Abstract

This project's objective was to test the value of images as stimuli for discussion in focus groups. Conventionally, the stimuli are verbal points put by the researcher - this means that the traditional focus group works somewhat like a semi-structured interview in which the researcher has a set of topics to work through in an interview with a single individual. Here, the researchers wanted to proceed more on the lines of an unstructured interview in which a topic is established and the development of the discussion is directed by the person being interviewed. A subsidiary objective was to explore the meaning of the decline of coal mining to the people of South Shields. There was a particular concern with what they felt about the remaining visible signs of the industry. It is in this sense that the researchers were interested in the cultural impact of the 'transformed landscape'.