visually toan audience. Other forms of expressions resemble YouTube: blogs, chats, virtualwords. What is different in YouTube is:

. the actual intent of users to broadcast stories to an audience; and

. the use of visual tales.

Blogs, virtual communities and similar platforms do not have the same structure. Thediachronic nature of videos uploaded to YouTube (the development of the elements ofmeaning over time) makes them a story, richer than texts and different from pictures.The presence of an audience makes the system a broadcasting system, but with notraditional broadcaster[12].

The material produced by YouTube users can be interpreted from variousperspectives, each capturing a part of the phenomenon at issue.

Theatre theoryThe video representations posted in YouTube are similar to the setting described byGoffman (1959), that is, a theatre-like presentation of the self, where the subject plays acharacter. The products and brand would be artefacts and signs to better convey themeanings of the play. This perspective would not capture the meaning of those videosin which the subject is not personally present. In that case, the subject is not an actorwho personally plays in front of a public.

Visual analysisThis discipline (Schroeder, 2002, 2007; Heisley, 2001) can be useful to understandYouTube, but its semiotic roots could limit its explanatory power. In fact, according tothe medium-specificity theory of movies (Forgione, 2004), videos have a nature that isquite different from a picture or a series of pictures. The editing and chronologicalsequence is what distinguishes YouTube videos from other visual material.

VideographyInterpretive consumer research extensively uses videos as method of research andmaterial for study (Belk and Kozinets, 2005, 2007). However, videography impliesvideo material produced by the researchers or (less frequently) autonomouslyproduced by consumers and then interpreted by researchers. In the latter case,compared to YouTube, what is missing is the specific intention of subjects to broadcast

Impersonal Personal

Particular FACT STORYGeneral LOGIC METAPHOR

Source: Shankar et al. (2001, p. 447); adapted from McClosky

Table II.Rhetorical tetrad inYouTube

QMRIJ11,2

220

their video to an audience. This intention makes the video a story, a movie that can bestudied as such and not as real rendition of a spontaneous fact.

Mass media theoriesYouTube allows an individual to be a broadcaster. Current media theories (Gunter, 2000)are developing new approaches for this new medium. Some TV formats can be alaboratory for such new perspectives. In some respects, reality shows are similar toYouTube videos. In reality shows the average man or woman is the main character, the“hero.” In both cases, common laymen are the stars. However, YouTube adds somethingnew for traditional TV shows: the subject is the star, the director, the writer, the producer,and the broadcaster. The slogan of YouTube is “Broadcast Yourself.” This slogan is aparadox. Broadcasting is a function of societies that relate to specific institutions. Theseinstitutions choose the stories to be narrated. The individual can be one of the characters ofthese programs, like in reality shows, but he cannot be the broadcaster. There is a clearwall between the broadcaster and the broadcasted. YouTube eradicates the divisionbetween the two. An individual can broadcast himself freely with no mediation. YouTubecan be considered a consolidated format in a new medium, but also, and moreinterestingly, it seems a new level of evolution of mass media.

Mass media studies have refined the conceptualization of the mass media audience.The first studies by the Frankfurt School saw the audience and mass composed ofanonymous individuals. The bullet theory would emphasize the power of the messagesbroadcasted over such a mass of people devoid of any critical thinking. This theorizationof the audience was coherent with an age in which the messages broadcasted were largelypropaganda by regimes intending to move entire nations towards war or to instil certainattitudes. The wave of field studies which refined the theory, revealed that the messagewas not elaborated by the individual, but socialized and discussed within a social networkin which a particular role is played by the opinion leader.

The 1970s and 1980s introduced a new way of considering the TV audience. Theviewer was no longer a Pavlovian organism which reacts to inputs without reflection.Researchers observe the actual daily use of TV and the results show a quite differentsituation, compared to the theorization of previous studies. Housewives, for instance, werea common object of study, due to their use of TV. Watching TV was considered a form ofescape by them, sometimes with a degree of guilt.

During the 1980s, Hall (1980) developed the encoding/decoding model. Thebroadcaster encodes a desired meaning within the message, but the audience candecode the message in a quite different way. The decoding may be coherent or resistantto the meaning intended by the broadcaster. What is missing in the decoding by theviewer, is that she cannot express her decodification in the same form of thebroadcasted message. For instance, if a viewer interprets a TV ad or a TV program asan excessive praise of a materialistic view, he can accept or refuse this view with thevery acts of his daily life and consumption. YouTube allows the viewer to decode theTV material into something made by the same material of TV: images, videos, stories.The same subject cited before can edit that TV material to reinterpret it and postingthis interpretation online.

Mass media studies, concentrated on the subjects as a more or less active audience,could have to refine the existing theories in order to investigate the audience as anactive producer.

Consumernarrativeanalysis

221

NarratologyThere is probably no theory presently available that can explain YouTube exhaustively.However, it seems that, eventually, it may be possible to develop a method for studyingthe phenomenon. The methodology that seems to explain the YouTube environmentreasonably comprehensively is narrative analysis (Shankar et al., 2001; Bal, 1997). Thequestion of whether visual expression might be interpreted by using linguistic rulesremains open. As Eco (1968, cit. in Rutelli, p. 139) states: “Not all the communicationphenomena can be explained with the categories of linguistics”[13]. Visual elements canbe reduced to a language through vague linguistic proxies. Wittgenstein was challengedto explain a popular Naples gesture in purely linguistic terms: actions cannot be reducedtotally to words. However, other writers like Jacobson refer to intersemiotics, thepossibility to translate different forms of communication into one another. For instance,visual communication, like advertisements, use linguistic rhetorical figures to conveymeaning. Thus, it is possible that visual elements can be translated into linguisticelements, allowing narrative analysis to be applied. Each act of communication wouldhave a fabula (Bal, 1997) within it, that is, the inner structure of the events, their logicalflow, regardless of the actual story told (thus, regardless of the style, the medium used,the actual terms and expressions employed). Even a still image synthesises a story thatis developed chronologically.

Narrative analysis seems a fruitful approach, covering many facets of YouTube. Asseen, consumer narratives are acknowledged by marketing scholars as a form (even thecore form for some of them) of expression of consumption (Shankar et al., 2001) andemployed as a research epistemology when the subject herself writes down herthoughts and inner feelings (Caru and Cova, 2006). YouTube adds a visual aspect andit enriches the way in which a subject can tell his stories of consumption or aboutconsumption. Moreover, YouTube videos are a form of consumption in themselves.

When produced to be told and broadcasted, a video becomes a story. YouTubevideos have the typical elements of a story: plot, character, structural pattern, andorganization, expressions (as the chosen visual elements). One can analyse videosusing different narratological approaches. One of them is the traditional tales structuredevised by Propp (1968). The focus can be also on the creative methods employed bythe user, like those used to build a fairytale (Rodari, 1973). This could be an operationalstarting point for analyzing a video. The researcher could pinpoint the creativetechnique used in the video. The Mentos-Coke experiment, for instance, seems based onthe hyperbolic exaggeration of a product’s feature, in this case, effervescence. Anothercreative tool used is that of combining two different elements (Mentos and Coke).

The YouTube user employs rhetoric techniques to convey the intended meaning tothe audience. It is similar to the use of visual rhetoric as applied by advertisers (Scott,1994a, b). Rhetoric is based on conventional means shared by the sender and theaudience. In YouTube, the conventions are the meaning of the brands as generallyconceived in the marketplace. Leveraging on this common knowledge, the user canplay with that meaning and create a story, celebrating or making fun of the brand.Hence, if Coke is about the excesses of marketing, the video of Mentos-Coke is a visualrhetorical representation of this aspect. The same holds for TV characters. The userknows the personal traits of a TV character and she uses these traits to tell some story.A romantic doctor from the TV series “Grey’s Anatomy” can be used to representromance in a self-edited video, just like a movie director who hires an actor to play a

QMRIJ11,2

222

specific kind of role. Doctor House, for instance, is a cynical TV character. His traits areknown to the viewers of the TV series. A user might combine shots of episodes of theDr House show to tell a romantic story with a cynical flavour, or about medicalsystems or indeed, about whatever the user can imagine. That character becomes anactor in the hands of the user-producer. The common and shared repository ofmeanings (romance, drama, cynical, and so on) is produced by normal TV programsand they are necessary to ensure that the discourse of YouTube continues. That is whyit is unlikely that YouTube would substitute, at least in the near future, the classicalbroadcasting systems. TV creates the myths and the “universal” ideas on which thecreation by YouTube users are based.

Narrative analysis should respect criteria that are different, compared to othermethods (Riessman, 2002). A narrative analysis should be persuasive and plausible,rather than objective. It should show coherence with the informant’s view, consider theviewers as co-authors of the research. The process should allow for pragmatic use, thatis, the opportunity for other researchers to work on the same material and conclusionsto refine them and validate them, in an open process of collective knowledge creation.

A narrative analysis should account for three forms of coherence (Riessman, 2002).The global coherence accounts for the real intent of the subject in telling the story.Local coherence means understanding the tools and structure used by the narrator inorder to achieve a desired effect. Thematic coherence means that certain themes arerecurrent in a story and are the relevant keys for conveying the meaning of the tale.Referring once again to the YouTube series of videos about Coke-Mentos experiments,the global intent of the user can be quite varied: showing off one’s creativity, makingfun of the brands, imitating other famous videos, conducting a real chemicalexperiment. As to local coherence, if a funny soundtrack or laughing are added to thevideo, the local coherence moves in the direction of simple enjoyment, rather thanscience or accusation. Finally, thematic coherence is the relevance of certain themes: ifthe brands are often focused on by the camera and mentioned during the story, the taleis about a brand, rather than about chemical ingredients. The same fact – theexplosion of Coke once Mentos are added – can told in very different ways. Narrativeanalysis can take into account this variety.

Conclusions and limitsNew media like YouTube add a new field of study for different streams of research,such as reader-response theory (Scott, 1994b), the coding/decoding model (Hall, 1980)and the subculture of consumption (Kozinets, 2001). The narrative analysis can be auseful perspective to understand the YouTube phenomenon. Naturally narrativeanalysis has some limitations:

. Once a YouTube video is considered as a story, the researcher has still to definethe specific method to apply to understand that story. In fact, unlike othermethodological approaches, narrative analysis present different ways ofapplication and different references (such as Propp, Bal, Riessman, just tomention some of the sources).

. The stories that can be told in a YouTube video are so varied that it may be difficultto reach a sufficient validity in the interpretation by the researcher. Is theCoke-Mentos video a representation of irony or a form of protest against marketing?Narrative analysis could produce different results from different researchers.

Consumernarrativeanalysis

223

More quantitative method, like content analysis, would assure more valid andreliable results. However, narrative analysis can provide a richer interpretation thatcan lead to further insights.

Given the richness of YouTube and the limits of narrative analysis, researchers canemploy different methods to study YouTube. Narrative analysis can complement othermethods.

Notes

1. For instance, an episode of the TV series “The Simpsons” is posted almost in its entirety:www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ 83Wem49Cl4k

2. TV series Grey’s Anatomy re-edited: www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ 8vSWGNqI-sI

3. Heineken beer crash filmed as a naturalistic phenomenon: www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ XuplRvI1Sog

4. Mentos-Coke experiment: www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ hKoB0MHVBvM

5. Romantic video-story using Harry Potter and X-Files characters, Peter Gabriel’s song: www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ jWJmxUwXnX0

6. Harley Davidson rally: www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ 7tpVfh4oPAc

7. Tricks and recipes for BBQ: www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ ZgeASCOtecI

8. Alleged subliminal advertisement: www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ LMzbwa6PvEE

9. Spoofed iPod launch: www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ 2Uo_4kyrkDc

10. Charlie Chaplin: www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ JW7YLPED0wc

11. Quite a few citations of YouTube are present in academic journals, both marketing-relatedand other. By using YouTube as keyword for searching the extensive database EBSCO, theresults for academic journals are just four articles. This fact indicates a lack of anyconsolidated theory.

12. Traditional TV broadcasters are going to expand their presence in YouTube. CBS, forinstance, has its own channel in YouTube where it distributes portions of some shows likethe well known David Letterman Late Night Show.

13. Our translation from the original “Non tutti i fenomeni comunicativi sono spiegabili con lecategorie della linguistica” (cit. in Rutelli, p 139).

References

Bagozzi, R.P. and Dholakia, U.M. (2006), “Antecedents and purchases consequences of customerparticipation in small group brand communities”, International Journal of Research inMarketing, Vol. 23, pp. 45-61.

Bal, M. (1997), Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, 2nd ed., University ofToronto Press, Toronto.

Belk, R.W. and Kozinets, R.V. (2005), “Videography in marketing and consumer research”,Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 128-41.

Belk, R.W. and Kozinets, R.V. (2007), “Camcorder society: quality videography in consumer andmarketing research”, in Belk, R.W. (Ed.), Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods inMarketing, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 335-44.

Bengtsson, A. and Fuat Firat, A. (2006), “Brand literacy: consumer’s sense-making of brandmanagement”, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 375-80.

QMRIJ11,2

224

Brown, S. (2004), “O customer, where art thou?”, Business Horizons, Vol. 47 No. 4, pp. 61-70.

Brown, S. (2005a), “I can read you like a book! Novel thoughts on consumer behaviour”,Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 219-37.

Brown, S. (2005b), Writing Marketing: Literary Lessons from Academic Authorities, Sage,London.

Burns, A.C., Williams, L.A. and Maxham, J. (2000), “Narrative text biases attending the criticalincidents technique”, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 3 No. 4,pp. 178-86.

Caru, A. and Cova, B. (2006), “How to facilitate immersion in a consumption experience:appropriation operations and service elements”, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Vol. 5No. 1, pp. 4-14.

Cova, B. and Cova, V. (2002), “Tribal marketing: the tribalisation of society and its impact on theconduct of marketing”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 36 Nos 5/6, pp. 595-620.

Cova, B. and Pace, S. (2006), “Brand community of convenience products: new forms of customerempowerment – the case ‘my Nutella the community’”, European Journal of Marketing,Vol. 40 Nos 9/10, pp. 1087-105.

Cova, B., Kozinets, R.V. and Shankar, A. (2007a), Consumer Tribes, Elsevier, Oxford.

Cova, B., Pace, S. and Park, D.J. (2007b), “Global brand communities across borders: theWarhammer case”, International Marketing Review, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 313-29.

Escalas, J.E. (2007), “Self-referencing and persuasion: narrative transportation versus analyticalelaboration”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 33, pp. 421-9.

Forgione, L. (2004), “Come Funziona il Linguaggio del Cinema”, in Gensini, S. (Ed.), Manuale diSemiotica, Carocci, Bologna.

Goffman, E. (1959), The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Doubleday Anchor Books,New York, NY.

Grayson, K. (1997), “Narrative theory and consumer research: theoretical and methodologicalperspectives”, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 67-70.

Gunter, B. (2000), Media Research Methods, Sage, London.

Hackley, C. (2007), “Auto-ethnographic consumer research and creative non-fiction. Exploringconnections and contrasts from a literary perspective”, Qualitative Market Research:An International Journal, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 98-108.

Hall, S. (1980), “Encoding/decoding”, in Hall, S., Hobson, D., Low, A. and Willis, P. (Eds), Culture,Media, Language, Hutchinson, London, pp. 128-38.

Heisley, D.D. (2001), “Visual research: current bias and future direction”, Advances in ConsumerResearch, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 45-6.

Holt, D.B. (2004), How Brands Become Icons. The Principals of Cultural Branding, HarvardBusiness School Press, Cambridge, MA.

Hopkinson, G.C. and Hogarth-Scott, S. (2001), “‘What happened was . . .’ broadening the agendafor storied research”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 17, pp. 27-47.

Hopkinson, G.C. and Hogarth-Scott, S. (2007), “Stories: how they are used and produced inmarket(ing) research”, in Belk, R.W. (Ed.), Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods inMarketing, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 156-74.

Kozinets, R.V. (2001), “Utopian enterprise: articulating the meanings of Star Treks’ culture ofconsumption”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 28, pp. 67-88.

Muniz, A.M. and O’Guinn, T.C. (2001), “Brand community”, Journal of Consumer Research,Vol. 27, pp. 412-32.

Consumernarrativeanalysis

225

Patterson, A. (2005), “Processes, relationships, settings, products and consumers: the case forqualitative diary research”, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 8No. 2, pp. 142-56.

Patterson, A. and Brown, S. (2005), “No tale, no sale: a novel approach to marketingcommunication”, The Marketing Review, Vol. 5, pp. 315-28.

Propp, V. (1968), Morphology of the Folk Tale, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.

Riessman, C.K. (2002), “Narrative analysis”, in Huberman, A.M. and Miles, M.B. (Eds),The Qualitative Researcher’s Companion, Sage, Thousands Oaks, CA, pp. 17-70.

Rodari, G. (1973), Grammatica della Fantasia, Einaudi, Torino.

Rutelli, R. (2005), Semiotica Esemplificata, Liguori Editore, Napoli.

Schau, H.J. and Muniz, A.M. (2006), “A tale of tales: the Apple Newton narratives”, Journal ofStrategic Marketing, Vol. 14, pp. 19-33.

Schroeder, J.E. (2002), Visual Consumption, Routledge, London.

Schroeder, J.E. (2007), “Critical visual analysis”, in Belk, R.W. (Ed.), Handbook of QualitativeResearch Methods in Marketing, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 303-21.

Scott, L. (1994a), “Images in advertising: the need for a theory of visual rhetoric”, Journal ofConsumer Research, Vol. 21, pp. 252-73.

Scott, L. (1994b), “The bridge form text to mind: adapting reader-response theory to consumerresearch”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 21, pp. 461-80.

Shankar, A. and Goulding, C. (2001), “Interpretive consumer research: two more contributions totheory and practice”, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 4 No. 1,pp. 7-16.

Shankar, A., Elliott, R. and Goulding, C. (2001), “Understanding consumption: contributions froma narrative perspective”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 17 Nos 3/4, pp. 429-53.

Stern, B.B. (1989), “Literary criticism and consumer research: overview and illustrative analysis”,Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 16, pp. 322-34.

Stern, B.B. (1995), “Consumer myths: Frye’s taxonomy and the structural analysis ofconsumption texts”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22, pp. 165-85.

Stern, B.B., Thompson, C.J. and Arnould, E.J. (1998), “Narrative analysis of a marketingrelationship: the consumer’s perspective”, Psychology & Marketing, Vol. 15 No. 3,pp. 195-214.

Twitchell, J.B. (2004), “An English teacher looks at branding”, Journal of Consumer Research,Vol. 31, pp. 484-9.

About the authorStefano Pace is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Universita Bocconi, Milan, Italy, where heobtained his PhD in Business Administration and Management. His current research interestsare brand communities and service marketing. His works have been published in internationaljournals such as International Marketing Review, European Journal Marketing, Group Decisionand Negotiation, European Management Journal. Stefano Pace can be contacted at: stefano.pace@unibocconi.it

QMRIJ11,2

226

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.comOr visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints