Mass observing British politics
Mass observing British politics
The current political moment in Britain is characterised by disaffection, affective polarisation, and populist mobilisation of these (dis)affections. How best to research these moody times? We argue that political studies could utilise Mass Observation (MO) more than it has done. An independent research organisation, MO has collected observations, diaries, and responses to ‘directives’ – sets of open-ended questions and tasks – from across the UK during two periods: 1937 to 1949, and 1981 to the present. These collections have been described as a ‘rare resource’ (Dalton 2020: 964) of ‘exceptional quality’ (Hay 2024: 482). We introduce MO, review existing uses of MO by scholars of British politics, locate MO in political studies’ methodological division of labour, and provide a guide for new users of the archive. We argue that MO provides distinctive access to public opinion, feeling, and behaviour in biographical context, historical context, and the context of everyday life.
Britain, Citizenship, Emotion, Engagement, Mass Observation, Mood
Clarke, Nick
4ed65752-5210-4f9e-aeff-9188520510e8
Hill, Alex
bb9716ff-1b15-4388-9a75-ecacbea04454
Moss, Jonathan
df3d5c4b-2484-4743-bbef-4a6d384a222b
7 March 2026
Clarke, Nick
4ed65752-5210-4f9e-aeff-9188520510e8
Hill, Alex
bb9716ff-1b15-4388-9a75-ecacbea04454
Moss, Jonathan
df3d5c4b-2484-4743-bbef-4a6d384a222b
Abstract
The current political moment in Britain is characterised by disaffection, affective polarisation, and populist mobilisation of these (dis)affections. How best to research these moody times? We argue that political studies could utilise Mass Observation (MO) more than it has done. An independent research organisation, MO has collected observations, diaries, and responses to ‘directives’ – sets of open-ended questions and tasks – from across the UK during two periods: 1937 to 1949, and 1981 to the present. These collections have been described as a ‘rare resource’ (Dalton 2020: 964) of ‘exceptional quality’ (Hay 2024: 482). We introduce MO, review existing uses of MO by scholars of British politics, locate MO in political studies’ methodological division of labour, and provide a guide for new users of the archive. We argue that MO provides distinctive access to public opinion, feeling, and behaviour in biographical context, historical context, and the context of everyday life.
Text
s41293-026-00304-0
- Version of Record
Text
Mass Observing British Politics FAVPPR
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 26 February 2026
e-pub ahead of print date: 7 March 2026
Published date: 7 March 2026
Additional Information:
For the purposes of open access, we have applied a CC BY public copyright license to the Author Accepted Manuscript version of this article.
Keywords:
Britain, Citizenship, Emotion, Engagement, Mass Observation, Mood
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 510791
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/510791
ISSN: 1746-918X
PURE UUID: 2171bbad-0e3c-459a-91de-3e41ace066ce
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 21 Apr 2026 17:04
Last modified: 22 Apr 2026 01:40
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
Alex Hill
Author:
Jonathan Moss
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics
