Description
Book SynopsisExplores the influence that public opinion polling, and the developing idea of a public consciousness in the British mid-century, had upon the literature of the period. It traces the emergence and growing dominance of public opinion research in cultural and governmental bodies, and the ways in which it came to be aestheticized by British writers.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: From the Era of the Crowd to the Psychographic Turn 1: A Science So-Called: H.G. Wells's Reprisal of Academic Sociology 2: Polling for Peace: Journalism and Activist Polling Between the Wars 3: What the Listeners Want: Public Opinion on the Wireless 4: The Gender of Public Opinion: Naomi Mitchison, Celia Fremlin, and the Women of Mass-Observation 5: The Morass of Morale: The Ministry of Information in the Works of Cecil Day-Lewis and Elizabeth Bowen Afterword: Psychography's Postwar Pivot
