Outside Reading - Kazmer & Xie's Qualitative Interviewing in Internet Studies

Kazmer, M. M., & Xie, B. (2008). QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWING IN INTERNET STUDIES: Playing with the media, playing with the method. Information, Communication & Society, 11(2), 257–278. doi:10.1080/13691180801946333

Kazmer and Xie’s “Qualitative Interviewing in Internet Studies: Playing with the Media, Playing with the Method” is a methodological meta-analysis of internet-mediated semi-structured interviews. For the purpose of the study, they divide interviewing methods into the following groups: face-to-face, over the telephone, through email, and through instant messaging (IM).

One of the interesting points that Kazmer and Xie bring up is the idea of contextual naturalness—in an interview, the participant should be able to express themselves the way they want to. For some people, internet interviewing can hinder this; for others, it is an ideal environment. Like Tracy’s discussion of internet interviewing methods, Kazmer and Xie mention the difference between synchronous and asynchronous environments; this provides the conceptual difference between email and instant messaging. Whereas email is generally asynchronous, IMs are meant to be real time. I would possibly argue that IMs provide a level of asynchonicity anyway. After all, in an IM, you are still free to take your time, compose and recompose.

A common thread in analyses of internet facilitated interviews is that participants have a tendency to disappear or miss scheduled interviews. It is difficult to schedule synchronous interviews online and asynchronous interviews are more likely to be forgotten by participants.

Another point that Xie and Kazmer note about online interviewing is that there are certain technological considerations to be made when saving or recording interviews. There are only so many things that actually can be recorded, and the internet strips the situation of most environmental and visual data. Also, when doing online interviewing, both the participant and the researcher are left with complete records of their interactions.

After interviews are conducted, it is up to the researcher to decide how to assemble and clean data. Often email and IM interviews can include attachments—photos, documents, or other files—and there is a question of how and where to include these materials. IMs are also problematic because they are susceptible to conversational disorder—where questions are asked and answered out of order.

Despite the drawbacks, Kazmer and Xie have found that internet interviewing is becoming increasingly common. It allows for a wide participant base, and it is easier to find interviewees, generally. The problems they note are not insurmountable, and it is up to the researcher to decide how to represent all data.