Using sociological methodology
to be reflective about our research findings: Focus group
While testing our Survey on one of the respondents we got the feedback that reducing the answer to just one word is difficult, as his thoughts go in a sentence. As Morgan (1997) notices the main criteria of focus group appropriateness is the people’s interest in the topic, thus, we decided that a focus group could be a good way to to check if the people’s perception of the selected materials will match our analysis and probably get some unexpected insides.
How it was made? Design and Organization
As Barbour, R. (2007) notices after analisys of the most common definitions ‘any group discussion may be called a focus group as long as the researcher is actively encouraging of, and attentive to, the group interaction’. Thus, we have prepared a set of materials (images and video from different time periods) and a flexible guideline (general questions aimed at learning the attitudes towards the advertisement) to conduct the focus group.
Who has agreed to do it? Sample
The participants were chosen voluntarily, they could be called 'convenience sampling', yet they are diverse in terms of gender (3 female, 3 male), sexual orientation (hetero-, bi- and homosexual) and nationality (Eastern and Western Europe, Asia), little difference in age was present. Yet, all of them are university students, which means they are homogeneous in term of social class and presumably mind-set, which is a limitation of the research. |
What did we get? Outcomes
In general, the focus discussion goes in line with our research findings. Thus participants read the messages of the advertisements in the similar way, but conveyed them in a less formal language. For example, the concept of the objectification, which deem unacceptable, is formulated as “it’s focuses a lot on appearance and women were seen as a piece of furniture” – other examples are placed next to results of our discourse analysis for the specific time periods. All advertisement apart from the ones from latest ones were critisized for: - focusinng on appearence, setting unrealistic standards if the beauty: "If you don't reach a certain standard, you're not good enough. You have to use their products" -putting pressure on women and redusing thier perspectives to the successful marriage/ finding a mate Therefore, the focus group allowed to acquire more detailed understanding of people's perception of the advertisement, analyse the way they put stresses and the reasoning behind disapproval of the older campaigns and relatively positive acceptance of the modern ones. Moreover, some unplanned, but relevant themes emerged: the relation between the advertisement and consumption as well as the negative influence of the cosmetic advertisement on the young people. In addition, the focus group might have somehow a therapeutic effect, as at one point participants discussed how they do feel beautiful without the make-up. |