Title: Matters of opinion : talking about public issues /
Authors: Myers, Greg, 1954-
Publisher: Cambridge University Press,
Year: 2004
Subjects: Mass media and public opinion
Abstract: "Matters of Opinion offers an insight into 'public opinion' as reported in the media, asking where these opinions actually come from, and how they have their effects. Drawing on the analysis of conversations from focus groups, phone-ins, and broadcast interviews with members of the public, Greg Myers argues that we must go back to these encounters, asking questions such as what members of the public thought they were being asked, whom they were talking as, and whom they were talking to. He suggests that people don't carry a store of opinions, ready to tell strangers; they use opinions in order to get along with other people, and how they say things is as important as what they say.
Contents: Paradoxes of opinion -- A tool kit for analysing group discussions -- Forums for opinion: 'what is it that's going on here?' -- Institutions of opinion: voice of the people? -- Topics in interaction: 'why that now?' -- Agreeing and disagreeing: maintaining sociable argument -- Representing speech: other voices, other places -- Questioning expertise: who says? -- Radio phone-ins: mediated sociable arguments -- Vox pop television interviews: constructing the public -- Opinions as talk.