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February 28, 2018 1:35 AM Subscribe
I thought this part was insightful:
The current culture of consultation has flourished and become more necessary in a period during which the actual power of ordinary people relative to the rich – whether in the workplace or the political arena – has greatly diminished. Listening is not the same as sharing power. At the same time that our society has become more unequal, and gaps in everyday experience much wider, the need for listening has only grown more obvious. Ordinary people – especially working-class women – don’t have much political or economic power. In addition to telegraphing some of the desires of such people to cultural, political and corporate elites, the focus group is a ritual allowing those elites to send the message that they are listening (and sometimes even responding).
I think the same could often be said of advisory committees in civic life, which use the time and energy of (often more marginalized) people to give an impression of doing something, without often actually doing much of anything.
When I approached my city councillor about forming an advisory committee for members of a population I belong to to respond to city policy, she turned me down, saying that it would just be a time sink and not accomplish anything, and suggested a few other ways that we could work with the city. I appreciated that, and it changed my thinking about the value of different kinds of civic engagement.
posted by ITheCosmos at 5:27 AM on February 28, 2018 [12 favorites]
The current culture of consultation has flourished and become more necessary in a period during which the actual power of ordinary people relative to the rich – whether in the workplace or the political arena – has greatly diminished. Listening is not the same as sharing power. At the same time that our society has become more unequal, and gaps in everyday experience much wider, the need for listening has only grown more obvious. Ordinary people – especially working-class women – don’t have much political or economic power. In addition to telegraphing some of the desires of such people to cultural, political and corporate elites, the focus group is a ritual allowing those elites to send the message that they are listening (and sometimes even responding).
I think the same could often be said of advisory committees in civic life, which use the time and energy of (often more marginalized) people to give an impression of doing something, without often actually doing much of anything.
When I approached my city councillor about forming an advisory committee for members of a population I belong to to respond to city policy, she turned me down, saying that it would just be a time sink and not accomplish anything, and suggested a few other ways that we could work with the city. I appreciated that, and it changed my thinking about the value of different kinds of civic engagement.
posted by ITheCosmos at 5:27 AM on February 28, 2018 [12 favorites]
The process looks like democracy in action, and most people enjoy participating. Yet focus groups are widely despised.The public resents the mediocre outcomes of a focus-grouped world
I dunno, isn't this because, much like being in the audience for Question Time, most of us wouldn't want to be on a focus group and therefore wouldn't apply or accept an invitation, so you only get people who are really invested in one view or another?
posted by threetwentytwo at 5:37 AM on February 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
I dunno, isn't this because, much like being in the audience for Question Time, most of us wouldn't want to be on a focus group and therefore wouldn't apply or accept an invitation, so you only get people who are really invested in one view or another?
posted by threetwentytwo at 5:37 AM on February 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
The current culture of consultation has flourished and become more necessary in a period during which the actual power of ordinary people relative to the rich – whether in the workplace or the political arena – has greatly diminished.
Which period is that, exactly? I think it is, at minimum, simplistic to say that the power of ordinary people, relative to the rich, has greatly diminished since the first focus groups in the 1950s (either in the US or anywhere else that I know of). It’s no coincidence that the women who were members of that first focus group were among the first working women, who actually got to decide how to spend the money they earned. That enormous 20th century shift in the balance of social and economic power between men and women can’t just be hand-waved away as part of the overall march of inequality, the triumph of The Elites over The People etc.
This isn’t just a pedantic point to do with the history. While it is true that people don’t have as much power as they should, individually and collectively, I’m wary of this kind of Back to the Golden Age framing of the problem, given that we’re sitting in the second year of the Trump era. The hard work of obtaining a broadly equitable distribution of power, under the messy and fraught conditions of modern democracy, is no better served by this kind of The People v The Elites stuff than it is by focus group politics. Power is really complicated, and is distributed in all kinds of ways along economic and gender and racial axes; this story suppresses that complexity in a way that makes me deeply uncomfortable.
posted by Aravis76 at 5:40 AM on February 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
Which period is that, exactly? I think it is, at minimum, simplistic to say that the power of ordinary people, relative to the rich, has greatly diminished since the first focus groups in the 1950s (either in the US or anywhere else that I know of). It’s no coincidence that the women who were members of that first focus group were among the first working women, who actually got to decide how to spend the money they earned. That enormous 20th century shift in the balance of social and economic power between men and women can’t just be hand-waved away as part of the overall march of inequality, the triumph of The Elites over The People etc.
This isn’t just a pedantic point to do with the history. While it is true that people don’t have as much power as they should, individually and collectively, I’m wary of this kind of Back to the Golden Age framing of the problem, given that we’re sitting in the second year of the Trump era. The hard work of obtaining a broadly equitable distribution of power, under the messy and fraught conditions of modern democracy, is no better served by this kind of The People v The Elites stuff than it is by focus group politics. Power is really complicated, and is distributed in all kinds of ways along economic and gender and racial axes; this story suppresses that complexity in a way that makes me deeply uncomfortable.
posted by Aravis76 at 5:40 AM on February 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
Aravis76: I think while we have made progress on a broader distribution of power among women and other historically disadvantaged groups, it has come at the same time as the disparity between the haves and have-nots has increased dramatically. We've got a Gini coefficient that makes us look more like Argentina or Russia than Australia or Canada.
Women entering the workforce has likely accelerated income inequality in the United States, as folks tend to marry folks from their own background and circumstances. The resulting two income households effectively strap a booster rocket on higher earners.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:24 AM on February 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
Women entering the workforce has likely accelerated income inequality in the United States, as folks tend to marry folks from their own background and circumstances. The resulting two income households effectively strap a booster rocket on higher earners.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:24 AM on February 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
while we have made progress on a broader distribution of power among women and other historically disadvantaged groups, it has come at the same time as the disparity between the haves and have-nots has increased dramatically.
This framing depends on denying the obvious point that women, as a class, have been among the have-nots for most of human history. Women’s lack of access to private property, their inability to control the product of their own labour and even the use of their own bodies, is part of the radical economic inequality between men and women that one would expect anyone on the left to notice as a relevant fact of history. Instead what you get on the left, as on the right, is a total dismissal of gender equality as interesting or important, except to a handful of women as individuals. That’s precisely the framing of the problem in the article that I am criticising, for its trivialisation of forms of power imbalance that are not purely about class in the strictly Marxist sense. I’m not denying that class inequality has deepened and worsened in the US (and the UK too) since the 1970s. I’m denying that this means the 1970s were a golden age or that any kind of serious left politics can simply disregard gender in its framing of the problem of economic inequality, within as well as between different income groups.
posted by Aravis76 at 6:36 AM on February 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
This framing depends on denying the obvious point that women, as a class, have been among the have-nots for most of human history. Women’s lack of access to private property, their inability to control the product of their own labour and even the use of their own bodies, is part of the radical economic inequality between men and women that one would expect anyone on the left to notice as a relevant fact of history. Instead what you get on the left, as on the right, is a total dismissal of gender equality as interesting or important, except to a handful of women as individuals. That’s precisely the framing of the problem in the article that I am criticising, for its trivialisation of forms of power imbalance that are not purely about class in the strictly Marxist sense. I’m not denying that class inequality has deepened and worsened in the US (and the UK too) since the 1970s. I’m denying that this means the 1970s were a golden age or that any kind of serious left politics can simply disregard gender in its framing of the problem of economic inequality, within as well as between different income groups.
posted by Aravis76 at 6:36 AM on February 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
I have some friends in the coveted (by marketers) white lady millennial group who routinely lie to get into focus groups just for the cash. These are typically for very well-known consumer food brands: Bud Light, McCormick spices, McDonalds, Special K/Kellogg, etc. One of them went so far as to lie about having children(!!!). I would never be good enough at lying to do that, but I admire their side hustle and appreciate the slightly subversive nature of fucking up the brands' data sets, even if only slightly.
I can't say I know anyone who enjoys doing focus groups because they feel like they are being heard. It's all about the money. I'm too old to be wanted in any of them but that would be my motivation if I did qualify.
posted by misskaz at 6:46 AM on February 28, 2018 [8 favorites]
I can't say I know anyone who enjoys doing focus groups because they feel like they are being heard. It's all about the money. I'm too old to be wanted in any of them but that would be my motivation if I did qualify.
posted by misskaz at 6:46 AM on February 28, 2018 [8 favorites]
I dunno, isn't this because, much like being in the audience for Question Time, most of us wouldn't want to be on a focus group and therefore wouldn't apply or accept an invitation, so you only get people who are really invested in one view or another?
I don't think so. I think it is because general focus groups are legitimately used only to determine marginal consumer preferences- and therefore are not appropriate to determine public policy - any more than they are appropriate for something like a medical procedure or write code or anything that has a right/wrong 'best practice' answer.
I can't say I know anyone who enjoys doing focus groups because they feel like they are being heard.
I participate in focus groups for the money, because the questions rarely go deeper than did you like product X? Did you like X or Y better?
posted by The_Vegetables at 6:51 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have nothing to say other than hats off to fearfulsymmetry for the post title.
posted by noneuclidean at 7:03 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by noneuclidean at 7:03 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think it is because general focus groups are legitimately used only to determine marginal consumer preferences
And that's in the ideal case, when they're not being used as a tool of internal politicking ("well, the focus group results back my position") where the folks running the focus group already know the answer they want and craft the questions accordingly.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:04 AM on February 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
And that's in the ideal case, when they're not being used as a tool of internal politicking ("well, the focus group results back my position") where the folks running the focus group already know the answer they want and craft the questions accordingly.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:04 AM on February 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
This article adds to my bitter hatred of American tv news' mockeries of town hall meetings.
posted by doctornemo at 7:09 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by doctornemo at 7:09 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
folks running the focus group already know the answer they want and craft the questions accordingly.
This too. At least 50% (if not more) feel exactly like that. So yes I will take $35-$75 for an hour to tell you want you want to hear.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:19 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
This too. At least 50% (if not more) feel exactly like that. So yes I will take $35-$75 for an hour to tell you want you want to hear.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:19 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have nothing to say other than hats off to fearfulsymmetry for the post title.
The title is definitely not Apple Maps bad.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:21 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
The title is definitely not Apple Maps bad.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:21 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I've been in a few and the cash is nice. My city is a hub for this and there are a few places where you can make $200-$500 a pop, cash. It's never not true that once the group gets rolling, there are those who vy for prominence and will say practically anything to be heard. The ones I participated in kept a few people afterward to film separate, more in-depth commentary and I felt a definite vibe of resentment from the non-chosen. So yeah- focus groups are Mean Girls in action. Reliable data? Mayybeee... but more like, "I'll say what you want to hear so I get special attention."
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 7:44 AM on February 28, 2018
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 7:44 AM on February 28, 2018
Power is really complicated, and is distributed in all kinds of ways along economic and gender and racial axes; this story suppresses that complexity in a way that makes me deeply uncomfortable.
Seconding this. In addition to those issues, there's the power inherent in those who run the groups and interpret the findings.
a woman made a Freudian slip: “Especially when I’m in a hurry, I like foods that are time-consuming.” ...revealed the woman’s conflicted feelings about convenience foods, even though she seemed to embrace them. As the moderator, Alfred Goldman, would later recall in a 1964 article for a trade journal, that slip inspired the other women in the group to talk more openly about how guilty they felt over serving prepared foods to their families.
How can anyone be sure that the moderator, who clearly assumed that so-called Freudian slips reveal true thoughts, didn't (unintentionally) encouraged the women to talk about feeling guilty for daring to take advantage of products that might make their lives easier?
And I'm wondering about the assumptions built into the solution, i.e., to assuage the housewives’ guilt by giving them more of a sense of participation. “How to do that?” He smiled. “By adding an egg.” With this simple adjustment to the recipe, sales of cake mixes took off. It was an early focus-group marketing triumph. I'm thinking that the man who believed that adding an egg to a cake mix gave women some meaningful "sense of participation" might not think all that much of women in general. (E.g., possible alternative reasons for the increase in sales: a fresh egg improved the cake, the increase would have occurred regardless—related to increasing use of convenience foods in general.)
Given this, I take issue with the notion that "The current culture of consultation has flourished and become more necessary in a period during which the actual power of ordinary people relative to the rich – whether in the workplace or the political arena – has greatly diminished." The consultants aren't reliable representatives of ordinary people and, in fact, may further erode whatever "power" remains.
Finally, The ruling classes – and even the professional managerial classes that make decisions for those rulers – might be increasingly disconnected from ordinary people, but they had to know what the people wanted in order to sell them things and win their votes.
Or, they have to manipulate the people (e.g., fake news) to ensure they want what is being sold.
posted by she's not there at 7:44 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Seconding this. In addition to those issues, there's the power inherent in those who run the groups and interpret the findings.
a woman made a Freudian slip: “Especially when I’m in a hurry, I like foods that are time-consuming.” ...revealed the woman’s conflicted feelings about convenience foods, even though she seemed to embrace them. As the moderator, Alfred Goldman, would later recall in a 1964 article for a trade journal, that slip inspired the other women in the group to talk more openly about how guilty they felt over serving prepared foods to their families.
How can anyone be sure that the moderator, who clearly assumed that so-called Freudian slips reveal true thoughts, didn't (unintentionally) encouraged the women to talk about feeling guilty for daring to take advantage of products that might make their lives easier?
And I'm wondering about the assumptions built into the solution, i.e., to assuage the housewives’ guilt by giving them more of a sense of participation. “How to do that?” He smiled. “By adding an egg.” With this simple adjustment to the recipe, sales of cake mixes took off. It was an early focus-group marketing triumph. I'm thinking that the man who believed that adding an egg to a cake mix gave women some meaningful "sense of participation" might not think all that much of women in general. (E.g., possible alternative reasons for the increase in sales: a fresh egg improved the cake, the increase would have occurred regardless—related to increasing use of convenience foods in general.)
Given this, I take issue with the notion that "The current culture of consultation has flourished and become more necessary in a period during which the actual power of ordinary people relative to the rich – whether in the workplace or the political arena – has greatly diminished." The consultants aren't reliable representatives of ordinary people and, in fact, may further erode whatever "power" remains.
Finally, The ruling classes – and even the professional managerial classes that make decisions for those rulers – might be increasingly disconnected from ordinary people, but they had to know what the people wanted in order to sell them things and win their votes.
Or, they have to manipulate the people (e.g., fake news) to ensure they want what is being sold.
posted by she's not there at 7:44 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I’m not denying that class inequality has deepened and worsened in the US (and the UK too) since the 1970s. I’m denying that this means the 1970s were a golden age or that any kind of serious left politics can simply disregard gender in its framing of the problem of economic inequality, within as well as between different income groups.
In which case I'm in complete agreement.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:26 AM on February 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
In which case I'm in complete agreement.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:26 AM on February 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Also isn't theI'm pretty sure that was a myth, at least snopes thinss so, and I've seen it talked about elsewhere as adding an egg being not actually attributable to the idea of 'cooking'.
posted by Carillon at 9:59 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Carillon at 9:59 AM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
The whole premise of this article is silly. Focus groups are a tool for marketers, not a forum for individual/collective empowerment. Anyone who says otherwise is blowing smoke, and anyone who believes otherwise isn't thinking very clearly.
posted by PhineasGage at 10:40 AM on February 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 10:40 AM on February 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
ugh. Focus groups are the *worst* (as everyone has pointed out )
....
except for the alternative. Which is the CEO coming to the team and "my neighbor / mom / kid really likes ________", which is how most product decisions get made.
Forcing a marketing or design team to listen to real customers is usually eye-opening.
posted by cfraenkel at 12:02 PM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
....
except for the alternative. Which is the CEO coming to the team and "my neighbor / mom / kid really likes ________", which is how most product decisions get made.
Forcing a marketing or design team to listen to real customers is usually eye-opening.
posted by cfraenkel at 12:02 PM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Focus groups are a tool for marketers, not a forum for individual/collective empowerment.
Oh, I'm not so sure about that. I got invited to a focus group for BMW owners, and the room spent the entire time rambling on about their beloved cars (and every. single. car. they owned before this one) and never answering the questions.
You could smell the cash burning on the other side of the window.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:00 PM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh, I'm not so sure about that. I got invited to a focus group for BMW owners, and the room spent the entire time rambling on about their beloved cars (and every. single. car. they owned before this one) and never answering the questions.
You could smell the cash burning on the other side of the window.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:00 PM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Forcing a marketing or design team to listen to real customers is usually eye-opening.
My experience with putting prototypes in front of focus groups - feedback about what people don't/wouldn't like is useful, feedback about what they do/would like is just a description of their favorite version of $THING, which tends to be useless if you're trying to make something new.
posted by PMdixon at 7:40 AM on March 1, 2018
My experience with putting prototypes in front of focus groups - feedback about what people don't/wouldn't like is useful, feedback about what they do/would like is just a description of their favorite version of $THING, which tends to be useless if you're trying to make something new.
posted by PMdixon at 7:40 AM on March 1, 2018
I dunno, JoeZydeco, you might be surprised how much the client learned from listening to y'all talk about your favorite OTHER cars...
posted by PhineasGage at 1:54 PM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by PhineasGage at 1:54 PM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
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... I mean what else could they possibly be? What could you think the point of a focus group is other than to figure out how to manipulate people?
posted by PMdixon at 5:19 AM on February 28, 2018 [4 favorites]