Building metatheory: a demonstration using the critical social marketing discourse

摘要

Metatheorisation may be warranted in a situation when a particular body of discourse is boundary spanning in nature and none of the theoretical perspectives within it, taken in isolation, are able to explain a given empirical phenomenon. The literature presently offers scant advice on how to proceed systematically in this tertiary level research process. Drawing on previous scholarship, we advance the concept of 'theory framing devices' and develop a protocol to guide the development of metatheory. The critical social marketing discourse is used as a case study. Further, empirical examples pertaining to the quality of life issues of rural, subaltern consumers are analysed using the foregoing meta-theoretical discussion. The study has implications for the metatheorisation family of techniques and for discourse analysis.