Greg Myers. Matters of opinion: Talking about public
issues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004. Pp xvii,
258.
Public opinion clearly matters very much to a great many people. We
are constantly being given figures from the results of the latest survey
and the most recent opinion poll; the losses and gains in popularity of
our political leaders make headline news. Our opinions are solicited on
the doorstep, on the phone, in the street; pollsters, market researchers,
government departments – “they” – want to know
what we think. But the mass of data collected is quantitatively processed.
It is compiled as statistics, presented in percentages, reported as
numerical values. In this book, through his analysis of focus group
discussions and mediated opinion giving, Greg Myers takes a very different
approach to what counts as an opinion on an issue. Using the findings and
methods of interactional sociolinguistics and Conversation Analysis, he
investigates the production of opinion as a locally emerging, interactive
and above all, contextualized phenomenon.