In other words, different people ‘read’ the same text in different ways depending upon the aspects of identity that are of most importance to them. In Barker’s study, he uses qualitative research to...

In other words, different people ‘read’ the same text in different ways depending upon the aspects of identity that are of most importance to them. In Barker’s study, he uses qualitative research to examine the role of television soap opera as a resource employed by British Asian and Afro-Caribbean teenagers [to show] how a specific group of persons deploy television as a resource for the construction of cultural identities [through] the formative nature of language as a resource in lending shape to ourselves and our world out of the contingent and disorderly flow of everyday talk and practice. (Barker 1999: 119)