Interpretation

Susana Salgado, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
susana.salgado@ics.ulisboa.pt

Interpretation is an explanation of something hinged on analysis and factual evidence. Due to the presence of subjective elements, it could be misunderstood as opinion; however, an opinion is a personal view, perspective, or attitude that does not need to be supported by factual evidence. An opinion could entail some degree of interpretation, but an interpretation does not necessarily contain opinionated views, as it could be an analysis of facts and evidence based on pre-existing frames or schemes.

Although the notion that opinions are subjective claims and interpretations are based on evidence makes sense theoretically, the distinction is not always straightforward in practice, particularly in the absence of references to the underlying facts. Opinions express beliefs and feelings and therefore cannot be deemed false or true. Interpretations may be true or false because they result from attempts to explain the why and/or how of facts, events, statements, etc. Opinion and interpretation are thus both evaluations, but they are not synonyms: interpretation is the expression of an understanding of something that is backed by facts and is subject to verification; opinion does not enter the realm of verification and therefore is not amenable to proof.

In politics, one could refer to personal views about actors and issues as opinions, and to the analysis of the proposals and statements of political actors by journalists and pundits as interpretation. Such political coverage, commonly featured in media outlets, could be linked to a disbelief in value-free facts and interest-free sources, which makes it necessary to explain the context and interpret the relevance and impact of facts, events, and statements. In journalism, interpretation may take the form of explanations, evaluations, contextualisations, or speculations by the journalist, differing from simple descriptions of facts and events.

Keywords: evidence, subjective claims, verification

Related Entries: Evidence

References:
Rhodes, R.A.W. (2017). Interpretive political science, selected essays, volume IIi. Oxford University Press.
Salgado, S. (2019). Interpretive journalism. In P. Moy (Ed.), Oxford bibliographies in communication. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199756841-0226
Salgado, S., & Strömbäck J. (2012). Interpretive journalism: A review of concepts, operationalisations and key findings. Journalism, 13(2), 144-161. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884911427797