Focus Group Studies of Social Media Rhetoric

Abstract

Vatnøy demonstrates how focus group interviews are a productive supplement to rhetorical studies of social media. Focusing on the use of group interviews in audience studies, political communication studies, and studies of social media, the chapter draws attention to the unique benefits of the methodology when studying rhetorical practice in new media environments. The chapter is concluded with a case study of the “Hey Girl Audun Lysbakken” campaign, an anonymous campaign that spread replicated memes for political use. In this case, the focus group interviews reveal how voters in different age groups understood the memes very differently and how their perceptions of the interactive functions of Facebook affected their responses to the memes.