[Air-L] IM interviews not interviews?

Sun Aug 18 16:50:19 PDT 2013

Hi Jenny,

I would second Annette's comments.  And I would also recommend looking at
the collection, Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method (2009) edited
by Annette and Nancy Baym.  It seems rather odd to me that someone today
would not see discussions conducted through IM as valid interviews.  It
would be interesting to learn the reviewer's position on online inquiry in
general.

Best wishes,
John Campbell

**********************************************************
John Edward Campbell, PhD
Assistant Professor
Temple University
Department of Media Studies and Production
School of Media and Communication
219 Tomlinson
2020 North 13th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
phone: 215-204-1926
"All talk is an act of faith predicated on the future's ability to bring
forth the worlds called for." -- John Durham Peters, 1999

On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 3:24 PM, Annette Markham <amarkham at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hmmm.....  It would be a pretty narrow definition of interviewing that
> would simply dismiss IM as interviewing.  Perhaps the reviewer has an issue
> with how the interview situation or the interview itself is framed in your
> paper.  Hard to say.  I can imagine if a reviewer has a specific conception
> of interviewing as intensive engagement and somehow interpreted your
> interviews to be mere question/answer sessions, this could cause the
> reviewer's reaction, rather than the medium through which the interview was
> conducted.  Again, I have nothing to base this on.  I'm just wondering if
> the reviewer might be asking for something other than simply justifying IM
> as interviewing.
>
> In any case, the citations you mention contain good rationale for using IM
> as a suitable interviewing format.  But I would encourage you to include
> older sources, rather than assuming that the recent works subsume older
> texts.  These can lend strong support for such methods, not only because
> they demonstrate to the reader that there is longstanding precedence for
> such methods, but also because the novelty of the media for interaction
> forces the authors to articulate many of the strengths and weaknesses of
> the various media they're communicating with--so there's usually a lot more
> space devoted to explanation and rationale of the method.
>
> You might take a look at the 2009 book by Nalita James and Hugh Busher
> called "Online Interviewing" (Sage) that goes into great detail about
> various principles, practices, and complications of online interviewing.
> They refer to a lot of foundational empirical studies in their book, which
> gives further support for the strong history of instant messaging (or
> similar) media for interviewing.
>
> Best,
>
> annette
>
>
>
>
> *****************************************************
> Annette N. Markham, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor, Department of Aesthetics & Communication, Aarhus
> University
> Guest Professor, Department of Informatics, Umeå University, Sweden
> Affiliate Professor, School of Communication, Loyola University, Chicago
> amarkham at gmail.com
> http://markham.internetinquiry.org/
> Twitter: annettemarkham
>
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 7:47 PM, Jenny Davis <jdavis4 at neo.tamu.edu> wrote:
>
> > Hi Alex,
> >
> > I am writing for Sociology. I'm aware of several articles that defend the
> > use of Instant Message, and several that point out the weaknesses, but
> > haven't been able to find one that says they are categorically NOT
> > interviews.
> >
> > Here are some citations I use in the paper:
> >
> > Traverse, Max. New methods, old problems: A sceptical view of innovation
> > in qualitative research. Qualitative Research. 9:161
> >
> > Enochsson, Ann-Britt. 2011. “Who Benefits from Synchronous Online
> > Communication?: A Comparison of Face-to-Face and Synchronous Online
> > Interviews with Children.” Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences: 15-22
> >
> > Markham, Annette N. 2013. Remix Culture, Remix Methods: Reframing
> > Qualitative Inquiry for Social Media Contexts. In Denzin, N., &
> Giardina, M
> > (Eds.). Global Dimensions of Qualitative Inquiry. Left Coast Press.
> >
> > Hesse-Biber, Sharlene and Amy J. Griffin. 2013. “ Internet-Mediated
> > Technologies and Mixed Methods Research: Problems and Prospects. “
> Journal
> > of Mixed Methods Research 7(1):43-61.
> >
> > Beneito-Montagut, Roser. 2011. “Ethnography Goes Online: Towards a
> > User-Centered Methodology to Research Interpersonal Communication on the
> > Internet.” Qualitative Research 11(6):716-735
> >
> > I could certainly also include some older stuff (like Hine's virtual
> > ethnography or Miller and Slater's book), but I the more recent stuff
> > pretty much subsumes those texts.
> >
> > Thanks!!
> >
> > Jenny
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Alex Leavitt" <alexleavitt at gmail.com>
> > To: "Jenny Davis" <jdavis4 at neo.tamu.edu>
> > Cc: "AoIR-L" <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> > Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2013 1:03:17 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Air-L] IM interviews not interviews?
> >
> >
> >
> > It'd be helpful to know 1) what you've cited so far in defense of them,
> > and 2) what disciplinary audience you're working with (eg., anthropology
> > journal reviewers would react to IM interviews different from psychology
> > journal reviewers).
> >
> > There are a number of papers that pop up from a simple Google search –
> > https://www.google.com/search?q=instant+message+interviews+method – that
> > seem to agree that IM really isn't that different, though it'd seem
> > adequate to map out the area and cite a fair amount of people in a few
> > sentences as justification.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Alexander Leavitt
> > PhD Student
> > USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
> > http://alexleavitt.com
> > Twitter: @alexleavitt
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 6:46 AM, Jenny Davis < jdavis4 at neo.tamu.edu >
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Long time lurker and responder, first time inquirer.
> >
> > I am working on an R&R for a paper in which I use both FtF and IM
> > interviews. I am aware of the literature that talks about the strengths
> and
> > weaknesses of IM as an interview mode, but one of the reviewers says that
> > IM does not constitute an interview at all, but merely a question/answer
> > session. I want to address this critique adequately. Is anyone familiar
> > with specific articles/books that make this argument and/or push back
> > against it?
> >
> >
> > Thanks!!
> >
> > Jenny L. Davis
> > Assistant Professor
> > Department of Sociology & Anthropology
> > James Madison University
> >
> > email: Davis5JL at jmu.edu
> > Twitter: Jenny_L_Davis
> > Blog: Cyborgology.org
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