Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Focus Group Studies of Social Media Rhetoric

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Rhetorical Audience Studies and Reception of Rhetoric

Part of the book series: Rhetoric, Politics and Society ((RPS))

Abstract

Vatnøy demonstrates how focus group interviews are a productive supplement to rhetorical studies of social media. Focusing on the use of group interviews in audience studies, political communication studies, and studies of social media, the chapter draws attention to the unique benefits of the methodology when studying rhetorical practice in new media environments. The chapter is concluded with a case study of the “Hey Girl Audun Lysbakken” campaign, an anonymous campaign that spread replicated memes for political use. In this case, the focus group interviews reveal how voters in different age groups understood the memes very differently and how their perceptions of the interactive functions of Facebook affected their responses to the memes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    At the time of the interviews, the “like” in form of a “thumbs-up” was the only response available on Facebook.

References

  • Anstead, Nick, and Ben O’Loughlin. 2011. The Emerging Viewertariat and BBC Question Time: Television Debate and Real-Time Commenting Online. The International Journal of Press/Politics 16 (4): 440–462.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bryant, Erin M., and Jennifer Marmo. 2009. Relational Maintenance Strategies on Facebook. Kentucky Journal of Communication 28 (2): 129–150.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bucy, Eric P., and John E. Newhagen. 1999. The Micro- and Macrodrama of Politics on Television: Effects of Media Format on Candidates Evaluations. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 43 (2): 193–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Nicole S., and Leslie Regan Shade. 2008. Gendering Facebook: Privacy and Commodification. Journal of Feminist Media Studies 8 (2): 201–214.

    Google Scholar 

  • D’heer, Evelien, and Peter Verdegem. 2015. What Social Media Data Mean for Audience Studies. Information, Communication & Society 18 (2): 221–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fox, Jesse, and Jennifer J. Moreland. 2015. The Dark Side of Social Networking Sites: An Exploration of the Relational and Psychological Stressors Associated with Facebook Use and Affordances. Computers in Human Behavior 45: 168–176.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gillmor, Dan. 2004. We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. Sebastopol: O’Reilly.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Graber, Doris A. 2001. Processing Politics. Learning from Television in the Internet Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2004. Methodological Developments in Political Communication Research. In Handbook of Political Communication, ed. Lynda Kaid. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, Stuart. 1980. Encoding/Decoding. In Culture, Media, Language, ed. Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Lowe, and Paul Willis, 128–138. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall Jamieson, Kathleen. 1992. Dirty Politics. Deception, Distraction, and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hauser, Gerard A. 1999. Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollenbeck, Candice R., and Andrew M. Kaikati. 2012. Consumers’ Use of Brands to Reflect Their Actual and Ideal Selves on Facebook. International Journal of Research in Marketing 29 (4): 395–405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jarvis, Sharon. 2011. The Use of Focus Groups in Political Communication Research. In The Sourcebook for Political Communication Research: Methods, Measures, and Analytical Techniques, ed. Eric P. Busy and R. Lance Holbert. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Just, Marion R., Ann N. Crigler, Dean E. Alger, Timothy E. Cook, and Montague Kern. 1996. Crosstalk. Citizens, Candidates, and the Media in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Karlsnes, Bente, Arne H. Krumsvik, and Tanja Storsul. 2014. Social Media as Political Backchannel: Twitter Use During Televised Election Debates in Norway. Aslib Journal of Information Management 66 (3): 313–328.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karpf, David, Daniel Kreiss, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, and Matthew Powers. 2015. The Role of Qualitative Methods in Political Communication Research: Past, Present, and Future. International Journal of Communication 9: 1888–1906.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kjeldsen, Jens. 2008. Retoriske omstændigheder. Den retoriske situation og det retoriske studie i en kompleks, omskiftelig og medieret verden. Rhetorica Scandinavica 48: 42–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krueger, Richard A., and Mary Anne Casey. 2009. Focus Groups. A Practical Guide for Applied Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone, Sonia. 2004. The Challenge of Changing Audiences. Or, What is the Audience Researcher to do in the Age of the Internet? European Journal of Communication 19 (1): 75–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone, Sonia, and Ranjana Das. 2012. The End of Audiences? Theoretical Echoes of Reception Amidst the Uncertainties of Use. In A Companion to New Media Dynamics, ed. John Hartley, Jean Burgess, and Axel Bruns, 104–121. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lunt, Peter, and Sonia Livingstone. 1996. Rethinking the Focus Group in Media and Communications Research. Journal of Communication 46 (2): 79–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marwick, Alice E., and Danah Boyd. 2010. I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately: Twitter Users, Context Collapse, and the Imagined Audience. New Media & Society 13 (1): 114–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mathieu, David. 2015. The Continued Relevance of Reception Analysis in the Age of Social Media. Tripodos 36: 13–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLaughlin, Caitlin, and Jessica Vitak. 2011. Norm Evolution and Violation on Facebook. New Media & Society 14 (2): 299–315.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merton, Robert K. 1987. The Focussed Interview and Focus Groups. Continuities and Discontinuities. Public Opinion Quarterly 51: 550–566.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merton, Robert K., and Patricia Kendall. 1946. The Focused Interview. American Journal of Sociology 51 (6): 541–557.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, Lynn. 1999. Combining Focus Groups and Interviews: Telling It How It Is; Telling It How It Feels. In Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice, ed. Rosaline S. Barbour and Jenny Kitzinger. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, David L. 1998. The Focus Group Guidebook. Focus Group Kit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Morley, David. 1980. The Nationwide Audience. Structure and Decoding. London: British Film Institute. British Film Institute Television Monograph No. 11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morley, David, and Charlotte Brundson. 2005. The Nationwide Television Studies. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Procter, Rob, Alex Voss, and Ilia Lvov. 2015. Audience Research and Social Media Data: Opportunities and Challenges. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies 12 (1): 470–493.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richardson, Kathleen, and Sue Hessey. 2009. Archiving the Self? Facebook as Biography of Social and Relational Memory. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society 7 (1): 25–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosen, Jay. 2006. The People Formerly Known as the Audience. PressThink, June 27. http://archive.pressthink.org/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html

  • Schlesinger, Philip, Rebecca Dobash, Russel Dobash, and Kay Weaver. 1992. Women Viewing Violence. London: British film institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snelson, Chareen L. 2016. Qualitative and Mixed Methods Social Media Research: A Review of the Literature. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, January-December 2016: 1–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vorvoreanu, Michaela. 2009. Perceptions of Corporations on Facebook: An Analysis of Facebook Social Norms. Journal of New Communications Research 4 (1): 67–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warnick, Barbara, and David S. Heineman. 2012. Rhetoric Online. The Politics of New Media. 2nd ed. New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waterton, Claire, and Brian Wynne. 1999. Can Focus Groups Access Community Views? In Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice, ed. Rosaline S. Barbour and Jenny Kitzinger. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, Shanyang, Sherri Grasmuck, and Jason Martin. 2008. Identity Construction on Facebook: Digital Empowerment in Anchored Relationships. Computers in Human Behavior 24 (5): 1816–1836.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Eirik Vatnøy

Authors
  1. Eirik Vatnøy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Jens E. Kjeldsen

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Vatnøy, E. (2018). Focus Group Studies of Social Media Rhetoric. In: Kjeldsen, J. (eds) Rhetorical Audience Studies and Reception of Rhetoric. Rhetoric, Politics and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61618-6_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation