Intertextuality: interpretive practice and textual strategy

Abstract

In contemporary media scholarship, the concept of intertextuality is used to describe both an interpretive practice of audiences and a stylistic device consciously employed by producers of media. This study examines how the frequent, scholarly conflation of these two conceptions has weakened the theoretical usefulness of both perspectives. Turning to the view of intertextuality as stylistic device, the essay identifies parodic allusion, creative appropriation, and self-reflexive reference as three distinct intertextual strategies. It concludes by considering the ways audiences use these devices to define their identities and order their experiences.