Session for MSc Media Psychology students at University of Salford. Centred around qualitative interviewing.

1. Flickr: familymwr
Qualitative Methods in Audience
Analysis
Jenna Condie | University of Salford | @jennacondie
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2. Session Overview
 A “how to” focus on qualitative
interviewing
 Contextualised approach – case
study
 Develop an interview schedule
 Pilot your questions on each other
 Critically analysis of method
 Back to epistemology and ontology
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Flickr: Daniel Y. Go

3. Your Case Study: Do TV talent shows no longer
have the ‘X Factor’?
As the UKs first
MediaPsych
postgraduates,
Simon Cowell wants you to investigate why viewing
figures are on a downwards trend.
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4. Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Simon_Cowell.jpg
Simon knows that the
viewing figures are down,
But he wants you to tell him
‘how’ and ‘why’. He wants
to
understand what audiences
now want from screen
media.
If we want to understand
how and why, qualitative methods have the
advantage (Maginn et al., 2008).
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5. For the purposes of today’s
session, the method that you are going
to use in this research is qualitative
interviews.
Interview
society
Most Engaging
common Dissertation people
Useful Only way
to get
Co-constructed
Group data you
need?
Reflexivity
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6. Qualitative Interviews
Conversations with a purpose (Burgess, 1984)
Mason (1996)
• Informal style, thematic, data generated via the
interaction.
• Questions – substance, style, scope, sequence
How many interviews are enough? (Guest et
al., 2006; Baker & Edwards, 2012)
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7. Writing Successful Interview Protocols
(Jacob & Furgerson, 2012)
1. Pick a topic that is interesting to you (choice?)
2. Research should guide your questions
3. Use a script for the beginning and end of your
interview
4. Questions should be open ended.
5. Start with the basics.
6. Begin with easy to answer questions and move
towards ones that are more difficult or
controversial.
7. The phrase “tell me about…”is great way to start a
question. 7

8. Writing Successful Interview Protocols
(Jacob & Furgerson, 2012)
8. Write big, expansive questions.
9. Use prompts.
10. Be willing to make “on the spot” revisions to your
interview protocol
11. Don’t make the interview too long.
12. Practice with a friend.
13. Make sure that you can set up a second shorter
interview to help you clarify or ask any questions
you missed after you have transcribed the
interview.
14. Get ethical approval. 8

9. Flickr: ChicagoGeek
What might
‘audiences’
not want to
tell you?
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10. Narrative & Storytelling
Invite a story “Can you tell me about…”
Flickr: bixentro
Rather than “Why did you…?”
See Hollway &
Jefferson (2000)
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11. Flickr: umjanedoan
Narrative Features:
Structure and Temporality
Beginning: “Can you tell me about the first time…?”
Middle: “Can you tell me about what it is like now?”
End: “Can you tell me where you see yourself in the
future?” 11

12. A successful interview schedule?
Keep your sample in mind!
For the purposes of today’s session, imagine
Simon’s company has provided a database of 100
people who regularly watch television on a
Saturday evening.
- How many do you interview?
- How do you choose who to interview?
- What are the advantages of this sample?
- What are the disadvantages of this sample?
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13. Using today’s case study, have a go at the following:
Develop some questions with prompts
Pilot: ask each other
Do your questions work (or not)?
Developing a successful interview schedule takes time.
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14. Flickr: highersights
Tips for the interview
(Jacob & Furgerson, 2012)
1. Start with your script.
2. Collect consent.
3. Use some type of recording device and only take
brief notes so you can maintain eye contact with
your interviewee.
4. Arrange to interview your respondent in a
quiet, semi-private place.
5. Be sure that both you and the interviewee block
off plenty of uninterrupted time for the
interview
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15. Tips for the interview
(Jacob & Furgerson, 2012)
8. Have genuine care, concern, and interest
for the person you are interviewing.
9. Use basic counselling skills to help your
interviewees feel heard.
10. Keep it focused (I disagree)
Flickr: highersights
11. LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN!
12. End with your script.
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16. Flickr: MyDigitalSLR
A different researcher
would get a
different story
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17. Debriefing the researcher
(Onwuegbuzie et al., 2008)
Explore the researcher’s:
• interview background/experience
• perceptions of the participants
• perceptions of NVC;
• interpretations of interview findings;
• perceptions of how the study might have affected the
researcher;
• perceptions of how the researcher might have affected
the participants;
• awareness of ethical or political issues; and
• identification of unexpected issues or dilemmas that
emerged during the interviews.
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18. Oi! I said oi!
What you looking at, you little
Transcription rich boy!
We’re poor round here, run
Ensure relevant to analytical home and lock your door
Don’t come round here no
approach more, you could get robbed for
Real (yeah) because my manors
ill
My manors ill
For real
What is lost in transcription? Yeah you know my manors
3 A: There’s ↑things that anno:y me when the- ill, my manors ill!
4 (0.6) like she bu- (0.2) ha:lf seven last
5 ↓ni:ght the kids were playing in their
6 bedroom.
7 (0.7)
8 A: And ah ca:n’t stop them from playin.
9 (0.1)
10 A: They were playing in the bedroom an ah
11 said (0.5) keep the noise >down.=they
12 were playin’ on the piano.<
13 (0.5)
14 A: An’ then >all of a sudden half seven< Example from CA
15 (0.4) ban:g bang bang sh’d- (0.3) I don’t
16 know what she’d done probably ran
17 upstairs. She wasn’ in bed. (Conversation Analysis)
Excerpt taken from Stokoe and Hepburn (2004) using
Jefferson’s (1984) transcription system 18

19. Carole: She was very isolated and I just think she’d have died of loneliness really and
I just found it, you know, unbearable. And it was partly my husband sort of
saying, well we’ll end up taking care of her eventually, she ought to come here and
get used to living here and make her own network of friends while she can. And
Narrative analysis
so, you know, we persuaded her to come and live with us. She needed
convincing, you know, that we wanted her. example
Interviewer: When you were planning for her to come did you talk it over with the
children?
Carole: Oh yes. They were, they felt very strongly, they were upset at her being
lonely. (Carole Grant, aged 46, widowed)
Excerpt taken from Mason (2004) Personal narratives, relational selves:
residential histories in the living and telling
Jenna: so you’ve been here six years [William: hmm] and have you always been in, do
you mind me asking, are you in socially rented
William: this is, it is yeah, but not always no, I had a house in [city omitted], sold that
Discursive analysis twenty years ago [Jenna: right ok] and er moved around a bit, I was working in Farlow
so I, in fact I was working for the landlord at the time, it used to be council [Jenna: right]
example I was managing one of the, I managed this estate for a time [Jenna: ok] I was normally
at another one further up the road and there was a small bedsit came empty in one of
the multi-storey blocks, and they were hard to let so I got that [Jenna: right] I mean
being an employee I had to go to case conference and everything just so everything
was above board and cosha you know [Jenna: yeah] erm and that was it, and when
I later removed some neighbours died a few years later, I got moved into a bigger flat because by that
time it was fairly clear that the flats were going to have to be emptied for major work to
all fillers = headache! be carried out [Jenna: yeah] so that was it
Jenna: right ok, do you mind us talking about what it was like to live in the high rise first
is that ok
Excerpt taken from my research interviews (Condie, forthcoming!)
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20. Qualitative Data Analysis
Method interconnected with theoretical and
methodological approach developed.
Ask yourself the following:
• What kind of knowledge does your methodology
aim to produce?
• What kinds of assumptions does the methodology
make about the world?
• How does the methodology conceptualise the role
of the researcher? (Willig, 2001)
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21. Qualitative Data Analysis
Realism Relativism
How well does the use of this data match:
1) my ontological perspective on what
constitutes the social world?
2) My epistemological perspective on how
knowledge can be produced?
(Mason, 1996, p. 37)
Positivism Interpretivism/
Constructionism21

22. Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Simon_Cowell.jpg
Does Simon care about
your epistemological and
ontological positions.
He just wants some
answers!
Academic Epistewhat?
Commercial
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23. Next: Analysing Qualitative Data
Link: http://www.slideshare.net/jennacondie/working-with-word-for-qualitative-data-analysis 23