Jonathan Potter - Böcker

The topics of 'race' and 'racism' are often treated narrowly and unimaginatively in social scientific literature; they are usually viewed as sub-categories of 'stereotyping' or 'prejudice' or 'social class.' In this exciting new book, Margaret Wetherell and Jonathan Potter extend their work on the use of discourse analysis to tackle racism and issues of social structure, power relations and idology. Part I, Theory and Method, reviews and criticizes mainstream sociological and psychological theoretical approaches to the topic of racism and introduces the challenges to them posed by discourse analysis. Also examined are the ways in which some recent developments in literary theory, post-structuralism, semiotics and cultural studies might be applied to the social and psychological study of racist practices. Part II, Discourse in Action, examines how white New Zealanders make sense of their own history and actions towards the Maori minoriy. The authors' contention is that, in order to combat racism, we need to address the commonplace forms of explanation used by ordinary people rather than concentrate on obvious bigots and extremist groups.They conclude that many 'liberal' and 'egalitarian' arguments can be used to sustain racism and exploitation. Mapping the Language of Racism is a pioneering book which suggest genuinely new ways of thinking and acting on a topic of grave social concern.

Written by some of the leading figures in the fields of conversation analysis, discursive psychology and ethnomethodology, this book looks at the challenging implications of discourse-based approaches to the topic of cognition. This volume shows how cognition can be reworked using analyses of engaging examples of real life interaction such as conversations between friends, relationship counselling sessions and legal hearings. It includes an extended introduction that overviews the history and context of cognitive research and its basic assumptions to provide a frame for understanding the specific examples discussed, as well as surveying cutting edge debates about discourse and cognition. This comprehensive and accessible book opens up important ways of understanding the relation between language and cognition.

Written by some of the leading figures in the fields of conversation analysis, discursive psychology and ethnomethodology, this book looks at the challenging implications of discourse-based approaches to the topic of cognition. This volume shows how cognition can be reworked using analyses of engaging examples of real life interaction such as conversations between friends, relationship counselling sessions and legal hearings. It includes an extended introduction that overviews the history and context of cognitive research and its basic assumptions to provide a frame for understanding the specific examples discussed, as well as surveying cutting edge debates about discourse and cognition. This comprehensive and accessible book opens up important ways of understanding the relation between language and cognition.

Focus Group Practice is unique in providing a picture of focus group moderation and interaction that is based on the study of what actually happens in high-class market research focus groups and in using recent theories of interaction, for example discourse and conversation analyses, to throw light on the practice of moderation. It is written in clear, engaging and non-technical manner and richly illustrated by examples from focus groups in a wide range of different contexts. New moderators will find the basic elements of focus groups described and explained, and experienced moderators will find new ways of understanding what they do which will help them to develop their skills.

Focus Groups moderation is understood in terms of the cutting edge theories of interaction. It concentrates on the basic and subtle processes through which moderators elicit opinions, manage disagreements, and generate a range of views. How are participants encouraged to be animated and involved, and how are the arguments and anecdotes discouraged? How are responses guided to in the required direction? This book addresses these pertinent questions.

Above all, how does a moderator keep participants focused?

This unique book will be essential reading for all involved in focus group practice. It is accessible to broad readership, including undergraduate students.

Focus Group Practice is unique in providing a picture of focus group moderation and interaction that is based on the study of what actually happens in high-class market research focus groups and in using recent theories of interaction, for example discourse and conversation analyses, to throw light on the practice of moderation. It is written in clear, engaging and non-technical manner and richly illustrated by examples from focus groups in a wide range of different contexts. New moderators will find the basic elements of focus groups described and explained, and experienced moderators will find new ways of understanding what they do which will help them to develop their skills.

Focus Groups moderation is understood in terms of the cutting edge theories of interaction. It concentrates on the basic and subtle processes through which moderators elicit opinions, manage disagreements, and generate a range of views. How are participants encouraged to be animated and involved, and how are the arguments and anecdotes discouraged? How are responses guided to in the required direction? This book addresses these pertinent questions.

Above all, how does a moderator keep participants focused?

This unique book will be essential reading for all involved in focus group practice. It is accessible to broad readership, including undergraduate students.

`Potter and Wetherell have genuinely presented us with a different way of working in social psychology. The book's clarity means that it has the power to influence a lot of people ill-at-ease with traditional social psychology but unimpressed with (or simply bewildered by) other alternatives on offer. It could rescue social psychology from the sterility of the laboratory and its traditional mentalism' - Charles Antaki, The Times Higher Education Supplement

This book is the first systematic and accessible introduction to the theory and application of discourse analysis within the field of social psychology.

Discourse and Social Psychology includes chapters on the theoretical roots of discourse analysis in linguistic philosophy, ethnomethodology and semiotics and an overview on the perspectives of discourse analysis and its utility in studying attitudes. Five substantive chapters are concerned with the key concepts of social psychology. Finally, the authors identify future research directions and present an exhaustive bibliography of all relevant literature.

The authors draw on a wide range of examples from written and spoken discourse and avoid jargon at all times, even when introducing complex theoretical issues.

`This is an admirable book which can be recommended to students with confidence, and is likely also to become an indispensable source of reference for those researching fact construction' - Discourse & Society

How is reality manufactured? The idea of social construction has become a commonplace of much social research, yet precisely what is constructed, and how, and even what constructionism means, is often unclear or taken for granted. In this major work, Jonathan Potter offers a fascinating tour of the central themes raised by these questions.

Representing Reality overviews the different traditions in constructionist thought. Points are illustrated throughout with varied and engaging examples taken from newspaper stories, relationship counselling sessions, accounts of the paranormal, social workers' assessments of violent parents, informal talk between programme makers, political arguments and everyday conversations. Ranging across the social and human sciences, this book provides a lucid introduction to several key strands of work that have overturned the way we think about facts and descriptions, including: the sociology of scientific knowledge; conversation analysis and ethnomethodology; and semiotics, post-structuralism and postmodernism.

This accessible text introduces the key elements of a discursive approach to psychology. This focuses on how discourse - naturally occurring talk and text - can be studied and understood as the accomplishment of social action. Building on discourse analysis, the authors present an integrated discursive action model which leads to a radical reworking of some of psychology's most central concepts - language, cognition, truth, knowledge and reality.

The implications of a discursive perspective for such topics are explored alongside a sustained argument against the perceptual-cognitivist emphasis that currently dominates psychology. A particular theme is the reconceptualization of memory and attribution. The authors examine the communicative and interactional work performed when individuals, with interests, describe and explain past events, construct factual reports and attribute mental states. They draw on a wide range of empirical materials to demonstrate the methods and analysis underpinning their approach.

Reframing fundamental issues of language and mind as social practices realized in discourse, Discursive Psychology offers a profound challenge to existing orthodoxies while also establishing an exciting new agenda in the social and human sciences.

First published in 1984, Social Texts and Context illustrates the ways in which familiar psychological concepts – femininity, the environment, groups, the self – are constructed in discourse. Novels by Thomas Hardy, Barbara Cartland, Doris Lessing, C. P. Snow, Charles Dickens and Robert Musil are examined, and the theoretical approaches of Roland Barthes, Rom Harre, Jonathan Culler, Henri Tajfel, Irving Janis and Paul Willis are discussed. Development in literary theory – such as semiology and deconstruction and in theories of social action – such as ethogenics and discourse analysis – make it difficult to treat literary and psychological texts as a neutral medium of communication. Instead, texts should be seen in terms of their fundamental constructive role in the organization of social life. As the authors demonstrate, contemporary life in both its personal and professional spheres is hedged around by discourse, conversations, newspaper articles, novels, scientific reports. This book will be of interest to students of literature and psychology.

First published in 1984, Social Texts and Context illustrates the ways in which familiar psychological concepts – femininity, the environment, groups, the self – are constructed in discourse. Novels by Thomas Hardy, Barbara Cartland, Doris Lessing, C. P. Snow, Charles Dickens and Robert Musil are examined, and the theoretical approaches of Roland Barthes, Rom Harre, Jonathan Culler, Henri Tajfel, Irving Janis and Paul Willis are discussed. Development in literary theory – such as semiology and deconstruction and in theories of social action – such as ethogenics and discourse analysis – make it difficult to treat literary and psychological texts as a neutral medium of communication. Instead, texts should be seen in terms of their fundamental constructive role in the organization of social life. As the authors demonstrate, contemporary life in both its personal and professional spheres is hedged around by discourse, conversations, newspaper articles, novels, scientific reports. This book will be of interest to students of literature and psychology.

The brief, practical texts in the Essentials of Qualitative Methods series introduce social science and psychology researchers to key approaches to qualitative methods, offering exciting opportunities to gather in-depth qualitative data and to develop rich and useful findings.In this book, Alexa Hepburn and Jonathan Potter provide an introduction to conversation analysis (CA), a qualitative approach that examines the actions and interactions that take place in face-to-face conversations, phone calls, texts, and various forms of media. This practical text illuminates how CA captures the subtleties of talk in interaction via an analysis of its elements and phases. The authors guide the reader through data collection, transcription, analysis, and writing papers, providing an invaluable starting point for researchers who wish to explore CA and get a foothold in its literature. About the Essentials of Qualitative Methods book series: Even for experienced researchers, selecting and correctly applying the right method can be challenging. In this groundbreaking series, leading experts in qualitative methods provide clear, crisp, and comprehensive descriptions of their approach, including its methodological integrity, and its benefits and limitations. Each book includes numerous examples to enable readers to quickly and thoroughly grasp how to leverage these valuable methods.

This book explains emotionography, the study of how emotions are expressed through conversation and in real time. By understanding emotion as part of an interactional process, researchers and practitioners can enhance their communication practices and understanding of research participants, clients, and populations.

This book offers an innovative reassessment of the way Victorians thought and wrote about visual experience. It argues that new visual technologies gave expression to new ways of seeing, using these to uncover the visual discourses that facilitated, informed and shaped the way people conceptualised and articulated visual experience.