Participating in the Knowledge Society pp 138-151 | Cite as
Researching Ourselves? The Mass-Observation Project
Abstract
Early in 1937, fifty people in different parts of the country agreed to co-operate in making observations on how they and other people spend their daily lives. These fifty Observers were the vanguard of a developing movement, aiming to apply the methods of science to the complexity of modern culture… They are in the industrial centres, in rural and urban areas, in county towns, suburbs and villages. They include coal miners, factory hands, shopkeepers, sales-men, housewives, hospital nurses, bank clerks, business men, doctors and school masters, scientists and technicians. A large proportion of them have already shown themselves able to write really useful reports. Prof. Julian Huxley has written of some of these that they ‘would put many orthodox scientists to shame in their simplicity, clearness and objectivity’. (Jennings and Madge 1937: iii) This chapter is concerned with the use of a volunteer panel by Mass-Observation between 1937 and the mid-1950s and with the revival of the panel in a new phase of Mass-Observation which began in 1981 and continues to the present day.
Keywords
Panel Member Regular Report County Town Amateur Observer Home IntelligencePreview
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