Some thoughts on intertextuality and service design
Service Design and Intertextuality
Okay. I admit it. I like the word intertextuality. Any word beginning with “inter” sounds cool, really.
For me, it exudes cyberpunk vibes. I’m talking gritty cyberspace — William Gibson’s Count Zero style. With its virtual voodoo deities. Magic meets logic circuitry. Old myths merge with new tech, literary classics with present-day narratives.
I’m indebted to these tales—and many others — as I try to articulate intertextuality. I lean on these texts to shape my understanding, to form my own words. I read, then write. Read, rewrite.
Everything I write echoes what came before. No text stands alone.
Even if I wanted to, I can’t just serve it up plain.
“Here’s it is,” I might say. “Here’s intertextuality in its pure, unadulterated form.”
No, I add my twist. You do, too — lean on your own sets of texts.
Intertextuality is Everywhere
Intertextuality is pervasive. Images. Words. Architecture. Dance. You name it. You’ll find intertextuality. (I learnt about it through music analysis.)
Advertisements thrive on it. Consider that ad that borrows from a classic film. Or a fashion brand that reimagines an iconic painting.
Or that AI sausage machine.
However, these are a rather banal way to think about intertextuality.
There’s more to intertextuality than mere artistic homage. Or reconstituting, recontextualising, copying, alluding, parodying, and so on.
Instead of viewing texts — read any medium — as standalone, intertextuality sees them as part of a web of relationships and interactions. Its emphasis is on meaning. But meaning that develops out of interaction.
This perspective is invaluable, especially when you think about services.
On Intertextuality
Let me rewind it a bit.
Paris, France, mid-60s.
Julia Kristeva, the Bulgarian-born philosopher and literary critic.
Inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975), she introduces “intertextuality.”
Both wanted to move beyond scientific/rationalistic thinking.
Scientific thought has its place. But human sciences, like psychology, can’t grasp our complex experiences. They sought alternative models to capture human experience. Other ways of forming knowledge.
The novel emerged as their perfect model.
Novel?
Okay, it’s not that we should all become novelists. And it’s not about binge-reading novels, either. It’s not even so much their content.
Instead, the novel’s form provides a way to think about and represent the world and our experiences. It provided a model.
Let me try and explain…
Dialogical vs. Monological
Mikhail distinguished between monological and dialogical novels.
Then there are monological ones. Singular in voice. They stick to one dominant view. They resolve any debate. They present their outcomes as final and absolute. It’s like a straight line, where everything follows logically and predictably.
There are dialogical novels. These contain many voices and opinions. Rather than one big, undeniable truth, people discover it as they chat, disagree, argue and share their opinions. A truth that depends on the viewpoints of those involved. Messy basically. Like life.
Carnivalesque Spirit, Carnival Logic
“So,” Julia said, “here’s a way to think about dialogical and monological.”
“Go on?” I said.
“Consider the raucous atmosphere of a carnival.”
“Carnivals?”
“Yes. Cast your mind to the medieval period. An age of feudalism and religious intolerance.”
I half nodded. “Okay.”
“These voices dominated,” she continued. “They spoke in monologues, decrees, dogma. No dialogue, no debate. Only absolutes.”
“And carnivals?”
“Once a year, the serfs could rebel, not with swords but with jest and song.”
“So, carnivals let people playfully challenge society’s norms.”
“Yes. It’s not that carnivals are chaos. When we talk about the carnival spirit breaking the rules, it doesn’t mean it’s pure chaos or anarchy. Even in its rule-breaking, it follows a kind of order or a different set of rules. It’s a different form of logic.”
“Carnival logic?”
“Yes. Not a binary, yes/no, on/off, right/wrong type of logic. Carnival logic manages to break these limitations. It operates on a ‘dream logic’, meaning it doesn’t adhere strictly to conventions of language or societal norms. It’s about exploring similarities and differences without settling on a single, fixed meaning.”
I frowned, “but what’s that got to do with novels?”
“We’ll get to that,” she said. “But I don’t see what this’s all got to do with service design.”
I smiled. “I’ll get to that.”
“Hmm…”
The Novel
Julia and Mikhail believed modern novels, like those by Dostoevsky and Joyce, captured this carnivalesque spirit.
Mikhail’s dialogical novel resonates with the carnival’s vibrant ambience. A novel is full of different voices and opinions. In contrast, monological tales stifle diverse voices.
Balancing Monological and Dialogical
But in reality, novels traverse both the monological and dialogical. A good novel masterfully oscillates between singular perspectives and intricate interplays.
They have monological parts. Here things follow a logical sequence. You see the world from one person’s perspective.
And they have dialogical parts. Here things expand and explore new ground. There are different opinions. Nothing quite resolved. It’s the interactions that are important.
If you draw from intertextuality and the dialogical nature of novels, there’s a helpful model to think about service design.
The Intertextual Service
Services arise from a mix of parts.
We lean on other ‘texts’ when we design and build them. Industry trends. Cultural norms. Legal frameworks. Physical and technical constraints. Our services reconstitute, recontextualise, copy, steal, allude to, and perhaps parody many others. No service is a standalone experience. It is informed by, and in turn, informs, others.
The parts within the scope of service design aren’t isolated. Each interacts with and affects the others.
A service’s value isn’t in its parts. It’s how users interact with them and how those interactions evolve.
Dialogical vs. Monological Again
Traditional product logic mirrors monological narratives. We manufacture products with a set value. Monetary value to us. Use-value to them.
Beyond opening their wallets, I see the consumer as passive. Simply a receiver of a fixed narrative or, in this case, the value I’ve embedded in this product. Here it is. Your brand-new shiny thing. I create it. You buy it. End of story.
Then there’s service logic.
Unlike product logic, service logic sees value as unfixed, not bound to the product. Instead, value emerges from the interaction between the service provider and the consumer. It’s a shared process.
Consider a gym membership. The value doesn’t end with the purchase. It’s where the narrative, or value creation, begins. Each gym session, trainer interaction, equipment use, and conversation with other members shape the fitness journey.
Service design celebrates collaborative value creation.
Like a novel’s monological sections, some moments require a logical sequence. Sometimes directives are necessary: Hey! This needs your attention. No, that’s wrong.
But the real value comes through the interactions. Through dialogue.
We need to celebrate this vibrant ambience.
Like a carnival, the outcome is spontaneous, slightly unpredictable and relies on interaction.
In the gym, the trainer provides an expert workout routine. But the workout’s success depends on the gym’s ambience, equipment condition, and the user’s energy, mood and preferences.
We can’t fully control the value created in a service.
In Conclusion
Understanding service design via intertextuality is necessary for our interaction and value co-creation era. We need to know when we’re being monological. And whether we might find a dialogical alternative.
Both concepts highlight the importance of ongoing interactions in shaping value and meaning.
