Robert Merton and the History of Focus Groups: Standing on the Shoulders of a Giant?

This article uses a bibliographic analysis to examine Robert Merton’s role in the ongoing history of the focus group. It begins by considering Merton’s own suggestion that the lack of attention to his early contributions was due to “obliteration by incorporation,” but the pattern of citation to his work does not fit the predicted pattern. Instead, it is a better match to a process known as the “reawakening” of a “sleeping” source. What does, however meet the criteria for obliteration incorporation is the work that helped reintroduce the focus groups to the social sciences, based on the increasingly widespread use of focus groups without any citation to the literature. After a brief consideration of Merton’s preferred uses for focus groups, article concludes with a consideration of how focus groups represent a technique that become established outside of academia before making its way back into academia.