Fuzzy meanings: Exploring meta-theories of communication in advertising research

Advertising has been researched and conceptualized in various different fields and using various different approaches and methods. Therefore advertising research remains theoretically disjointed and lacks a coherent set of premises. This article provides a meta-theoretical view on the tradition of advertising research. The research tradition of advertising is approached here from the point of view of communication and interpretation. The general conclusion is that communicative theories of advertising must start out from the assumption that the research object is steered by various pluralistic principles. These are introduced as the fuzzy theory of advertising.