Hi Lisa,
Can anyone recommend any good
books/journal articles/websites on doing
qualitative interviews online, i.e. using one-to-one synchronous
exchanges
in some kind of chat environment (or whatever) for qualitative research?
Has
anyone on the list ever done this? Any thoughts anyone??
You might find some good advice from the following people, either in
articles they've written, or by contacting them directly.
About interviewing generally: I recommend reading J. Spradley's
book called _The Ethnographic Interview_. It was published in 1979
and has excellent interviewing strategies. The best part of this
book is the specific advice about how to ask questions.
About problems and special considerations of online
interviewing:
Kate Eichhorn raises some key issues in her article: "Sites unseen:
ethnographic research in a textual community" _International Journal
of Qualitative Studies in Education_ 14, no. 4 (2001): 565-578.
In my own work, I discuss various issues and problems associated with
synchronous and anonymous interviews online. You could look at my
book _Life Online_ (AltaMira) or a couple of recent articles that are
forthcoming:
*Representation in Online Ethnography: in Sarina Chen (et al)
_Online Social Research: Methods, Issues, and Ethics (Peter Lang,
forthcoming)
draft here:
http://ascend.comm.uic.edu/~amarkham/writing/chen.htm
*Internet as Research Context: in Clive Seale's book _Qualitative
Research Practice_ (Sage, forthcoming).
draft here:
http://ascend.comm.uic.edu/~amarkham/writing/Seale.htm
Chris Mann and Fiona Stewart's book _Internet Communication and
Qualitative Research_ is also useful in providing specific advice and
strategies for online interviewing of various types. Both authors
have conducted different types of interviews using online
media.
Anne Ryen conducted a long term interview study online. It was more based
on email than synchronous chat, but she might have some more recent work
to share with you. (I heard her at a couple of conferences.
She also published results of her study in _Qualitative Inquiry_ with
David Silverman in 2000).
Shani Orgad gave an interesting talk about interviewing online
(addressing why she decided that she needed to interview offline as well
as online) at the 2002 AOIR conference.
Hope this gives you something to work with,
Annette
**********************
Annette N. Markham, Ph. D.
University of Illinois at Chicago
Department of Communication
1007 W. Harrison St. m/c 132
Chicago, IL 60607-7137
amarkham@uic.edu
http://ascend.comm.uic.edu/~amarkham/
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