Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T06:46:03.769Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mass-Observation, Market Research, and the Birth of the Focus Group, 1937–1997

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Joe Moran
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 827 - 851
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Gould, Philip, The Unfinished Revolution: How the Modernisers Saved the Labour Party (London, 1999), 326Google Scholar.

2 For a history of the use of focus groups within the Labour party, see Marshment, Margaret Lees-, Political Marketing and British Political Parties: The Party's Just Begun (Manchester, 2001), 134–210Google Scholar.

3 David Thomas, “What Does Tony Blair Have in Common with a Pair of 501s?” Observer, 11 August 1996.

4 Gould, The Unfinished Revolution, 328, 326.

5 See, e.g., Buzard, James, “Mass-Observation, Modernism, and Auto-Ethnography,” Modernism/Modernity 4, no. 3 (September 1997): 93–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Yates, Julian, “Shift Work: Observing Women Observing, 1937–1945,” in Women's Experience of Modernity, 1875–1945, ed. Ardis, Ann L. and Lewis, Leslie W. (Baltimore, 2003), 274–76Google Scholar.

6 Jeffery, Tom, Mass-Observation: A Short History, 2nd ed. (Brighton, 1999), viiiGoogle Scholar.

7 Hubble, Nick, Mass-Observation and Everyday Life: Culture, History, Theory (Basingstoke, 2006), 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Vernon, James, Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture c. 1815–1867 (Cambridge, 1993), 332Google Scholar.

9 See, e.g., Vernon, Politics and the People; Epstein, James A., Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual, and Symbol in England, 1790–1850 (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar; and Lawrence, Jon, Speaking for the People: Party, Language and Popular Politics in England, 1867–1914 (Cambridge, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 For a discussion of these two models, see Clarke, Harold D., Sanders, David, Stewart, Marianne C., and Whiteley, Paul, Political Choice in Britain (Oxford, 2004), 5–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York, 1957)Google Scholar.

11 Lawrence, Speaking for the People, 150.

12 See, e.g., Black, Lawrence, “‘What Kind of People Are You?’ Labour, the People and the ‘New Political History,’” in Interpreting the Labour Party: Approaches to Labour Politics and History, ed. Callaghan, John, Fielding, Steven, and Ludlam, Steve (Manchester, 2003), 23–38Google Scholar, and The Political Culture of the Left in Affluent Britain, 1951–64: Old Labour, New Britain? (Basingstoke, 2003), 3–6; and Fielding, Steven, “A Mirror for England? Cinematic Representations of Politicians and Party Politics, circa 1944–64,” Journal of British Studies 47, no. 1 (January 2008): 107–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Black, Lawrence, review of Moments of Modernity: Reconstructing Britain 1945–1964, ed. Conekin, Becky, Mort, Frank, and Waters, Chris, Contemporary British History 14, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 188Google Scholar.

14 Mass-Observation, Britain, arranged and written by Tom Harrisson and Charles Madge (1939; repr., London, 1986), 9.

15 Ibid., 36.

16 Madge, Charles and Harrisson, Tom, eds., First Year's Work, 1937–38, by Mass-Observation (London, 1938), 87Google Scholar.

17 See Heimann, Judith, The Most Offending Soul Alive: Tom Harrisson and His Remarkable Life (Honolulu, 1998), 158Google Scholar.

18 Robinson, Daniel J., The Measure of Democracy: Polling, Market Research, and Public Life, 1930–1945 (Toronto, 1999), 4, 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Tom Harrisson, Humphrey Jennings, and Charles Madge, “Anthropology at Home,” New Statesman and Nation, 30 January 1937, 155.

20 Angus Calder, “Introduction to the Cresset Library Edition,” in Mass-Observation, Britain, ix.

21 Ibid., x.

22 Ibid.

23 McDonald, Colin and King, Stephen, Sampling the Universe: The Growth, Development and Influence of Market Research in Britain since 1945 (London, 1996), 69Google Scholar; Kleinman, Philip, Market Research: Head Counting Becomes Big Business (London, 1985), 9–10Google Scholar.

24 Stork spreading campaign carried out by Lintas Ltd., 1937, TC Food 1937–53, 67/1/A, Mass-Observation Archive, Special Collections, University of Sussex Library.

25 Mass-Observation, Britain, 7.

26 Madge and Harrison, First Year's Work, 32–40.

27 Orwell, George, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937; repr., Harmondsworth, 1989), 82Google Scholar.

28 See “Holborn Contest,” The Times, 22 June 1938; and “Fulham Polling Tomorrow,” The Times, 5 April 1938.

29 Christopher Durrant, “Those Who Are Not Interested in Politics,” Daily Mirror, 25 October 1924.

30 See “Prison for Non-Voters,” Daily Mirror, 22 April 1921; “Make Them Vote,” Daily Mirror, 28 November 1935; “Vote or Be Fined,” Daily Mirror, 29 May 1939.

31 Muir, Ramsay, How Britain Is Governed: A Critical Analysis of Modern Developments in the British System of Government (1940; repr., London, 1930), 3–4Google Scholar.

32 Simon, Ernest and Hubback, Eva M., Training for Citizenship (London, 1935)Google Scholar.

33 Madge and Harrison, First Year's Work, 32.

34 Harrisson, Tom, “Whistle While You Work,” in New Writing, New Series I, Autumn 1938, ed. Lehmann, John (London, 1938), 56–57, 66Google Scholar.

35 Vernon, Politics and the People, 80.

36 Madge and Harrisson, First Year's Work, 32.

37 Harrisson, Tom, Britain Revisited (London, 1961), 79–81, 106Google Scholar.

38 Harrisson, Britain Revisited, 107; Julian Trevelyan, Indigo Days (1957; repr., London, 1996), 100.

39 Mass-Observation, Britain, 40–41.

40 Trevelyan, Indigo Days, 101; see also Harrisson, Britain Revisited, 108.

41 Mass-Observation, Britain, 175–76.

42 Wring, Dominic, The Politics of Marketing the Labour Party (Basingstoke, 2005), 16–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 See, e.g., Firth, Raymond, “An Anthropologist's View of Mass-Observation,” Sociological Review 31, no. 2 (April 1939): 166–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Addison, Paul, The Road to 1945 (1975; repr., London, 1994), 121Google Scholar.

45 Harrisson, Tom and Madge, Charles, eds., War Begins at Home by Mass-Observation (London, 1940), vGoogle Scholar.

46 Mackay, Robert, Half the Battle: Civilian Morale during the Second World War (Manchester, 2003), 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Ian McLaine, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II (London, 1979), 84–86.

47 Harrisson, Tom, World Within: A Borneo Story (London, 1959), 162–63Google Scholar. For a further discussion of Mass-Observation's research on morale, see Angus Calder, “Mass-Observation, 1937–1949,” in Essays in the History of British Sociological Research, ed. Martin Bulmer (Cambridge, 1985), 130.

48 Mackay, Half the Battle, 10–11; Hubble, Mass-Observation and Everyday Life, 187.

49 National Statistics, 60 Years of Social Survey, 1941–2001 (Norwich, 2001), 7; see also Hubble, Mass-Observation and Everyday Life, 8.

50 Harrisson, Tom, “Preface,” in Mass-Observation, The Pub and the People: A Worktown Study (1943; repr., London, 1987), xviGoogle Scholar.

51 Report of the Committee on the Provision for Social and Economic Research [Chairman, Sir John Clapham] (London, 1946).

52 National Statistics, 60 Years of Social Survey, 15.

53 Halsey, A. H., A History of Sociology in Britain: Science, Literature, and Society (Oxford, 2004), 96–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Calder, “Introduction,” x.

55 Harrisson, Tom, “Who’ll Win?” Political Quarterly 15, no. 1 (January 1944): 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Mass-Observation, “Don’t Know, Don’t Care,” in The Adventure Ahead, ed. A. G. Weidenfeld (London, 1948), 56.

57 Ibid., 56.

58 See Kynaston, David, Austerity Britain, 1945–51 (London, 2007), 40–43, 69Google Scholar.

59 “Do the Forces Want the Right to Vote?” Picture Post, 19 August 1944, 25.

60 Harrisson, Tom, “The Public's Progress,” in The Public's Progress, ed. A. G. Weidenfeld (London, 1947), 1Google Scholar.

61 Mass-Observation, Peace and the Public: A Study by Mass-Observation (London, 1947), 55, 2–3Google Scholar.

62 Mass-Observation, Voters’ Choice: A Mass-Observation Report on the General Election of 1950 (London, 1950), 5Google Scholar.

63 Mass-Observation, “Don’t Know, Don’t Care,” 57.

64 Ibid., 58.

65 Jones, Harriet, “‘New Conservatism’? The Industrial Charter, Modernity and the Reconstruction of British Conservatism after the War,” in Moments of Modernity: Reconstructing Britain 1945–1964, ed. Conekin, Becky, Mort, Frank, and Waters, Chris (London, 1999), 180–82Google Scholar.

66 Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina, “Rationing, Austerity and the Conservative Party Recovery after 1945,” Historical Journal 37, no. 1 (March 1994): 189–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Abrams, Mark, “Public Opinion Polls and Political Parties,” Public Opinion Quarterly 27, no. 1 (Spring 1963): 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 See also Taylor, Andrew J., “‘The Record of the 1950s Is Irrelevant’: The Conservative Party, Electoral Strategy and Opinion Research,” Contemporary British History 17, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 81–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Beers, Laura Dumond, “Whose Opinion? Changing Attitudes towards Opinion Polling in British Politics, 1937–1964,” Twentieth Century British History 17, no. 2 (2006): 199–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Jeffery, Mass-Observation, 47–48.

69 Lawrence, Jon and Taylor, Miles, “Introduction: Electoral Sociology and the Historians,” in Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820, ed. Lawrence, Jon and Taylor, Miles (Aldershot, 1997), 3Google Scholar.

70 Fielding, Steven, “'Don’t Know and Don’t Care’: Popular Political Attitudes in Labour's Britain, 1945–51,” in The Attlee Years, ed. Tiratsoo, Nick (London, 1991), 114Google Scholar.

71 Harrisson, Tom, “What Is Sociology?” Pilot Papers 2, no. 1 (March 1947): 18Google Scholar.

72 Abrams, Mark, Social Surveys and Social Action (London, 1951), 61–62Google Scholar.

73 “Postwar Boom in Market Research,” The Times, 27 April 1960; McDonald and King, Sampling the Universe, 83.

74 Downham, John S., Shankleman, Eric, and Treasure, John A. P., “Introduction: A Survey of Market Research in Great Britain,” in Readings in Market Research, ed. Downham, John S., Shankleman, Eric, and Treasure, John A. P. (London, 1956), xxivGoogle Scholar.

75 Typed report on the wartime status of margarine, TC Food 1937–53, 67/1/A, Mass-Observation Archive.

76 Private information from market researcher who worked for Mass-Observation between 1956 and 1958.

77 “Rapid Expansion of Market Research Interviewing,” The Times, 27 March 1962.

78 Hopkins, Harry, The New Look: A Social History of the Forties and Fifties in Britain (London, 1963), 316Google Scholar.

79 Dawn Mitchell, “Forty Years On,” Association of Market Survey Organisations (AMSO) conference paper, 1995, cited in McDonald and King, Sampling the Universe, 35.

80 See Henry Durant, “Public Opinion Polls,” The Times, 15 February 1951.

81 McDonald and King, Sampling the Universe, 29.

82 “Rapid Expansion of Market Research Interviewing.”

83 Cassandra, “The Straw in the Wind,” Daily Mirror, 23 September 1959.

84 Abrams, Social Surveys and Social Action, 107–8.

85 Dorothy Sheridan, “Appendix to the Cresset Library Edition,” in Mass-Observation, The Pub and the People, 352.

86 Abrams, Social Surveys and Social Action, 53.

87 See, e.g., Abrams, Mark, The Teenage Consumer (London, 1959)Google Scholar, and The Newspaper Reading Public of Tomorrow (London, 1964). See also Len Jackson, “A Market Research Expert Says … 'This is you!'” Daily Mirror, 19 November 1959.

88 Hopkins, The New Look, 451–52.

89 “The Don’t Knows,” The Times, 3 February 1950.

90 “One for the Road?” The Times, 18 May 1956.

91 “Crossman Says,” Daily Mirror, 20 March 1959.

92 Butler, David and King, Anthony, The British General Election of 1964 (London, 1964), 67Google Scholar.

93 Abrams, “Public Opinion Polls and Political Parties,” 14.

94 Wring, The Politics of Marketing the Labour Party, 57.

95 Abrams, Mark, Rose, Richard, and Hinden, Rita, Must Labour Lose? (Harmondsworth, 1960), 71Google Scholar.

96 Wring, The Politics of Marketing the Labour Party, 66; Worcester, Robert M., British Public Opinion: A Guide to the History and Techniques of Political Opinion Polling (Oxford, 1991), 25Google Scholar; Butler and King, The British General Election of 1964, 69.

97 McDonald and King, Sampling the Universe, 152; John Treasure, “Research to Make Guessing Easier,” The Times, 18 October 1962.

98 Abrams et al., Must Labour Lose? 23, 14.

99 See Hilton, Matthew, Consumerism in Twentieth-Century Britain: The Search for a Historical Movement (Cambridge, 2003), 270–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pimlott, Ben, Frustrate Their Knavish Tricks: Writings on Biography, History and Politics (London, 1994), 386Google Scholar; and Williams, Philip, Hugh Gaitskell (London, 1979), 538–39Google Scholar.

100 Henry, Harry, Motivation Research: Its Practice and Uses for Advertising, Marketing, and Other Business (London, 1958), 11, 50–51Google Scholar.

101 Kleinman, Market Research, 3.

102 Downham et al., “Introduction,” xxix.

103 Frank Mort, “The Commercial Domain: Advertising and the Cultural Management of Demand,” in Conekin et al., Moments of Modernity, 69.

104 Henry, Motivation Research, 184.

105 Terence Morris, “Motive Research,” The Times, 17 April 1959.

106 Henry, Motivation Research, 1–2.

107 Packard, Vance, The Hidden Persuaders (London, 1957), 25–27, 31–35Google Scholar.

108 “Selling to the Unconscious,” The Times, 19 January 1959; “Pioneer of Motive Research,” The Times, 14 April 1959.

109 Cassandra, “Erbide with Me,” Daily Mirror, 17 April 1959, and “Two Purl One Plain,” Daily Mirror, 10 August 1961.

110 Hoggart, Richard, The Uses of Literacy (Harmondsworth, 1958), 201, 180Google Scholar.

111 Raphael Samuel, “Dr. Abrams and the End of Politics,” New Left Review, 5 (September–October 1960), 3–4.

112 Abrams et al., Must Labour Lose? 71.

113 Harrisson, Britain Revisited, 18, 211.

114 Ibid., 263–64, 252.

115 Kleinman, Market Research, 1; “At the Heart of the King Consumer,” The Times, 31 May 1985.

116 Gordon, Wendy, Goodthinking: A Guide to Qualitative Research (Henley-on-Thames, 1999), 38, 18, 41, 45Google Scholar.

117 Mort, Frank, Cultures of Consumption: Masculinities and Social Space in Late Twentieth-Century Britain (London, 1996), 104Google Scholar.

118 McDonald and King, Sampling the Universe, 166–68.

119 Glynn, Carroll J., Herbst, Susan, O’Keefe, Garrett J., and Shapiro, Robert Y., Public Opinion: Politics, Communication and Social Process (Boulder, CO, 1998), 419Google Scholar.

120 McDonald and King, Sampling the Universe, 161; see also Winston Fletcher, “Consuming Quest for the Holy Grail,” Guardian, 25 July 1988.

121 Butler, David and Kavanagh, Dennis, The British General Election of 1987 (Basingstoke, 1988), 32–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

122 McNair, Brian, An Introduction to Political Communication, 2nd ed. (London, 1999), 110Google Scholar. For a further discussion of Saatchi and Saatchi's role, see Deborah Mattinson with Tim Bell, “Politics and Qualitative Research,” in Qualitative Research in Context, ed. Laura Marks (Henley-on-Thames, 2000), 176.

123 McDonald, and King, , Sampling the Universe, 82Google Scholar; Harris, Jose, “Labour's Political and Social Thought,” in Labour's First Century, ed. Tanner, Duncan, Thane, Pat, and Tiratsoo, Nick (Cambridge, 2000), 39Google Scholar; Wring, The Politics of Marketing the Labour Party, 122.

124 See Greenberg, Stanley B., Middle-Class Dreams: The Politics and Power of the Middle-Class Majority (New York, 1995)Google Scholar.

125 Philip Gould, “The Politics of Victory,” Guardian, 6 November 1992.

126 Gould, The Unfinished Revolution, 327, 15, 272.

127 See Gunter, Barrie and Furnham, Adrian, Consumer Profiles: An Introduction to Psychographics (London, 1991)Google Scholar; and Whitehead, R. T., “Geodemographics: The Bridge between Conventional Demographics and Lifestyles,” Admap, May 1987, 23–26Google Scholar.

128 See Barker, Paul, “Search for the Middle,” Prospect 110 (May 2005): 43Google Scholar.

129 Matheison, S. A., “Home in on Votes,” Guardian, 3 March 2005Google Scholar.

130 Jon Goss, “'We Know Who You Are and We Know Where You Live’: The Instrumental Rationality of Geodemographic Systems,” Economic Geography 71, no. 2 (April 1995): 183, 187.

131 Cohen, Nick, “Angry Young White Man,” New Statesman, 15 July 2002, 20–21Google Scholar.

132 Cohen, Nick, Pretty Straight Guys (London, 2004), 34Google Scholar.

133 Rentoul, John, Robinson, Nick, and Braunholtz, Simon, “People Metering: Scientific Research or Clapometer?” in Political Communications: The General Election Campaign of 1992, ed. Ivor Crewe and Brian Gosschalk (Cambridge, 1995), 108Google Scholar.

134 Andrew Neil, “Only Cowards Listen to Focus Groups,” Daily Mail, 15 August 1997; Simon Jenkins, “The Curse of Chequers,” The Times, 29 January 1997.

135 Colin Brown, “Blair Denies Focus Group Rule,” Independent, July 30 1997; see also Kitzinger, Jenny and Barbour, Rosaline S., “Introduction: The Challenge and Promise of Focus Groups,” in Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice, ed. Kitzinger, Jenny and Barbour, Rosaline S. (London, 1999), 1Google Scholar.

136 See Summerfield, Penny, “Mass-Observation: Social Research or Social Movement?” Journal of Contemporary History 20, no. 3 (July 1985): 446CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of how the involvement of Mass-Observation with other bodies, and particularly the government, during wartime, sometimes jeopardized these aims.

137 Kirsty Milne, “The Memo-Mad Ad Man Turned Political Strategist for Blair,” New Statesman, 25 October 1996, 24.

138 See Lees-Marshment, , Political Marketing, 32Google Scholar; and Moon, Nick, Opinion Polls: History, Theory and Practice (Manchester, 1999), 177Google Scholar.

139 Johnston, Philip, “Lowest Turnout since 1874 Poll,” Daily Telegraph, 8 June 2001Google Scholar.