Meaning & Measurement Mini-Conference

Grant Blank —American University grant.blank@acm.org  My interest is in reviews and evaluations in several forms.  First, reviews are common across literary, consumer, scientific and other fields.  Their widespread use suggests they have proven valuable in a variety of areas. Despite this they are surprisingly under-studied.  Second, evaluations make judgements of better and worse, and so construct and sustain social hierarchies as well as boundaries.  They offer us one highly visible window into the construction and maintenance of social status. Third, reviews of consumer products play a significant role in consumption, particularly of certain products. If in contemporary society people are increasingly differentiated by their consumption patterns rather than their relationship to production, then reviews contribute to our understanding of how certain consumption patterns are created and sustained. Issues of meaning and measurement are relevant to all these issues.  Understanding meaning is fundamental to understanding how people interpret the text of a review.   The findings from research in this area are sensitive to questions of measurement.