Research Catalog

Title

Matters of opinion : talking about public issues / Greg Myers.

Author

Myers, Greg, 1954-

Publication

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvii, 258 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

• "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.
• This book illuminates current debates on research methods, the public sphere, and deliberative democracy, on broadcast talk, and on what it means to participate in public life."--Jacket.

Series Statement

Studies in interactional sociolinguistics ; 19

Uniform Title

Studies in interactional sociolinguistics ; 19.

Subject

• Mass media and public opinion
• 05.32 public opinion
• Massenmedien
• Öffentliche Meinung
• Massamedia
• Publieke opinie

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-254) and index.

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.

ISBN

• 0521793122
• 9780521793124

LCCN

2004047296

OCLC

• ocm54677799
• 54677799
• SCSB-8813084

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library