Opinion research must weigh an utterance’s function for speaker, group, and situation.

Evidence

Ultimately, however, this also pointed to the unsolved central problem: how to assess opinions with respect to their function for each speaker, their function for the class or group each speaker belonged to, and their function within real communicative situations. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 501

Categorization

• DEFINE: States the Institute’s core analytic problem: opinions must be read functionally at three levels, not tabulated as attitudes.
• XREF: Connects to the coded-analytic group discussion technique the Institute developed against Lazarsfeld-style survey method. — connects to: Group discussion research must analyze group dynamics and character structures to interpret expressed opinions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1878; Group discussion technique captures opinions as they form rather than correcting them afterward — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2023; Judges’ attitudes cannot be reliably inferred from opinion rhetoric — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 120 (+6 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Group discussion research must analyze group dynamics and character structures to interpret expressed opinions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1878; Group discussion technique captures opinions as they form rather than correcting them afterward — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2023; Judges’ attitudes cannot be reliably inferred from opinion rhetoric — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 120 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Performing balanced discussion can substitute for actual critical analysis #complicates (0.71) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 214