Olsson, M. 2007, 'Power/Knowledge: the Discursive construction of an Author', Power, vol. 77, no. 2.

Olssons article (2007) attempts to demonstrate how different readings of a text are influenced by different discursive relationships. He compares academic responses to a peer-reviewed article by another academic in the same field to display the relationship between the readers knowledge and their power relations with the author. Olssons research methodology is qualitative, conducting in-depth interviews and analyzing the content for discursive practices. He also relies heavily on Foucaultian principles to frame his conclusions specifically the idea of the Author as a construct. His predictable conclusion is that an understanding of a text is informed firstly by an academics discursive context, and secondly by the preexisting power or authority the academic attributes to the author. Due to the nature of qualitative research, the findings and conclusions are quite subjective and Despite Olssons attempts to use theory to support his conclusions I feel the subjective nature of the research methods limit the articles reliability. The use of a very specific group of people to conduct his research also serves to limit it generalizability. The article is most useful in its adoption of categories to describe various reactions, and then applies theoretical reasoning to describe them.

References: Olsson, M. 2007, 'Power/Knowledge: the Discursive construction of an Author', Power, vol. 77, no. 2.