Methods, Metaphors, and Media Research

The purpose in this article is threefold: to make explicit the implicit metaphors underlying mainstream public-opinion research and their relationships to the methodologies employed, to offer an alternative “conversational” metaphor for the relationship between television and public opinion, and to present some findings form the authors' initial attempts to investigate empirically this relationship. First the authors argue that most public-opinion research results from, and reinforces, an implicit metaphor of citizens as “political consumers” and media messages as “hypodermic injections.” The authors then present an alternative metaphor that emphasizes the role of discourse in the formation of public opinions and that conceptualizes television and viewers as participants in an ongoing “conversation.” The third section discusses focus groups as a means of observing this conversation. The authors describe their own focus group project and present some initial findings that support the usefulness both of focus groups as a method of inquiry and of their conversational metaphor.