Fighting fire with fire in social research

We live in an age of soundbites, which fall out of the mouths of politicians into the pages of next day’s papers. But at this morning’s MRS Conference session, Decoding Society, TNS BMRB’s senior associate director Alice Coulter and research manager Eleni Romanou questioned whether social researchers should be responsible for counteracting the simple messages that are being sold to the public – often with a snapshot of complex data.

Social research reports often find themselves boiled down to nothing more than a line or two, doing away with much of the careful, nuanced and reasoned conclusions within.

“Can we be satisfied when complexity is brushed aside by the media and boiled down to black-and-white statements? If we don’t challenge soundbites, what is the point of social research?” asked Romanou.

Coulter said there were three things social researchers could do in response. Either do nothing and accept that research is never independeimage.jpeg? ( 36 KB?)nt, work more closely with clients and talk about the way issues are discussed, or go it alone and provide their own soundbites.

Although the latter option would provide balance, Coulter asked: “Wouldn’t the industry just be fighting fire with fire?”