INTRODUCTION

In the past decade, much disciplinary debate in consumer research has centered on the most appropriate way to collect, analyze and report data. However, with some exceptions (Joy 1991; Stern 1990; Thompson 1990) this debate has focused on the way in which scholars conduct data-gathering rather than on the way in which they represent it. In Aristotelian terms, controversy has centered more on the “object” (that which is represented) than on the “manner” (the way in which it is represented) or the “medium” (the means or materials used in representation-numbers, words, music, pictures, cyberspace images, and so forth) (see Mitchell 1990).