Methods of
ecting and
The socially situated researcher creates through interaction the realities
that constitute the places where empirical materials are collected and ana-
lyzed. In such sites, the interpretive practices of qualitative research are
implemented. These methodological practices represent different ways of
generating empirical materials grounded in the everyday world. The con-
tributions to Part I of this volume examine the multiple practices and
methods of analysis that qualitative researchers-as-methodological-brico-
leurs now employ.
(O The Interview
We live in an interview society, in a society whose members seem to believe
that interviews generate useful information about lived experience and its
meanings. The interview has become a taken-for-granted feature of our

COLLECTING AND INTERPRETINGQUALITATIVE MATERIALS
mediated, mass culture. But the interview is a negotiated text, a site where
power, gender, race, and class intersect. In Chapter 2, Andrea Fontana and
James Frey review the history of the interview in the social sciences, noting
its three major forms-structured, unstructured, and ope~i-ended-and
showing how the tool is modified and changed during use. They also dis-
cuss group (or focused) interviews (see also Madriz, Chapter 1O), oral his-
tory interviews, creative interviewing, and gendered, feminist, and post-
modern, or inultivoiced, interviewing.
The interview is a conversation, the art of asking questions and listen-
ing. It is not a neutral tool, for at least two people create the reality of the
interview situatioil. In this situation answers are given. Thus the interview
produces situated understandings grounded in specific interactional epi-
sodes. This method is influenced by the personal characteristics of the
interviewer, illcluding race, class, ethnicity, and gender.
Fontana and Frey review the important work of feminist scholars on
the interview, especially the arguments of Behar, Keinharz, Hertz,
Richardson, Clough, Collins, Smith, and Oakley. British sociologist
Oakley (1981)and other feminist scholars have identified a major contra-
diction between scientific,positivistic research, which requires objectivity
and detachment, and feminist-based interviewing, which requires open-
ness, emotional engagement, and the developmerit of a potentially long-
term, trusting relationship between the interviewer and the subject.
A feminist interviewing ethic, as Fontana and Frey suggest, redefines
the interview situation. This ethic transforms interviewer and respondent
illto coequals who are carrying on a conversation about inutually relevant,
often biographically critical, issues. This narrative, storytelling frameworl<
challenges the i~lformedconsent and deception models of inquiry dis-
cussed hy Christians in Volunle 1, Chapter 5. This ethic changes the inter-
view illto an i~nporta~lttool for both applied action research (see Keminis
& McTaggart, Volume 2, Chapter 11)and clinical research (see Miller &
Crabtree, Volume 2, Chapter 12).
e Observational Methods
Goi~lgInto a soc1~11situatron and lookrng 1sanother iniportaiit way of gath-
erlng mater~alsabout the socral world. In Chapter 3, M~chaelAngrowo
and I<imberly Mays de PCrez fundamentally rewrite the methods and
Part I: Methods of Collecting and Analyzing Empirical Materials
practices of naturalistic observation. All observation involves the
observer's participation in the world being studied. There is no pure, objec-
tive, detached observation; the effects of the observer's presence can never
be erased. Further, the colonial concept of the subject (the object of the
observer's gaze) is no longer appropriate. Observers now function as col-
laborative participants in action inquiry settings. Angrosino and Pkrez
argue that observational interaction is a tentative, situational process. It is
shaped by shifts in gendered identity as well as by existing structures
of power. As relationships unfold, participants validate the cues gener-
ated by others in the setting. Finally, during the observational process peo-
ple assume situational identities that may not be socially or culturally
normative.
Like Christians in Volume 1, Chapter 5, Angrosino and PCrez offer
compelling criticisms of institutional review boards (TRUs),noting that
positivistic, experimental social scientists seldom recognize the needs of
observational ethnographers. In many universities, the IRBs are tied to the
experimental, bypothesis-testing, so-called scientific paradigm. This para-
digm creates problems for postmodern observers, for scholars who be-
come part of the worlds they study. In order to get approval for their re-
search, scholars may have to engage in deception (in this instance of the
IRB). This leads some ethnographers to claim that their research will not
be intrusive and hence will not cause harm. Yet interactive observers are by
definition intrusive. When collaborative inquiry is undertaken, subjects
become stakeholders, persons who shape the inquiry itself. What this
means for consent forms-and forms of participatory inquiry more
broadly-is not clear. Alternative forms of ethnographic writing, includ-
ing the use of fictionalized stories, represent one avenue for addressing
this ethical quandary.
Angrosino and Perez offer an ethic of "proportionate reason." This
utilitarian ethic attempts to balance the benefits, costs, and consequences
of actions in the field, asking if the means to an end are justified by the
importance and value of the goals attained. These authors demystify
the observation method. Observation is no longer the ltey to some grand
analysis of culture or society. Instead, observational research is a method
that focuses oil differences, on the lives of particular people in con-
crete, but constantly changing, human relationships. The relevance and
need for a feminist ethics of care and commitment become even more
apparent.

COLLECTING AND INTERPRETING QUALITATIVE MATERIALS
+ Reading Material Culture and Its Records
Mute evidence-that is, written texts and cultural artifacts-endures ~ h y s -
icallyand leaves itstraces on the material past. It is i~npossibleto talk to and
with these materials. Researchers must interpret them, for in them are
found important meanings about the human shape of lived cultures.
Archaeologists study material culture. In an essay that moves with ease
across and within the postpositivist and postmodern sensibilities, Ian
Hodder (Chapter 4) shows how this is done. Central to his position is the
constructionist (and constructivist) argument that researchers create,
through a set of interpretive practices, the materials and evidence they then
theoretically analyze. Today it is understood that material culture, in all its
forms, is a gendered, social, and political construction. Previous theories of
culture, evolution, and the material past are being rewritten. How the past
is reconstructed and interpreted very much determines how it will be con-
stituted in the present and remembered in the future.
+ Reimagining Visual Methods
Today, v~sualsociologists and anthropologists use photography, motion
pictures, the World Wide Web, interactive CDs, CD-ROMs, and virtual
reality as ways of forging connections between human existence and visual
perception. These forins of visual representation constitute different ways
of recording and documenting what passes as social life. Often called the
mirror with a memory, photography takes the researcher into the everyday
world, where the issuesof observer identity, the subject's point of view, and
what to photograph become problematic. In Chapter 5, Douglas Harper
presents a history of this method and brings it up against postmodern
developments in virtual and real ethnography.
Historically, visual sociology began within the postpositivist tradition;
researchers provided visual information to support the realist tales of
traditional ethnography. Photographs were a part of the unproblematic
"facts" that constituted the "truth" of these tales. Now, visual sociology,
like ethnography, is in a period of deep questioning and great change.
Visual sociology, Harper contends, must find a place in this new ethnogra-
phy. He engagesthis new turn through a close, storied reading of a series of
photographs he made on the streets of Bologna. This bicycling sequence is
a visual narrative. It tells many different stories at the same time as it mixes
Part I: Methods of Collecting and Analyzing Empirical Materials
and combines multiple images, cultural meanings, points of view, geo-
graphic spaces, interactional sequences, and shifting, gendered forms of
the gaze. Harper also analyzes the ideological aspects of representation,
the social construction of images, the authority of visual knowledge, the
mechanical capabilities of the camera, framing (point of view), printing
techniques, editing, and image sequencing.
As Harper's bicycle shots indicate, sequences of photos can be con-
nected through visual narratives, stories that connect images to first-
person accounts, and cultural stories that unfold through time and space.
Of course, every image tells a story, but visual narratives attempt to tell
the stories of a culture, of individuals, and of institutions, and their inter-
relationships. Photo elicitation is one method used to elaborate these
meanings.
We need to learn how to experiment with visual (and no~~visual)ways
of thinking. We need to develop a critical, visual sensibility, a sensibil-
ity that will allow us to bring the gendered material world into play in crit-
ically different ways. We need to interrogate critically the hyperlogics
of cyberspace and its virtual realities. We also need to understand inore
f ~ ~ l l ythe rules and methods for establishing truth that hold these worlds
together.
+ Autoethnography and the Researcher as Subject
Personal experience reflects the flow of thoughts and meanings that per-
sons have in their immediate situations. These experiences can be routine
or problematic. They occur within the life of a person. When they are
talked about, they assume the shape of a story, or a narrative. We cannot
study lived experience directly, because language, speech, and systems of
discourse mediate and define the very experience we attempt to describe.
We study the representations of experience, not experience itself. We
examine the stories people tell one another about the experiences they
have had. These stories may be personal experience narratives or self-
stories, interpretations made up as the person goes along.
Many now argue that we can study only our own experiences. The re-
searcher becomes the research subject. This is the topic of autoethnog-
raphy. In Chapter 6, Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner reflexively present
the arguments for writing reflexive, personal narratives. Indeed, their
dialogic text is an example of such writing; it performs its own narrative

Part I: Methods of Collecting and Analyzing Empirical MaterialsCOLLECTING AND INTERPRETING QUALITATIVE MATERIALS
reflexivity. Ellis and Bochner masterfully review the arguments for study-
ing personal experience narratives, anchoring their text in the discourses
of poststructuralism and postmodernism, especially the works of lbrty
and Richardson.
They review the history of this writing form, starting with David
Hayano's introduction of the term autoethnography in 1979. Avariety of
terms and methodological strategies are associated with the meanings and
uses of autoethnographies, including personal narratives, narratives of the
self, writing stories, self-stories, auto-observation, personal ethnography,
literary tales, critical autobiography, radical empiricism, evocative narra-
tives, reflexive ethnography, biographical method, co-constructed narra-
tive, indigenous anthropology, anthropological poetics, and performance
ethnography. Ellis and Bochner use the case of Sylvia Smith, Ph.D. candi-
date in psychology, to illustrate the value of this form of writing.
They then turn to their own intellectualbiographies, showing how they
came to their current understandings concerning the need to write about
the researcher as subject. They show that the commitment to this style of
writing does not come easily. It involves learning how to write differently,
including how to use personal experieilce and the first-person voice as
vehicles for authorizing claims to truth and knowledge. And there are
many critics, including those who wonder about narrative truth, emo-
tional recall, and layered texts, who question the point of a storied life and
worry as well about such traditional issues as reliability and validity.
Of course, this autoethnography can be read as a variation on the tes-
timonio and the first-person life history. Thus Ellis and Bochner's chapter
complements Tierney's (Volume 2, Chapter 9) and Beverley's (Volume 2,
Chapter 10)treatments of these narrative forms.
+ Data Management and Analytic Techniques
The management, analysis, and interpretation of qualitative empirical
materials is a complex process involving highly technical languages and
systems of discourse. It also entails the mastery of a special set of inter-
pretive practices and narrative techniques. In Chapter 7, Gery Ryan and
H. Russell Bernard advance perhaps the most sophisticated and compre-
hensive model of this process and its discourses.
The management and analysis of empirical materials involves argu-
ments conceriling the differences between empiricism (there is a real
world out there) and constructivism (the world is constructed). It also
involves disputes between empiricists and nonempiricists-between those
who would translate their observations into words and those who would
translate their observations into numbers. Like others, Ryan and Bernard
also distinguish two approachesto texts, the narrative or the linguistic and
the sociological. The narrative approach to texts treats them as objects of
narrative, conversation, performance, or formal analysis. The sociological
approach treats texts as windows into experience and includes both texts
generated by the analyst and free-flowing texts, or narratives.
Ryan and Bernard focus o11methods used in the sociological tradition,
that is, methods for collecting such materials (free lists, pile sorts, frame
elicitations, and triad tests) and techniques for their analysis (taxonomies,
mental maps, compoileiltial analysis). They also discuss methods for ana-
lyzing free-flowingtexts, starting with texts that use raw text input (key-
words-in-context, word counts, semantic network analysis, cognitive
maps). They then take up methods that reduce texts to codes: grounded
theory, schema analysis, classic content analysis, content dictionaries,
analytic induction, and ethnographic decision models.
This is a far-reaching, encyclopedic, elegant, and systematic postposi-
tivist approach to the issues surrounding the rigorous analysis of empirical
materials. Ryan and Bernard's treatment of grounded theory, conversation
analysis, and computer-assisted models of analysis should be read in con-
junction with the treatment of these topics by, respectively, Charmaz (Vol-
ume 2, Chapter 8), Silverman (Chapter 9), and Weitzman (Chapter 8).
o Computer-Assisted Qualitative Analysis
It is now becoming relatively commonplace for researchers to use com-
puter software programs to assist them ill their analysis of qualitative
empirical materials. Lee and Fielding (1998, p. 1) call such programs
"con~puter-assistedqualitative data analysis software," or CAQDAS. In
Chapter 8, Eben Weitzman presents a comprehensive and user-friendly
survey of a wide array of CAQDAS currently available to support qualita-
tive analysis. He reviews computer-based tools that can help researchers to
record, store, index, cross-index, code, sort, and interconnect text-based
materials. Of course, these tools are not ideologically neutral (Schwandt,
1997,p. 18).They structure the work of interpretation and presume a par-
ticular gendered stance toward the material world. They frequently impose

COLLECTINGAND INTERPRETING QUALITATIVE MATERIALS
a rational, hierarchical, linear or quasi-linear, and sequential frameworlt on
the world and its empirical materials. This can create the impression that
meaningful patterns actually exist in the data, when in fact they are created
by the software and analytic frameworksbeing used (in the case of analysis
that is not assisted by computer, of course, it is the researcher who creates
the seeming "order"). These tools call also distance researchers from their
fieldworlt and their empirical materials. These methods presume an
objectivist, realist, foundational epistemology, and their use too often talzes
for granted the interpretive procedures and assumptions that transform
field notes into text-based materials.
We~tzmand ~ v ~ d e sthe most frequently used programs Into five maln
software fam~l~es:textbase managers, code programs, retrleve programs,
code-based theory budders, and conceptual network b~ulders.These pro-
grams have mult~pletext management uses, such as help~ngresearchers to
locate and retrleve key materials based on phrases and words, hulld con-
ceptual models, sort categories, attach Itey words and codes to text seg-
ments, isolate negative or deviant cases, and create indices. Multimedia
software programs are just now appearing that allow researchers to use
audio and video aswell as text-based data. CD-KOMs are also functioning
as sites where field notes and other versions of eth~lographiesare stored
and made accessible for hypertextual analysis (see Coffey & Atltinson,
1996, p. 186).
Such powerful tools of graphic, visual, and audio representation allow
researchers to consolidate and establish patterns of consistency in their
materials. However, they can also create negative effects, including the
false hope that such programs can actually wrlte a theory (or a case) for
researchers. They may eve11 encourage qutck-and-d~rty,or "bl~tzltr~eg,"
research. Cod~ngand retrieval schemes can lead to an overemphas~son
the d~scoveryof categorles and ind~cators,with a correspo~id~ngunder-
emphas~son the mult~plelneanlngs of experlence In concrete situations
(see E~eld~ng& Lee, 1998, pp. 129-121).The search for grounded theory
can shift attention aw3y fromthe theor~esof lilterpretatlon that operate In
the soclal world.
Softwareprograms for the qualltat~vere5earclier need to be Interactwe,
allow~ngfor many different lnterpretlve spaces to emerge, spaces that con-
nect patterns w ~ t hmeanlngs and experlence. Nonetheless, ~t 1s Impor-
tant that the researcher avo~dlett~ngthe computer (and the softw'~re)
determ~nethe form and content of ~nterpret~veactlvlty. An emphas~son
codes and categorles can produce endless var~ableanalyses that fail to take
Part I: Methods of Collecting and Analyzing Empirical Materials
account of important situational and contextual factors.1 There is fre-
cluentlya tendency among researchers doing computer-assisted analysis to
reduce fieldmaterials to only those data that are codable. There is also the
danger that researchers will turn over the trailscription of their field notes
to persons who lack intimate familiarity with the field setting and the pro-
cesses being studied (Lee & Fielding, 1991, p. 12).
Seidel (1991)speaks of a form of analytic madness that can accompany
the use of these methods. This madness can lead researchers to an infatua-
tion with the large volumes of data the computer allows them to deal with.
In addition, researchers may develop understandings based on misunder-
standings; that is, patterns identified in the data may be "artefacts of a rela-
tionship [they] have with the data" (Seidel, 1991, p. 114). Fi~lally,re-
searchers may focus only on those aspects of their research that call be
helped by computer methods (Agar, 1991, p. 193).They then select and
ready particular software for use in analyzing the materials they gather.
Thus the problem arises: Frequently, researchers conduct research that
fits the available software and then report that the software constituted
their methodology. This is the methodological tail wagging the ethno-
graphic dog.
Finally, ethical problems may arise from the use of such programs.
Alteroyd (1991) isolates the crux of the matter: the potential loss of per-
sonal privacy that call occur when a personal, confidential database is
developed on an individual or group. When such materials are entered
into a computer, the problem of security is immediately created. In
multiuser systems, privacy cannot be guaranteed (Akeroyd, 1991, p. 100).
Nothing is any longer completely private or completely secure.
Fielding and Lee (1998, pp. 186-189)have speculated on the future of
CAQDAS, and they suggest that the field is entering a period of "winnow-
ing out," with some software pacl<agesbecoming more sophisticated and
others remaining undeveloped since their initial release. Some developers
have left the field. TheWindows operating system seemsto have "caused a
major shake-out of those willing to keep up with its programming and
development requirements" (Fielding & Lee, 1998,p. 186).Software that
permits the direct transcription of speech stored on CD-ROM continues
to be developed. In some programs the speech is actually heard as it is
being transcribed. This raises issues about the differences involved in
interpreting heard versus written words (Fielding & Lee, 1998, p. 188).
The Internet has also produced changes in CAQDAS. Large-scale proj-
ects can now be located on Web sites. Such use of the Internet is not

COLLECTING AND INTERPRETING QUALITATIVE MATERIALS Part I: Methods of Collecting and Analyzing Empirical Materials
without problems, including the colnmodification of information, the
control of encryption devices, electronic privacy, and the development of
ethical protocols to produce subjects (Fielding & Lee, 1998, p. 188).
Clearly, computer technology as a whole continues to transform and com-
plicate qualitative research.
+ Analyzing Talk and Text
Qualitative researchers study spoken and written records of humail expe-
rience, including transcribed talk, films, novels, and photographs. His-
torically, there have been three major social science and literary approaches
to textual-discourse analysis. Each is associated with a long theoretical and
research tradition: content analysis with the quantitative approach to
media studies; semiotics with the structural tradition in literary criticism;
and narrative, discourse analysis with the recent poststructural devel-
opment in interpretive theory (see Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, & Zilber,
1998, p. 18).
David Silverman contends that the world's business gets done in tall<
and in conversation. Hence field data are always linguistic, and in Chapter
9 he analyzes three kinds of linguistically mediated data: interviews, texts,
and transcripts. With Fontana and Frey (Chapter 2), and Gubrium and
Holstein (Volume 2, Chapter 7), Silverman treats interview materials as
narrative accounts rather than as true pictures of reality. He poses five
questions for interview researchers, includinghow they use their narrative
data to make theoretical claims about the world.
Texts are based on transcriptions of interviews and other forms of talk.
These texts are social facts; they are produced, shared, and used in socially
organized ways. Silverinail objects to those forms of text-based analyses
that use the methods of content analysis. Content analyses reify the talcen-
for-granted understandings persons bring to words, terms, or experiences.
Content analyses, he contends, obscure the interpretive processes that
turn talk into text.
It is important that researchers not use text-based documentary materi-
als as stand-ins for other kinds of evidence. These documents are social
productions. They are not transparent representations of orgailizational
routines, or of decision-making processes. They are situated construc-
tions, particular kinds of representatioils shaped by certain conventions
and understandings (Atlzinson & Coffey, 1997, p. 47). Such documents
are properly studied through the methods of semiotics, narrative, and dis-
course analysis. Membership categorization analysis (MCA)is a less famil-
iar form of narrative analysis. Drawing on the work of Harvey Sacks,
Silverman illustrates the logic of MCA (on Sacks, see Silverman, 1998).
With this method, the researcher asks how persons use everydayterms and
categories in their interactions with others. Silverman turns next to tran-
scripts of talk. There are two main social science traditions that inform the
analysis of transcripts; conversation analysis (CA) and discourse analysis
(DA).Silverman reviews and offers examples of both traditions. He con-
cludes his chapter with four arguments, contending that qualitative re-
search (a) is not based on a set of freestanding techniques, (b) has special
strengths for revealing how social interactions are routinely enacted, (c)
shows us how people do things, and (d) has uses that extend far beyond
exploratory purposes.
To summarize: Text-based documents of experience are complex. But if
talk coilstitutes much of what we have, then the forms of analysis that
Silverman outlines represent significant ways of malting the world and its
words more visible.
+ Focus Groups in Feminist Research
In Chapter 2, Fontana and Frey note that the group, or focus group, inter-
view relies upon the systematic questioning of several individuals simulta-
neously in a formal or informal setting. In Chapter 10,Esther Madriz sig-
nificantly advances the discourse on this method by showing how focus
groups are used in feminist research with women of color.2Using a feini-
nist/postmodern approach, she offers a model of focus group interviewing
that emphasizes a feminist ethic of empowerment, moral community, eino-
tional engagement, and the developinent of long-term, trusting relation-
ships. This method gives a voice to women of color who have long been
silenced. Focus groups facilitate women writing culture together. As a
Latina feminist, Madriz places focus groups within the context of collec-
tive testimonies and group resistance narratives (see Beverley, Volume 2,
Chapter 10; Tierney, Volume 2, Chapter 9). Focus groups reduce the dis-
tance between the researcher and the researched. The multivocality of the
participants limits the control of the researcher over the research process.
The unstructured nature of focus group coilversations also reduces the

COLLECTING AND INTERPRETINGQUALITATIVE MATERIALS
researcher's control over the interview process. Madriz illustrates these
points with examples drawn from her study of lower-classwornen of color.
Drawing on recent developments in critical race theory and feminist
theory (see, respectively, Ladson-Billings, Volume 1, Chapter 9; Olesen,
Volume I, Chapter 8),Madriz reminds us that women of color experience
a triple subjugation based on class, race, and gender oppression. Focus
groups create the conditions for the emergence of a critical race conscious-
ness, a consciousness focused on social change. It seems that with focus
groups, critical race theory has found its methodology.
o Applied Ethnography
The applied, action themes of Part I are continued in Erve Chambers's
comprehensive analysis of the history, forms, and uses of applied ethnogra-
phy in Chapter 11. Applied research is inquiry intentionally developed
within a context of decision making and directed toward the interests of
one or more clients. So framed, applied (or action) ethnography is about
research that advocates social change and increased cultural understand-
ings between different social groups.
Chambers discusses three distinct traditions within applied ethnogra-
phy: cognitive, semiotic, and semalltic approaches; micro/macro analyses;
and action and clinical models. Cognitive approaches attempt to map the
native point of view in particular situations, to isolate the language, cate-
gories, and terms used in specific locales. Micro/macro analyses examine
local contexts with an eye to generalizing to larger, more macro struc-
tures-for example, moving from the economy of a local community to
the natiollal economy. Action and clinical approaches follow an advocacy
model. Researchers build collaborative relations with a variety of different
types of persons in the local commu~lity,from indigenous experts to in-
formed insiders, leaders in churches, schools, and local government, and
representatives of state and federal bureaucracies.
Chambers notes that applied research places great ethical responsibility
on the shoulders of the researcher (see also Trotter & Schensul, 3998,
p. 692).It carries human, social, and ecological consequences that are im-
mediate and sometimes critical to the life of a community. Its results are
change oriented and can be very disruptive.
Chambers also takes up the issue of professional ethics. He indicates
that the principle of informed consent has proven to be particularly diffi-
Part 1: Methods of Collecting and Analyzing Empirical Materials
cult for applied ethnographers. Maintaining the confidentiality of re-
search subjects can also be problematic. At the same time, applied eth-
nograpllers confront moral issues, such as questions of for whom they
should advocate and whether or not their services should be available
without discrimination.
o Conclusion
The researcher-as-methodological-bricoleur should have a working famil-
iarity with all of the methods of collecting and analyzing empirical materi-
als presented in this section of the Handbook. This familiarity should
include an understanding of the history of each method and technique as
well as hands-on experience with each. Only in this way can a researcher
fullyappreciate the limitationsand strengthsof the various methods and, at
the same time, see clearly how each, as a set of practices, creates its own
subject matter.
In addition, the researcher must understand that each paradigm and
perspective, as presented in Part 11,has a distinct history with each of these
methods of research. Although methods-as-tools are somewhat universal
in application, they are not uniformly used by researchers from all para-
digms. And when they are used, they are fitted and adapted to the particu-
larities of the paradigm in question.
Of the six specific methods and techniques addressed in Part I of this
volume (interviews, observation, cultural artifacts, visual methods, auto-
ethnography, focus groups), positivists and postpositivists are most likely
to make use of structured interviews and those cultural artifacts that lend
themselves to formal analysis. Constructionists and critical theorists also
have histories of using each of the methods, as do feminists, queer theo-
rists, ethnic researchers, and cultural studies investigators. Similarly,
researchers from all paradigms and perspectives can profitably malie use
of the data management and analysis methods, as well as the computer-
assisted models discussed.
+ Notes
I. The continued shift toward variable analysis has moved computer-assisted methods
firmly in the direction of postpositivist models of interpretation.

COLLECTING AND INTERPRETING QUALITATIVE MATERIALS
2. Also recall Fine, Wcis, Weseen, and Wong's discussion of focus groups in Volume 1,
Chapter 4.
+ References
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Paul.
Schwandt, T. A. (1997). Qual~tat~veInquiry: Ad~ctionaryof terms. Thousand Oaks,
CA. Sage.
Se~del,J. (1993).Method and ~nadnessin the appl~cat~onof computer tech~iology
to qual~tat~vedata analys~s.In N. G. Fieldlng &R. M. Lee (Eds.),Usi~lgcom-
puters in clualitative research (pp. 107-116).London: Sage.
silver ma^^, D (1998). Halvey Saclts: Soc~alsclence and conversation analysis.
Cambridge: Pol~ty.
Trotter, R, T., & Schensul, J. J. (1998).Method5 In appl~edanthropology. in H. R.
Bernard (Ed.), Handbook of cultural methods rn cultural anthropology
(pp. 691-716). Walnut Cleek, CA: AltaM~la.
The Interview
From Structured
Questions to Negotiated Text
Andrea Fontana and James H. Frey
Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
l'olonius: by the mass, a ~ l d'tis like a camel, indeed.
Hamlet: Methink it is like a weasel.
l'olonius: It is backed like a weasel.
Hamlet: Or like a whale?
Polonius: Very like a whale.
-W~ll~am Shakespeare, Hdmlut, drt 3, scene P
Hamlet's interview. ..approximates the threefold ideal of being interpreted, vali-
dated and communicated. ...
The interview appears as a display of the power relations at a royal court. ...
Hamlet's interview may. ..be seen asan illustrationof a pervasive doubt about
the appearance of the world. /Or,we would like to add, the interviewcan emerge as
an example of a negotiated text./
-Kvale, InierViewz, 1996
+ Asking questions and getting answers is a much harder task than it
may seem at first. The spoken or written word has always a residue
of ambiguity, no matter how carefully we word the q~~estionsancl how
carefully we report or code the answers. Yet interviewing is one of the

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICALMATERIALS
most conlmon and powerful ways in which we try to understand our fel-
low hunlan beings. Interviewing includes a wide variety of forms and a
~nultiplicityof uses. The most colnmon form of interviewing involves indi-
vidual, face-to-face verbal interchange, but interviewing call also take the
form of face-to-face group interchange, mailed or self-administered ques-
tionnaires, and telephone surveys. It call be structured, semistructured, or
unstructured. Interviewing can be used for marketing research, political
opinion polli~lg,therapeutic reasons, or academic analysis. It can be used
for the purpose of lneasurernent or its scope can be the understanding
of an iildividual or a group perspective. An interview can be a one-time,
brief event-say, 5 minutes over the telephone-or it can take place over
nlultiple, lengthy sessions, at times spanning days, as in life history
interviewing.
The use of interviewing to acquire information is so extensive today
that it has been said that we live in an "interview society" (Atkinson &
Silverman, 1997; Silverman, 1993). Increasingly, qualitative researchers
are realizing that interviews are not neutral tools of data gathering but
active interactions between two (or more) people leading to negotiated,
contextually based results. Thus the focus of interviews is moving to
encompass the hows of people's lives (the constructive work involved in
producing order in everyday life) as well as the traditio~lalwhats (the
activities of everyday life) (Cicourel, 1964; Dingwall, 1997; Gubrium &
Holsteii~,1997, 1998; Holstei~l& Gubrium, 1995; Kvale, 1996; Sarup,
1996; Seidman, 1991; silver ma^^, 1993, 1997a).
In this chapter, after discussing the interview society, we examine inter-
views by beginning with structuredmethods of interviewing and gradually
moving to more qualitative types, ending with interviews as negotiated
texts. We begin by briefly outlining the history of interviewing, then we
turn to a discussion of the academic uses of interviewing. Although the
focus of this volu~neis qualitative research, in order to demonstrate the
full import of interviewing, we need to discuss the major types of inter-
viewing (structured, group, and unstructured) as well as other ways to
conduct interviews. Acaveat: In discussing the various interview methods,
we use the language and rationales employed by practitioners of these
methods; we note our differences with these practitioners and our criti-
cisms latcr ~ I Ithe chapter, in our discussion of gendered and other new
types of qualitative interviewing. Following our examination of struc-
tured interviewing, we address in detail the various elementsof qualitative
interviewing. We then discuss the problems related to gendered interview-
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
ing as well as issues of interpretation and reporting, and we broach some
considerations related to ethical issues. Finally, we note some of the new
trends in qualitative interviewing.
4 The Interview Society
Before embarking on our journey through interviewing per se, we want to
comment briefly on the tremendous reliance on interviewing in U.S. soci-
ety today, which has reached such a level that a number of scholars have
referred to the United States as "the interview society" (Atkinson &
Silverman, 2997; Silverman, 1993). Both qualitative and quantitative
researchers tend to rely on the interview asthe basic method of data gather-
ing, whether thc purpose is to obtain a rich, in-depth experiential account
of an event or episode in the life of the respondent or to garner a simple
point on a scale of 2 to 10 dimensions. There is inherent faith that the
results are trustworthy and accurate and that the relation of the interviewer
to respondent that evolves in the interview process has not unduly biased
the account (Atkinson & Silverman, 1997; Silverman, 1993).The commit-
ment to and reliance on the interview to produce narrative experience
reflects and reinforces the view of the United States as an interview society.
It seems that everyone, not just social researchers, relies on the inter-
view as a source of information, with the assumption that interviewing
results in true and accurate pictures of respondents' selves and lives. One
cannot escape being interviewed; interviews are everywhere, in the forms
of political polls, questionnaires about doctor's visits, housing applica-
tions, forms regarding social service eligibility, college applications, talk
shows, news programs-the list goes o11and on. The interview as a means
ofdata gathering is no longer limited to use by social science researchers or
police detectives; it is a "universal mode of systematic inquiry" (Holstein
& Gubrium, 1995, p. 1). It seems that almost any type of question-
personal, sensitive, probing, upsetting, accusatory-is fair game and per-
missible in the interview setting. Almost all interviews, no matter their
purposes (andthese can be varied-to describe, to interrogate, to assist, to
test, to evaluate), seek various forms of biographical description. As
Gubrium and Holstein (1998) have noted, the interview has become a
means of contemporary storytelling, where persons divulge life accounts
in response to interviewinquiries. The media have been especially adept at
using this technique.

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
As a society we rely on the interview and by and large take it for
granted. The interview and the norms surrounding the enactment of the
respondent and researcher roles have evolved to the point where they are
institutionalized and no longer require extensive training; rules and roles
are known and shared. However, there is a growing group of individuals
who increasingly question the traditional assumptions of the interview-
we address their concerns in our later discussion of gendered interviewing
and new trends in interview. Many practitioners continue to use and take
for granted traditional interviewing techniques. It is as if interviewing is
now part of the mass culture, so that it has actually become the most feasi-
ble mechanism for obtaining information about individuals, groups, and
organizations in a society characterized by individuation, diversity, and
specialized role relations. Thus, many feel that it is not necessary to re-
invent the wheel for each interviewsituation, as "interviewing has become
a routine technical practice and a pervasive, taken-for-granted activity in
our culture" (Mishler, 1986, p. 23).
This is not to say, however, that the interview is so technical and the
procedures so standardized that interviewers can ignore contextual, soci-
etal, and interpersonal elements. Each interview context is one of interac-
tion and relation; the result is as much a product of this social dynamic as it
is a product of accurate accounts and replies. The interview has become a
routine, almost unnoticed, part of everyday life. Yet response rates con-
tinue to decline, indicating that fewer people are willing to disclose their
"selves" or that they are so overburdened by requests for interviews that
they are becoming inore selective regarding which interviews to grant.
Social scientists are more likely to recognize, however, that interviews are
interactional encounters and that the nature of the social dynamic of the
interview can shape the nature of the ltnowledge generated. Interviewers
with less training and experience than social scientists may not recognize
that interview participants are "actively" constructing knowledge around
questions and responses (Holstein & Gubrium, 1995).
We turn now to a brief history of interviewing to frame its roots and
development.
+ The History of Interviewing
One form of interviewing or another has been with us for a very long time.
Even ancient Egyptians conducted population censuses (Babbie, 1992).In
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
more recent times, the tradition of interviewing evolved from two trends.
First, interviewing found great popularity and widespread use in clinical
diagnosis and counseling, where the concern was with the quality of re-
sponses. Second, during World War I interviewing came to be widely em-
ployed in psychological testing; here the emphasis was on measurement
(Maccoby & Maccoby, 1954).
The individual generally credited with being the first to develop a social
survey relying on interviewing was Charles Booth (Converse, 1987). In
1886, Booth embarlted on a comprehensive survey of the economic and
social conditions of the people of London, published asLife andLabour of
the People in London (1902-1903). In his early study, Booth embodied
what were to become separate interviewing methods, because he not only
implemented survey research but triangulated his work by relying on
unstructured interviews and ethnographic observations:
The data were checked and supplemented by v ~ s ~ t sto many neighboihoods,
streets and homes, and by conferences w ~ t hvarlous welfare and community
leaders. From tlme to time Booth llved a\ a lodger in d~strlctswhere he was
not known, so that he could become more ~nt~matclyacqua~ntedwith the
ltves and hab~tsof the poorer classes (Parten, 1950, pp. 6-7)
Many other surveys of London and other English cities followed, pat-
terned after Booth's example. In the United States a similar pattern en-
sued. Among others, an 1895 study attempted to do in Chicago what
Booth had done in London (see Converse, 1987), and in 1896, self-
admittedly following Booth's lead, the American sociologist W E. B.
Du Bois studied the black population of Philadelphia (see Du Bois, 1899).
Surveysof cities and smalltowns followed, most notable amongthem li. S.
Lynd and H. M. Lynd's Middletown (1929)and Middletown in Transition
(1937).
Opinion polling was another early form of interviewing. Some polling
took place well before the start of the 20th century, but it really came into
its own in 1935 with the formation of the American Institute of Public
Opinion by George Gallup. I'receding Gallup, in both psychology and
sociology in the 1920sthere was a movement toward the study (and usu-
ally measurement) of attitudes. W I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki used
the documentary method to introduce the study of attitudes in social psy-
chology. Thomas's influence, along with that of Robert Park, a former
reporter who believed sociologywas to be found out in the field, sparked a

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICALMATERIALS
number of coinmuility studies at the University of Chicago that came to be
known collectively as the works of the Chicago school. Many other
researchers were also greatly influential, such as Albion Small, George H.
Mead, E. W. Burgess, Everett C. Hughes, Louis Wirth, W. Lloyd Warner,
and Anselm Strauss (for a recent discussion of the relations and influence
of various Chicagoans, see Beclzer, 1999).
Although the members of the Chicago school are reputed to have used
the ethnographic method in their inquiries, some disagree, and have noted
that many of the Chicago school studies lacked the analytic component of
modern-day ethnography, and so were, at best, "firsthand descriptive
studies" (Harvey, 1987, p. 50).Regardless of the correct label for the Chi-
cagoans' fieldwork, they clearly relied on a combination of observation,
personal documents, and informal interviews in their studies. Interviews
were especially in evidence in the work of Thrasher (1927/1963), who in
his study of gang members relied primarily on about 130 qualitative inter-
views, and in that of Nels Anderson (1923), whose classic study of hoboes
relied on informal, in-depth conversations.
It was left to Herbert Blumer and his former student Howard Becker to
formalize and give impetus to sociological ethnography in the 1950s and
1960s,and interviewingbegan to lose both the eclectic flavor given to it by
Charles Booth and the qualitative accent of the Chicagoans. Understand-
ing gang members or hoboes through interviews lost importance; what
became relevant was the use of interviewing in survey research as a tool to
quantify data. This was not new, as opinion polls and market research had
been doing it for years. But during World War I1 there was a tremendous
increase in survey research asthe U.S. armed forces hired great numbers of
sociologists as survey researchers. More than half a million American sol-
diers were interviewed in one manner or another (Young, 1966),and their
mental and emotional lives were reported in a four-volume survey titled
Studies inSocialPsychology inWorldWar11,the first two volumes of which
were directed by Samuel Stouffer and titled The AmericafzSoldier. This
work had tremendous impact and led the way to widespread use of sys-
tematic survey research.
What was new, however, was that quantitative survey research moved
into academia and cameto dominate sociology asthe method of choice for
the next three decades. An Austrian immigrant, Paul Lazarsfeld, spear-
headed this move. He welcomed TheAmerican Soldierwith great enthusi-
asm. In fact, Robert Merton and Lazarsfeld (1950)edited a book of reflec-
tions on The American Soldier. Lazarsfeld moved to Columbia in 1940,
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
taking with him his market research and other applied grants, and became
instrumental in the directing of the Bureau of Applied Social Research.
Two other "survey organizations" were also formed: one in 1941, by
Harry Field, the National Opinion Research Center, first at Denver and
then at Chicago; and one in 1946, by Likert and his group, the Survey Re-
search Center at Michigan.
Academia at the time was dominated by theoretical concerns, and there
was someresistance toward this applied, numbers-basedkind of sociology.
~ociologistsand other humanists were critical of Lazarsfeld and the other
survey researchers. Herbert Bluiner, C. Wright Mills, Arthur Schlesinger,
Jr., and Pitirin Sorokin, among others, voiced their displeasure. Accord-
ing to Converse (1987), Sorokin felt that "the new emphasis on quan-
titative work was obsessive, and he called the new practitioners
'quantophrenics'-with special reference to Stouffer and Lazarsfeld"
(p. 253). And Converse quotes Mills: "Those in the grip of the method-
ological inhibition often refuse to say anything about modern society
unless it has been through the fine little mill of the Statistical Ritual"
(p.252).Schlesinger, Converse notes, called the survey researchers "social
relations hucksters" (p. 253).
But the survey researchers had powerful allies also, such as Merton,
who joined the Survey Center at Columbia in 1943, and government mon-
eys were becoming increasing available for survey research. The 1950s
saw a growth of survey research in the universities and a proliferation of
survey research texts. Gradually, survey research increased its domain
over sociology, culminating in 1960with the election of Lazarsfeld to the
presidency of the American SociologicalAssociation. The methodological
dominance of survey research continued unabated through the 1970s,
1980s, and 1990s, although other methods began to erode the promi-
nence of survey methods.
Qualitative interviewing continued to he practiced, hand in hand with
participant observation methods, but it too assumed some of the quantifi-
able scientific rigor that so preoccupied survey research. This was espe-
cially visible in grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967),with its pains-
taking emphasis on coding data, and in ethnoinethodology, with its
uest for invariant properties of social action (Cicourel, 1970). Other
ualitative researchers suggested variations. John Lofland (1971) criti-
d grounded theory for paying little attention to data gathering tech-
ues, Jack Douglas (1985) suggested lengthy, existential one-on-one
rviews lasting one or more days, and James Spradley (1980) tried to
67

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
clarify the difference between ethnographic observation and ethno-
graphic interviewing.
Recently, postmodernist ethnographers have concerned themselves
with some of the assumptions present in interviewing and with the con-
trolling role of the interviewer. These concerns have led to new directions
in qualitative interviewing focusing on increased attention to the voices of
the respondents (Marcus & Fischer, 1986), the interviewer-respondent
relationship (Crapanzano, 198O),the importance of the researcher's gen-
der in interviewing (GluclctkPatai, 199I), and the roles of other elements,
such as race, social status, and age (Seidman, 1991).
$ Structured interviewing
In structured interviewing, the interviewer asks all respondents the same
series of preestablished questions with a limited set of response categories.
There is generally little room for variation in responses except where open-
ended questions (which are infrequent) may be used. The interviewer
records the responses according to a coding scheme that has already been
established by the project director or research supervisor. The interviewer
controls the pace of the interview by treating the questionnaire as if it were
a theatrical script to be followed in a standardized and straightforward
manner. Thus all respondents receive the same set of questions aslzed in
the same order or sequence hy an interviewer who has been trained to treat
all interview situations in a like manner. There is very little flexibility in
the way questio~lsare aslzed or answered in the structured interview set-
ting. I~lstructionsto interviewers often include some of the following
guideli~les:
O Never get involved 111 long explailatioils of the study; use the 5tandard ex-
pl'~nationprovlded by the supervisoi.
9 Never dev~atefroin the study ~ntroduction,sequence of questions, or ques-
tion wo~ding.
O Never Ict ailothc~person interrupt the interview; do not let another person
answer foi the rcspoudent or offer his or her opinions on the question.
O Nevc~suggest an answer or agree or d~sagreewith an answer. 110not give the
respondeilt any ~ d c aof your per5oilal vlews on the topic of the question or
the survey.
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
O Never interpret the meaning of a question; just repeat the question and give
instructions or clarifications that are provided ill training or by the super-
visors.
O Never improvise, such as by adding answer categories or malting wording
changes.
Interviews by telephone, face-to-face interviews in respondents' house-
holds, intercept interviews in malls and parks, and interviews generally
associated with survey research are most lilzely to be included in the struc-
tured interview category.
This interview context calls for the interviewer to play a neutral role,
never interjecting his or her opinion of a respondent's answer. The inter-
viewer must establish what has been called "balanced rapport"; he or she
must be casual and friendly on the one hand, but directive and imperso~lal
on the other. The interviewer must ~erfecta style of "interested listening"
that rewards the respondent's participatioil but does not evaluate the
responses (Converse & Schuman, 1974).
In a structured interview, hopefully, nothing is left to chance. However,
response effects, or nonsampling errors, that can be attributed to the ques-
tionnaire administration process commonly evolve from three sources.
The first of these is respondeilt behavior. The respondent may deliberately
try to please the interviewer or to prevent the interviewer from learning
something about the respondent. In order to do this, the respondent may
embellish a response, give what is described as a "socially desirable" re-
sponse, or omit certain relevant information (Bradburn, 1983, p. 291).
The respondent may also err due to faulty memory. The second source of
error is found in the nature of the taslz: the method of questionnaire
ad~ninistration(face-to-face or telephone) or the sequence or wording of
the questions. The third source of error is the interviewer, whose charac-
teristics or questioning techniques can impede proper communication of
the questions (Bradburn, 'I 983). It is the degree of error assigned to the
interviewer that is of greatest concern.
Most structured interviews leave little room for the interviewer to
improvise or exercise independent judgment, but even in the most struc-
tured interview situation not every collti~lgencycan be anticipated, and
not every interviewer behaves according to the script (Bradburn, 1983;
Frey, 1989). 111 fact, one study of interviewer effects fouild that iilterview-
ers changed the wordi~lgto as many as one-third of the questions
(Bradburn, Sudman, & Associates, 1979).

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICALMATERIALS
In general, research on interviewer effects has shown interviewer char-
acteristics such as age, gender, and interviewing experience to have rel-
atively small impact on responses (Singer & Presser, 1989). However,
there is some evidence that student interviewers produce larger response
effects than do nonstudents, higher-status i~lterviewersproduce larger
response effects than do lower-status interviewers, and the race of an
interviewer makes a difference only on questions specifically related
to race (Bradburn, 1983; Hyman, 1954; Singer, Frankel, & Glassman,
1983).
The relatively minor impact of the interviewer on response quality in
structured interview settings is directly attributable to the inflexible, stan-
dardized, and predetermined nature of this type of interviewing. There is
simply little room for error. However, those who are advocates of struc-
tured interviewing are not unaware that the interview taltes place in a
social interaction context and that it is influenced by that context. Good
interviewers recognize this fact and are sensitive to how interaction can
influence responses. Converse and Schuman (1974) observe, "There is no
single interview style that fits every occasion or all respondents" (p. 53).
This means that interviewers must be aware of respondent differences and
must be able to make the proper adjustments called for by unanticipated
developments. As Raymond Gorden (1992) states, "Interviewing sl<illsare
not simple motor skills like riding a bicycle: rather, they involve a high-
order combination of observation, empathic sensitivity, and intellectual
judgment" (p. 7).
It is not enough to understand the mechanics of interviewing, it is also
important to understand the respondent's world and forces that might
stimulate or retard response (Kahn & Cannel, 1457). Still, the structured
interview proceeds under a stimulus-response format, assuming that the
respondent will truthfully answer questions previously determined to
reveal adequate indicators of the variable in question, as long as those
questions are properly phrased. This kind of interview often elicits ratio-
nal responses, but it overlooks or inadequately assesses the emotional
dimension.
9 Group Interviews
The group interview is essentially a qualitative data gathering technique
(see Madriz, Chapter 10, this volume) that relies upon the systematic
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
questioning of several individuals simultaneously in a formal or informal
setting. Thus this technique straddles the line between formal and infor-
mal interviewing.
T h e use of the group interviewhas ordinarily been associated with mar-
lteting research under the label of focus group, where the purpose is to
gather consumer opinion on product characteristics, advertising themes,
or service delivery. This format has also been used to a considerable ex-
tent by ~oliticalparties and candidates who are interested in voter re-
action to issues and policies. The group interview has also been used in
sociological research. Bogardus used it to test his social distance scale in
1926, Zuckerman (1972) interviewed Nobel laureates, Thompson and
~ e m e r a t h(1952) looked at management problems in the military,
Morgan and Spanish (1984) studied health issues, we investigated older-
worker labor force reentry (Fontana & Frey, 1990), and Merton and his
associates studied the impact of propaganda using group interviews (see
Frey & Fontana, 1991).In fact, Merton, Fislce, and Kendall(1956) coined
the term focus group to apply to a situation in which the researcher/
interviewer aslts very specific questions about a topic after having already
completed considerable research. There is also some evidence that estab-
lished anthropologists such as Malinowslti used this technique, although
they did not report it (Frey & Fontana, 1991).Today, all group interviews
are often generically designated focusgroup interviews, even though there
are considerable variations in the natures and types of group interviews.
In a group interview, the interviewerlmoderator directs the inquiry and
the interaction among respondents in a very structured fashion or in a very
unstructured manner, depending on the interview's purpose. The purpose
may be exploratory; for example, the researcher may bring several persons
together to test a methodological technique, to try out a definition of a re-
search problem, or to identify key informants.An extension of this explor-
atory illtent is the use of the group interview for the purpose of pretesting
questionnaire wording, measurement scales, or other elements of a survey
design. This is now quite common in survey research (Desvousges & Frey,
1989).Group interviews can also be used successfully to aid respondents'
recall of specific events or to stimulate embellished descriptions of events
(e.g., a disaster or a celebration) or experiences shared by members of a
group. Group interviews can also be used for triangulation purposes or
can be used in conjunction with other data gathering techniques. For
example, group interviews could be helpful in the process of "indefinite
triangulation," by putting individual responses into a context (Cicourel,

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
1974).Finally, phenomenological purposes may be served whether group
interviews are the sole basis for gathering data or they are used in associa-
tion with other techniques.
Group interviews can take different forms depending on their pur-
poses. They can be brainstorming sessions with little or no structure or
direction from the interviewer, or they can be very structured, as in nomi-
nal, Delphi, and marketing focus groups. In the latter cases the role of the
interviewer is very prominent and directive. Fieldwork settings provide
both formal and informal occasions for group interviews. The field re-
searcher can bring respondents into a formal setting in the field context
and ask very directed questions, or a natural field setting, such as a street
corner or a neighborhood tavern, can be a conducive setting for casual but
purposive inquiries.
Group interviews can be compared on several dimensions. First, the
interviewer can be very formal, taking a very directive and controlling
posture, guiding discussion strictly, and not permitting digression or varia-
tion from topic or agenda. This is the mode of focus and nominaliDelphi
groups. In the latter case participants are physically isolated but share
views through a coordinatoriinterviewer. The nondirective approach is
more likely to be implemented in naturally established field settings, such
as a street corner, or in controlled settings (e.g., research labs) where the
research purpose is phenomenological, to establish the widest range of
meaning and interpretation for the topic. Groups can also be differenti-
ated by question format and purpose, which in the case of group inter-
views usually means exploration, pretest, or phenomenological. Explor-
atory interviews are designed to establish familiarity with a topic or
setting; the interviewer can be very directive (or the opposite), but the
questions are usually unstructured or open-ended. The same format is
used in interviewswith phenomenological purposes, where the intent isto
tap intersubjective meaning with depth and diversity. Pretest interviews
are generally structured in question format and the interviewer is directive
in style. Table 2.1 compares the types of group interviews on various
dimensions.
The slzills that are required to conduct the group interview are not
significantly different from those needed for individual interviews. The
interviewer must be flexible, objective, empathic, persuasive, a good lis-
tener, and so on. But the group format does present some problems not
found in the individual interview. Merton et al. (1956)note three specific
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
TABLE 2.1 Types of Group Interviews and Dimensions
Role of Question
Tvpe Setting Interviewer Format Purpose
Focus group formal- directive structured exploratory
preset pretest
Brainstorming formal or nondirective very exploratory
informal structured
Nominal1 formal directive structured pretest
delphi exploratory
Field, informal moderately very exploratory
natural spontaneous nondirective structured phenomenological
Field, preset, but somewhat semi- phenomenological
formal in field directive structured
problems: First, the interviewer must keep one person or small coalition
of persons from dominating the group; second, the interviewer must
encourage recalcitrant respondents to participate; and third, the inter-
viewer must obtain responses from the entire group to ensure the fullest
coverage of the topic. In addition, the interviewer must balance the direc-
tive, interviewer role with the role of moderator, which calls for the man-
agement of the dynamics of the group being interviewed; the group inter-
viewer must simultaneously worry about the script of questions and be
sensitive to the evolving patterns of group interaction.
Group interviews have some advantages over individual interviews:
They are relatively inexpensive to conduct and often produce rich data
that are cumulative and elaborative; they can be stimulating for respon-
dents, aiding recall; and the format is flexible. Group interviews are not,
however, without problems: The results cannot be generalized; the emerg-
ing group culture may interfere with individual expression, and the group
may be dominated by one person; and "groupthinlz" is a possible outcome.
The requirements for interviewer skills are greater than those for indi-
vidual interviewing because of the group dynamics that are present. In

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICALMATERIALS
addition, it is difficult to research sensitive topics using this technique.
Nevertheless, the group interview is a viable option for both qualitative
and quantitative research.
g Unstructured Interviewing
Uilstructured interviewing can provide a greater breadth of data than the
other types, given its qualitative nature. In this section we discuss the tradi-
tional type of uilstructured interview: the open-ended, ethnographic (in-
depth) interview. Many qualitative researchers differentiate between in-
depth (or ethnographic) interviewing and participant observation. Yet, as
Lofland (1971)points out, the two go hand in hand, and many of the data
gathered in participant observation come from informal interviewing in
the field. Consider the following report, from Malinowski's (196712989)
diary:
Saturday 8 [December 19171. Got up late, felt rotten, took enema. At about
1I went out; I heard crics; [people from] I<apwapu were bringing un to
Teyava. 1sat w ~ t hthe natlvcs, talked, took pictures. Went h a ~ k .Billy cor-
rected and supplemented my notes about wasz.At Teyava, an old man talked
a g~edt deal about f~she\,hut I did not understand 1i1mtoo well. Then we
moved to 111sbwayama. Talked about lzlz'u. They kept questioning me about
the wal-In the evelung I talked to the pol~cemanabout bwaga'u, lzlz'u and
yoyoua. I was ~rr~tatedby thcii laugh~ng.Billy agaln told me a number of 111-
terestlng thlngs. look clulnine and calomel. (p. 145)
Malinowski's "day in the field" shows how very important unstruc-
tured interviewing is in the conduct of fieldwork and clearly illustrates
the difference between structured and unstructured interviewing.
Malinowski has some general topics he wishes to know about, but he does
not use closed-ended questions or a formal approach to interviewing.
What's more, he commits (as most field-worlzers do) what structured
interviewers would see astwo "capital offenses": (a)He answers questions
asked by the respondents, and (b) he lets his personal feelings influence
him (as all field-workers do), thus he deviates from the "ideal" of a cool,
distant, and rational interviewer.
Malinowski's exaillple capturesthe differences between structured and
unstructured interviewing: The former aims at capturing precise data of a
74
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
codable nature in order to explain behavior within preestablished catego-
ries, whereas the latter attempts to understand the complex behavior of
members of society without imposing any a priori categorization that may
limit the field of inquiry.
In a way, Malinowski's interviewing is still structured to some degree-
that is, there is a setting, there are identified informants, and the respon-
dents are clearly discernible. In other types of interviewing there may be
no setting; for instance, Rosanna Hertz (1995,1997b, 1997c)focused on
locating women in a historic moment rather than in a place. Additionally,
in their study of single mothers, Hertz and Fergusoil (1997) interviewed
women who did not know each other, who were not part of a single group
or village. At times, informants are not readily accessible or identifiable,
but anyone the researcher meets may become a valuable source of infor-
mation. Hertz and Ferguson relied on tradespeople and friends to identify
single mothers for their study. Fontana and Smith (1989) found that
respoildellts are not always readily identifiable. In studying Alzheimer's
disease patients, they discovered it was often possible to confuse care-
givers and patients in the early stages of the disease. Also, in Foiltana's
(1977) research on poor elderly, he had no fixed setting at all; he simply
wandered from beilch to bench in the park where the old folks were sit-
ting, tallzing to any disheveled old person who would talk back.
Spradley (1979)aptly differentiates among various types of interview-
ing. He describes the following interviewer-respondentinteraction, which
would be unthinkable in traditional sociological circles yet is the very
essence of unstructured interviewing-the establishment of a human-to-
human relation with the respondent and the desire to understand rather
than to explain:
llresently she sm~led,pressed her hand to her chest, ~ n dsaid: "Tsetchwe." It
was her naine. "El~zabeth,"I said, polntlng to myself. "Nisabe," she an-
swered. . . . Then, hav~ngsurely suspected that I was a woman, she put her
hand on my breast gravely, and, f~ndiilgout that I was, she toc~chedher own
brea5t. Many Bushmen do this; to them all Furopeans look al~lte."Tasu SI"
(women), she sald. Then after a moment's pause Tsetchwe began to teach
me. (pp. 1-4)
Spradley goes on to discuss all the things an interviewer learns from the
llattves about them, their culture, their language, their ways of life.
Although each and every study is different, these are some of the basic

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
I
The Intervrew: From StructuredQuestions to Negotiated Text
elements of unstructured interviewing. These elements have been dis-
cussed in details already, and we need not elaborate upon them too much
(for detailed accounts of unstructured interviewing, see, among others,
Adams & Preiss, 1960; Denzin, 1989b; Lofland, 1971; Spradley, 1979).
Here we provide brief synopses. Please remember that these are presented
only as heuristic devices; every study uses slightly different elements and
often in different combinations.
Later in this chapter, in discussing new trends, we will deconstructthese
notions as we frame the interview as an active, emergent process. We con-
tend that our interview societygives people instructions on how to comply
with these heuristics (see Silverman, 1993, 1997a, 199710). Similarly,
James Scheurich (1997) is openly critical of both positivistic and interpre-
tive interviewing, as they are both based on modernist assumptions.
Rather than being a process "by the numbers," for Scheurich, interviewing
(andits language) are "persistently slippery, unstable, and ambiguous from
person to person, from situationto situation, from time to time" (p. 62).
Accessing the setting. How do we "get in"? That, of course, varies accord-
ing to the group one is attempting to study. One may have to disrobe and
casually stroll in the nude if doing a study of nude beaches (Douglas &
Rasmussen, 1977),or one may have to buy a huge motorbike and frequent
seedy bars in certain locations if attempting to befriend and study the
Hell's Angels (Thompson, 1985).The different ways and attempts to "get
in" vary tremendously, but they all share the common goal of gaining
access to the setting. Sometimes there is no setting per se, aswhen Fontana
(1977) attempted to study poor elderly on the streets and had to gain
access anew with each and every interviewee.
Understanding the language and culture of the respondents. Rosalie Wax
(1960) gives perhaps the most poignant description of learning the lan-
guage and culture of the respondents in her study of "disloyal" Japanese in
concentration camps in the United States between 1943 and 1945. Wax
had to overcome a number of language and cultural problems in her study.
Although respondents may be fluent in the language of the interviewer,
there are different ways of saying things and, indeed, certain things that
should not be said at all, linking language and cultural manifestations.Wax
makes this point:
I remarlzed that I would like to see the letter. The s~lencethat fell on the
cllattlnggronpwas almost palpable,andthe embarrassmentof the ho5tswas
pa~~lfulto see. The faux pas was not aslz~ngto see a letter, for lettcrs were
passedabout rather freely.It rested on the fact that one d ~ dnot glvea Cauca-
slan a letter In whlch the "disloyal" statement of a fr~cildlnlgllt bc ex-
pressed. (p. 172)
Some researchers, especially in anthropological interviews, tend to rely
on interpreters, and thus become vulnerable to added layers of meanings,
biases, and interpretations, which may lead to disastrous misunderstand-
ings (Freeman, 1983). At times, specific jargon, such as the medical meta-
language of physicians, may be a code that is hard for nonmembers to
understand.
Decidingon how topresent oneself:Do we present ourselves as representa-
tives from academia studying medical students (Becker, 1956)? Do we
approach the interview as a woman-to-woman discussion (Spradley,
1979)?Do we "dress down" to look like the respondents (Fontana, 1977;
Thompson, 1985)?Do we represent the colonial culture (Malinowsky,
1922),or do we humbly present ourselves as "learners" (Wax, 1960)?This
decision is very important, because once the interviewer's presentational
self is "cast," it leaves a profound impression on the respondents and has
great influence over the success (or lack of it) of the study. Sometimes,
inadvertently, the researcher's presentational self may be misrepresented,
as John Johnson (1976) discovered in studying a welfare office, when
some of the employees assumed he was a "spy" for management despite
his best efforts to the contrary.
Locating an informant. The researcher must find an insider, a niember of
the group studied, who is willing to be an informant and act as a guide and
a translator of cultural mores and, at times, jargon or language. Although
the researcher can conduct interviews without an informant, he or she can
save much time and avoid mistakes if a good inforinant becomes available.
The "classic" sociological informant is Doc in William Foote Whyte's
Street Corner Society (1943). Without Doc's help and guidance, it is
doubtfulthat Whyte would have been able to access his subjects at the level
he did.Very instructive is Paul Rabinow's (1977)discussion of his relation-
ship with his main informant, Abd al-Malik hen Lahcen. Mali]<acted as a
77

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
translator but also provided Rabinow with access to the cultural ways of
the subjects, and by his actions provided Rabinow with insights into the
vast differences between a University of Chicago researcher and a native
Moroccan.
Gaining trust. Survey researchers asking respondents whether they would
or would not favor the establishment of a nuclear dump in their state (Frey,
1993) do not have too much work to do in the way of gaining trust;
respondents have opinions about nuclear dumps and are very willing to
express them, sometimes forcefully. But it is clearly a different story if one
wants to ask about a person's frequency of sexual intercourse or preferred
method of birth control. The interviewer needs to establish some trust
with the respondents (Cicourel, 1974). Paul Rasmussen (1989) had to
spend months as a "wallflower" in the waiting room of a massage parlor
before any of the masseuses gained enough trust in him to divulge to him,
in unstructured interviews, the nature of their "massage" relations with
clients. Gaining trust is essential to the success of the interviews and, once
gained, trust can still be very fragile. Any faux pas by the researcher may
destroy days, weeks, or months of painfully gained trust.
Establishing rapport. Because the goal of unstructured interviewing is
understanding, it is paramount that the researcher establish rapport with
respondents; that is, the researcher must be able to take the role of the
respondents and attempt to see the situation from their viewpoint, rather
than superimpose his or her world of academia and preconceptions upon
them. Although a close rapport with the respondents opens the doors to
more informed research, it may create problems as the researcher may
become a spolzesperson for the group studied, losing his or her distance
and objectivity, or may "go native" and become a member of the group and
forgo his or her academic role. At times, what the researcher may feel is
good rapport turns out not to be, as Thompson (1985) found out in a
nightmarish way when he was subjected to a brutal beating by the Hell's
Angels just as his study of them was coming to a close. At the other end of
the spectrum, some researchers may never feel they have established rap-
port with their subjects. Malinowski (1967/1989), for example, always
mistrusted the motives of the natives and at times was troubled by their
brutish sensuality or angered by their outright lying or deceptions: "After
lunch I [carried]yellow calico and spoke about the baloma. I made a small
sagali, Navavile. 1was fed up with the niggers" (p. 154).
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
Collecting empirical materials. Being out in the field does not afford
researchers the luxury of video cameras, soundproof rooms, and high-
quality recording equipment. Lofland (1971) provides detailed informa-
tion on doing and writing up interviews and on the types of field notes
researchers ought to take and how to organize them. Yet field-workers
often must make do; their "tales" of their methods range from holding a
miniature tape recorder as inconspicuously as possible to talcing mental
notes and then rushing to the privacy of a bathroom to jot notes down, on
toilet papers at times. We agree with Lofland that regardless of the circum-
stances, researchers ought to (a) take notes regularly and promptly: (b)
write everything down, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the
time; (c)try to be as inconspicuous as possible in note taking; and (d)ana-
lyze their notes frequently.
+ Other Types of Unstructured Interviewing
We consider the issues of interpreting and reporting empirical material
later in this chapter. In this section, we briefly outline some different types
of unstructured interviews.
Oral History
The oral history differs from other unstructured interviews in purpose,
but not methodologically. The oral collection of historical materials goes
back to ancient times, but its modern-day forinal organization can be
traced to 3948, when Allan Nevins began the Oral History Project at
Columbia University (Starr, 1984, p. 4). Oral history captures a variety of
forms of life, from common folks tallzing about their jobs in Studs Terkel's
Working (1975)to the historical recollections of president Harry Truman
in Merle Miller's Plain Speaking (1974; see Starr, 3 984). Often, oral his-
tory transcripts are not published, but many may be found in libraries,
silent memoirs waiting for someone to rummage through them and bring
their testimony to life. Recently, oral history has found great popularity
among feminists (Gluck & Patai, 1991),who see it as a way to understand
and bring forth the history of women in a culture that has traditionally
relied on masculine interpretation: "Refusing to be rendered historically
voiceless any longer, women are creating a new history-using our own
voices and experiences" (Gluck, 1984, p. 222).
79

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICALMATERIALS
Kelevant to the study of oral history (and, in fact, to all interviewing) is
the study of memory and its relation to recall. For instance, Barry
Schwartz (1999)has examined the ages at which we recall critical episodes
in our lives; 1le concludes that "biographical memory. . .is better under-
stood as a social process" and that "as we look back, we find ourselves
remembering our lives in terms of our experience with others" (p. 15; see
also Schwartz, 1996). Carolyn Ellis (1991) has resorted to the use of
"sociological introspection" to reconstruct biographical episodes of her
past life. Notable among Ellis's works in this genre is her reconstruction of
her 9-year relationship with her partner, Gene Weinstein, in which she
describes the emotional negotiations the two of them went through asthey
coped with his downward-spiralinghealth, until the final negotiation with
death (Ellis, 1995).
Creative lnterviewing
Close to oral history, but used more conventionally as a sociological
tool, is Jack Douglas's (1985) "creative interviewing." Douglas argues
against "how-to" guides to conducting interviews because unstructured
interviews take place in the largely situational everyday worlds of mem-
bers of society. Thus interviewing and interviewers must necessarily be
creative, forget how-to rules, and adapt themselves to the ever-changing
situations they face. Similar to oral historians, Douglas sees interviewing
as collecti~lgoral reports from the members of society. In creative inter-
viewing, these reports go well beyond the leilgth of conventional unstruc-
tured interviews and may become "life histories," with interviewing tak-
ing place in multiple sessions over many days with the subject(s).
Postmodern Interviewing
Douglas's concern with the important role played by the interviewer
qua human being, which is also shared by feminist oral historians, became
a paramount element in the interviewing approaches of postmodern
anthropologists and sociologists in the mid-1980s. Marcus and Fischer
(1986) address eth~lographyat large, but their discussion is germane to
unstructured interviewing because, as we have seen, such interviewing
constitutes the major way of collecting data in fieldwork. Marcus and
Fischer voice reflexive concerns about the ways in which the researcher
influences the study, both in the methods of data collection and in the
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
-
techniques of reporting findings; this concern leads to new ways to con-
duct interviews, in the hope of mi~liinizing,if not eliminating, interviewer
influenceOne such way ispolyphonic interviewing, in which the voices of
the subjects are recorded with minimal influence from the researcher and
are not collapsed together and reported as one, through the interpretation
ofthe researcher. Instead, the multiple perspectives of the various subjects
are reported and differences and problems encountered are discussed,
rather than glossed over (see Krieger, 1983).Intelpretive interactionisin
followsin the footsteps of creative and polyphonic interviewing, but, bor-
rowing from James Joyce, adds a new element, that of epiphanies, which
Denzin (1989a) describes as "those interactional moments that leave
marks o11 people's lives [and] have the potential for creating transfor-
mational experiences for the person" (p. 15). Thus the topic of inquiry
becomes dramatized by the focus on existential moments in people's lives,
hopefully producing richer and more meaningful data. Finally, as post-
modernists seek new ways of understanding and reporting data, we wish
to note the concept of oralysis, which refers "to the ways in which oral
forms, derived from everyday life, are, with the recording powers of
video, applied to the analytical tasks associated with literate forms"
(Ulmer, 1989, p. xi). In oralysis, the traditional product of interviewing,
talk, is coupled with the visual, providing, according to Ulmer (1989),
a product consonant with a society that is dominated by the medium of
television.
+ Gendered interviews
The housewife goes into a well-stocked store to look for a frying pan. Her
thinlcing probably does not proceed exactly this way, but it is helpful to
think of the many ~ossibletwo-way choices shc might malze: Cast iron or
aluminum? Thick or thin?Metal or wooden handle? Covered or not? Deep
or shallow? Large or small? This brand or that? Rcasonable or too high in
price?To buy or not? Cash or charge?Have it delivered or carry it. . ..The
two-way question is simplicity itself when it comes to recording answers
and tabulati~sgthem. (Payne, 1951, pp. 55-56)
The above quote represents the prevalent paternalistic attitude toward
women in interviewing (see Oalzley, 1981, p. 39) as well as the paradig-
matic concern with coding answers and therefore with presenting limited,
81

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICALMATERIALS
dichotomous choices. Apart from a tendency to be condescending to
women, the traditional interview paradigm does not account for gendered
differences. In fact, Babbie's classic text The Practice of Social Research
(1992)briefly references gender only three times and says nothing about
the influence of gender on interviews. As Ann Oakley (1981) cogently
points out, both the interviewers and the respondents are considered face-
less and invisible, and they must be if the paradigmatic assunlption of gath-
ering value-free data is to be maintained. Yet, as Denzin (1989a, p. 116)
tells us, "gender filters knowledge"; that is, the sex of the interviewer and
that of the respondent do make a difference, as the interview takes place
within the cultural boundaries of a paternalistic social system in which
masculine identities are differentiated from feminine ones.
In the typical interview there exists a hierarchical relation, with the
respondent being in the subordinate position. The interviewer is in-
structed to be courteous, friendly, and pleasant:
The interviewer's manner should be friendly, courteous, conversatioilal and
unbiased. He should be neither too grim nor too effusive; neither too talk-
ative nor too timid. The idea should be to put the respondent at ease, so that
he will talk freely and fully. (Selltiz, Jahoda, Deutsch, & Cook, 1965,
p. 576; emphasis added)
Yet, as the last above-quoted line shows, this demeanor is a ruse to gain the
trust and confidence of the responde~ltwithout reciprocating those feel-
ings in any way. Interviewers are not to give their own opinions and are to
evade direct questions. What seems to be a conversation is really a one-
way pseudoconversation, raising the ethical dilemma (Fine, 1983-1984)
inherent in the study of people for opportunistic reasons. When the re-
spondent is female, the interview presents added problems, because the
preestablished format directed at information relevant for the study tends
both to ignore the respondent's own concerns and to curtail any attempts
to digress and elaborate. This format also stymies any revelation of per-
sonal feelings and emotions.
Warren (1988) discusses problems of gender in both anthropological
and sociological fieldwork, and many of these are found as well in the
ethnographicinterview. Some of these problems are the traditional ones of
entrCe and trust, which may be heightened by the sex of the interviewer,
especially in highly sex-segregated societies: "I never witnessed any cere-
monies that were barred to women. Whenever I visited compounds I sat
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
with the women while the men gathered in the parlors or in front of the
compound. ...I never entered any of the places where men sat around to
drink beer or palm wine and to chat" (Sudarkasa, 1986; quoted in Warren,
Solutions to the problem have been to view the female anthropologist
as androgyne or to grant her honorary male status for the duration of her
Warren (1988) also points to some advantages of a researcher's
being female and therefore seen as harmless or invisible. Other problems
are associated with the researcher's status and race and with the context of
the interview; again, these problems are magnified for female researchers
in a paternalistic world. Female interviewers at times face the added bur-
den of sexual overtures or covert sexual hassle (Warren, 1988, p. 33).
Feminist researchers have suggested ways to circumvent the traditional
interviewing paradigm. Oakley (198I)notes that interviewing is a mascu-
line paradigm, embedded in a masculine culture and stressing masculine
traits while at the same time excludingtraits such as sensitivity, emotional-
ity, and others that are culturally viewed as feminine traits. There is, how-
ever, a growing reluctance, especially among female researchers (Oakley,
1981; Reinharz, 1992; Smith, 1987), to continue interviewing women as
"objects," with little or no regard for them as individuals. Although this
reluctance stems from moral and ethical reasons, it is also relevant meth-
odologically. As Oakley (1981) points out, in interviewing there is "no
intimacy without reciprocity" (p. 49). Thus the emphasis is shifting to
allow the development of a closer relation between interviewer and re-
spondent; researchers are attempting to minimize status differences and
are doing away with the traditional hierarchical situation in interviewing.
Interviewers can show their human side and answer questions and express
feelings. Methodologically, this new approach provides a greater spec-
trum of responses and greater insight into the lives of respondents-or
"participants," to avoid the hierarchical pitfall (Reinharz, 1992, p.22)-
because it encourages them to control the sequencing and the language of
the interview and also allows them the freedom of open-ended responses
; Reinharz, 1992; Smith, 1987). To wit: "Women were
couraged to 'digress' into details of their personal histories
nd to recount anecdotes of their working lives. Much important infor-
athered in this way" (Yeandle, 1984; quoted in Reinharz,
Rosanna Hertz (1997a) makes the self of the researcher visible and sug-
nly one of many selves the researcher takes to the field. She
83

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
asserts that interviewers need to be reflexive; that is, they need "to have an
ongoing conversation about experience while simultaneously living in the
moment" (p. viii). By doing so, they will heighten the understanding of
differences of ideologies, cultures, and politics between interviewers and
interviewees.
Hertz also underscores the importance of "voicesn-how we, as
authors, express and write our stories, which data we include and which
we exclude, whose voices we choose to represent and which we do not.
The concern with voices is also found, very powerfully, in a volume edited
by Kim Marie Vaz titled Oral Narrative Research With Black Women
(1997). One of the contributors, Christine Obbo (1997),states:
T h ~ schapter la a modest cxercise in glving expression to women's volces
and in resculng tlle~rperuptions and experiences from be~ngInere mur-
murs or backdrop to pol~t~cal,social and cultural happenings. Women's
voices have been devalued by male chro~i~clesof cultural history even when
the men acknowledge female ~nformants;they are overshadowed by the
voice of male author~tyand ascendancc In soclety. (pp. 42-43)
This commitment to maintaining the integrity of the phenoinena and
preserving the viewpoint of the subjects, as expressed in their everyday
language, is akin to the stand taken by phenomenological and existential
sociologies (Douglas & Johnson, 1977; Kotarba & Fontana, 1984) and
also reflects the concerns of postmodern ethnographers (Marcus &
Fischer, 1986).The differences are (a) the heightened moral concern for
subjects/participants, (b)the attempt to redress the malelfemale hierarchy
and existing paternalistic power structure, and (c)the paramount impor-
tance placed upon membership, because the effectiveness of male research-
ers in interviewing female subjects has been largely discredited.
Ruth Behar (1996) addresses the ambiguous nature of the enterprise of
interviewing by asking: Where do we locate the researcher in the field?
How much do we reveal about ourselves?How do we reconcile our differ-
ent roles and positions? Behar inakes us see that interviewer, writer,
respondent, and interview are not clearly distinct entities; rather, they are
intertwined in a deeply problematic way.
Some feminist sociologists have gone beyond concerns with interview-
ing or fieldwork in itself. Laurel Richardson (2992a) is striving for new
forms of expression to report her findings and has presented some of her
fieldworlz in the form of poetry. Patricia Clough (1998) questions the
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
whole enterprise of fieldwork under the current paradigm and calls for a
reassesslnent of the whole sociological enterprise and for a rereading of
existing sociological texts in a light that is not marred by a paternalistic
bias. Their voices echo the concern of Dorothy Smith (1987), who elo-
quently states:
The problem [of a research project] and its particular solution are analogous
to those by which fresco painters solved the problems of representing the
differenttemporal moments of a story in the singular space of the wall. The
problem is to produce in a two-dimensional space framed as a wall a world
of action and movement in time. (p. 281)
A growing number of researchers feel that we cannot isolate gender
from other important elements that also "filter l<nowledge."Among oth-
ers, Patricia Hill Collins (1990) has written eloquently about the filtering
ofltnowledge through memberships-of being black and female in Ameri-
can culture, in her case. ICath Weston (1998)makes just as powerful a case
forsexuality, which, she contends, should not be treated as a comyartinen-
talized subspecialty, because it underlies and is integral to the whole of the
social sciences. Clearly, gender, sexuality, and race cannot be considered in
isolation; race, class, hierarchy, status, and age (Seidman, 1991) are all
part of the complex, yet often ignored, elementsthat shapeinterviewing.
+ Framing and Interpreting lnterviews
Aside from the problem of framing real-life events in a two-dimensional
space, we face the added problems of how the framing is being done and
who is doing the framing. In sociological terms, this means that the type of
interviewing selected, the techniques used, and the ways of recording
information all come to bear on the results of the study. Additionally, data
must be interpreted, and the researcher has a great deal of influence on
what part of the data will be reported and how it will be reported.
Framing lnterviews
Numerous volumes have been published on the techniques of struc-
tured interviewing (see, among others, Babbie, 1992; Bradburn et al.,
1979; Gorden, 1980; I<ahn & Cannel, 1957).There is also avoluminous

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
literature on group interviewing, especially in marketing and survey re-
search (fora comprehensive review of literature in this area, see Stewart &
Shamdasani, 1990).The uses of group interviewing have also been linked
to qualitative sociology (Morgan, 1988).Unstructured interviewingtech-
niques have been covered thoroughly (Denzin, 1989b; Lofland, 1971;
Lofland & Lofland, 1984; Spradley, 1979).
As we have noted, unstructured interviews vary widely, given their
informal nature and depending on the nature of the setting, and some
eschew the use of any preestablished set of techniques (Douglas, 1985).
Yet there are techniques involved in interviewing whether the interviewer
is just being "a nice person" or is following a format. Techniques can be
varied to meet various situations, and varying one's techniques is known
as using tactics. Traditionally, the researcher is involved in an informal
conversation with the respondent, thus he or she must maintain a tone of
"friendlyn chat while trying to remain close to the guidelines of the topic
of inquiry he or she has in mind. The researcher begins by "breaking the
ice" with general questions and gradually moves on to more specific ones,
while also-as inconspicuously as possible-asking questions intended to
check the veracity of the respondent's statements. The researcher should
avoid getting involved in a "real" conversation in which he or she answers
questions asked by the respondent or provides personal opinions on the
matters discussed. A researcher can avoid "getting trapped" by shrugging
off the relevance of his or her opinions ("It doesn't matter how I feel, it's
your opinion that's important") or by feigning ignorance ("I really don't
know enough about this to say anything; you're the expert"). Of course, as
we have seen in the case o; gendered interviewing, the researcher may
reject these techniques and "come down" to the level of the respondent to
engage in a "real" conversation, with give-and-take and shared empathic
understanding.
The use of language, particularly the use of specific terms, is important
in the creation of a "sharedness of meanings" in which both interviewer
and respondent understand the contextual nature of specificreferents. For
instance, in studying nude beaches, Douglas and Rasmussen (1977) dis-
covered that the term nude beach virgin had nothing to do with chastity;
rather, it referred to the fact that a person's buttocks were white, thus in-
dicating to others that he or she was a newcomer to the nude beach. Lan-
guage is also important in delineating the type of question (broad, narrow,
leading, instructive, and so on).
86
Nonverbal techniques are also important in interviewing. There are
four basic modes of nonverbal communication:
Proxemic communication is the use of interpersonal space to communicate
attitudes, chronemics communication is the use of pacing of speech and
length of silence in conversation, kinesic communication includes any body
movements or postures, and paralinguistic communication includes all the
variations in volume, pitch and quality of voice. (Gorden, 1980, p. 335)
~ 1 1four of these modes represent important techniques for the researcher;
in addition, the researcher should carefully note and record respondents'
uses of these modes, for interview data are more than verbal records and
should include, as much as possible, nonverbal features of the interaction.
Finally, techniques vary with the groups being interviewed; for instance,
interviewing a group of children requires a different approach from the
one an interviewer might use when interviewing a group of elderly wid-
ows (Lopata, 1980).
Interpreting Interviews
Many studies using unstructured interviews are not reflexive enough
about the interpreting process; common platitudes proclaim that the data
speak for themselves, that the researcher is neutral, unbiased, and "invisi-
ble." The data reported tend to flow nicely, there are no contradictory
data and no mention of what data were excluded andlor why. Impropri-
eties never happen and the main concern seems to be the proper, if
unreflexive, filing, analyzing, and reporting of events. But anyone who has
engaged in fieldwork knows better; no matter how organized the re-
searcher may be, he or she slowly becomes buried under an increasing
mountain of field notes, transcripts, newspaper clippings, and audiotapes.
Traditionally, readers were presented with the researcher's interpretation
of the data, cleaned and streamlined and collapsed in rational, non-
contradictory accounts. More recently, sociologists have come to grips
with the reflexive,problematic, and, at times, contradictory nature of data
and with the tremendous, if unspoken, influence of the researcher as
author. What Van Maaneii (1988) calls "confessional style" began in ear-
st in the 1970s (seeJohnson, 1976)and continues unabated to our day,
a soul cleansing by researchers of problematic feelings and sticky situa-
ons in the field. Although perhaps somewhat overdone at times, these
87

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
"confessions" are very valuable, as they make the readers aware of the
complex and cumbersome nature of interviewing people in their natural
settings and lend a tone of realism and veracity to studies. For example:
"Yesterday I slept very late. Got up around 10. The day before I had
engaged Omaga, Koupa, and a few others. They didn't come. Again I fell
into a rage" (Malinowski, 196713989, p. 67).
Showing the human side of the researcher and the problematics of
unstructured interviewing has taken new forms in deconstructionisn~
(Derrida, 1976). Here the influence of the author is brought under scru-
tiny. Thus the text created by the researcher's rendition of events is
"deconstructed"; the author's biases and taken-for-granted notions are
exposed, and, at times, alternative ways to look at the data are introduced
(Clough, 1998).
Postmodern social researchers, as we have seen, attempt to expose and
minimize the role of the researcher qua field-worker and qua author.
Thus, for instance, Crapanzano (1980) reports Tuhami's accounts,
whether they be sociohistorical renditions, dreams, or outright lies,
because they all constitute a part of this Morrocan Arab subject's sense of
self and personal history. In interviewing Tuhami, Crapanzano learns not
only about his subject but about himself:
As Tuhami's interlocutor, I became an active participant in his life history,
even though I rarely appear directly in his recitations. Not only did my pres-
ence, and my questions, prepare him for the text he was to produce, but they
produced what I read as a change of collsciousnessin him. They produced a
change of consciousness in me too. We were both jostled from our assump-
tions about the nature of the everyday world and ourselves and groped for
common reference points within this limbo of interchange. (p. 11)
No longer pretending to be faceless subject and invisible researcher,
Tuhami and Crapallzano are portrayed as individual human beings with
their own personal histories and idiosyncrasies, and we, the readers, learn
about two people and two cultures.
+ Ethical Considerations
Because the objects of inquiry in interviewing are human beings, research-
ers must take extreme care to avoid any harm to them. Traditionally, ethical
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
concerns have revolved around the topics of informed consent (receiving
consentby the subject after having carefully and truthfully informed him or
her about the research), right to privacy (protecting the identity of the sub-
ject), and protection from harm (physical, emotional, or any other kind).
No sociologist or other social scientist would dismiss these three ethical
concerns. Yet, there are other concerns that are less unanimously upheld.
The controversy concerning overtlcovert fieldwork is more germane to
participant observation, but could include the surreptitious use of tape-
recording devices. Warwick (1973)and Douglas (1985)argue for the use
of covert methods, because they mirror the deceitfulness of everyday-life
reality, whereas others, including Kai Erikson (1967), are vehemently
opposed to the study of uninformed subjects.
Another problematic issue stems from the researcher's degree of
involvement with the group under study. Whyte (1943)was asked to vote
more than once during the same local elections (i.e., to vote illegally) by
members of the group he had gained access to, and befriended, gaining
their trust. He used "situational ethics," judging the legal infraction to be
minor in comparison to the loss of his fieldwork if he refused to vote.
Thompson (1985)was faced with a more seriouspossible legal breach. He
was terrified of having to witness one of the alleged rapes for which the
Hell's Angels had become notorious, but, as he reports, none took place
during his research. The most famous, and widely discussed, case of
questionable ethics in qualitative sociology took place during Laud
Humphreys's research for Tearoom Trade (1970). Humphreys studied
homosexual encounters in public restrooms in parks ("tearooms") by act-
ingas a lookout ("watchqueen"). Although this fact in itself may be seen as
ethically incorrect, it is the following one that has raised many academic
eyebrows. Humphreys, unable to interview the men in the "tearoom,"
recorded their cars' license-plate numbers, which led him to find their
residences with the help of police files. He then interviewed many of
the men in their homes without being recognized as having been their
cal problem is raised by the veracity of the reports made by
researchers. For example, Whyte's (1943) famous study of Italian street
er men in Boston has come under severe scrutiny (Boelen, 1992), as
ed that Whyte portrayed the men in demeaning ways that
not reflecttheir visions of themselves. Whyte's case is still unresolved,
ut it does illustrate the delicate issue of ethical decisions in the field and in
porting fieldnotes, even more than 50 years later (Richardson, 1992b).
89

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
Agrowing number of scholars, as we have seen (Oakley, 1981), feel that
most of traditional in-depth interviewing is unethical, whether wittingly
or unwittingly. The techniques and tactics of interviewing, they say, are
really ways of manipulating the respoildentswhile treating them as objects
or numbers rather than individual human beings. Should the quest for
objectivity supersede the human side of those we study? Consider the
following:
One day while doing research at the convalescent center, I was talking to
one of the aides while she was begiililing to change the bedding of one of the
patients who had urinated and soaked the bed. H e was the old, blind, ex-
wrestler conf~nedIn the einergeilcy room. Suddenly, the wrestler decided he
was not going to cooperate with the a ~ d eand begail striking violeiltly at the
air about him, fortunately inissing the a~de.S~ilcenobody else was around, I
had no choice but to hold the patlent pinned down to the bed whde the aide
proceeded to change the bedding. It was not pleasant: The patient was
squirming and yelling horrible threats at the top of his voice; the acid smell
of urine was nauseating; I was slowly loosiilg my grip on the much stronger
patient, while all along feeling horribly lilte Chief Broinden when he suffo-
cates the lobotomized Mac Murphy in Ken Kesey's novel. But there was no
choice, onejust could not sit back and take notes while the patient tore apart
the aide. (Fontana, 1977, p. 187; emphasis added)
Clearly, as we move forward with sociology, we cannot, to paraphrase
what Herbert Blumer said so many years ago, let the methods dictate our
images of human beings. As Punch (1986) suggests, as field-workers we
need to exercise common sense and respo~lsibility,and, we would like to
add, to our subjects first, to the study next, and to ourselves last.
+ New Trends in Interviewing
The latest trends in interviewing have come some distance from structured
questions; we have reached the point of interview as negotiated text. Eth-
nographers have realized for quite sorne time that researchers are not invis-
ible, neutral entities; rather, they are part of the interactions they seek to
study and influence those interactions. At last, interviewing is being
brought in line with ethnography. There is a growing realization that inter-
viewers are not the mythical, neutral tools envisioned by survey research.
Interviewers are increasingly seen as active participants in interactionswith
and interviews are seen as negotiated accomplishments of
both interviewers and respondents that are shaped by the contexts and situ-
ations in which they take place. As Schwandt (1997)notes, "It has become
increasingly common in qualitative studies to view the interview as a form
of discourse between two or more speakersor as a linguistic event In which
the meanings of questions and responses are contextually grounded and
jointly constructed by interviewer and respondent" (p. 79). We are begin-
ning to realize that we cannot lift the results of interviews out of the con-
texts in which they were gathered and cla~mthem as objective data with no
strings attached.
Interview as Negotiated Accomplishment
Let us briefly recap the two traditional approaches to the interview,
following Holstein and Gubrium (1995, 1997). These authors use Jean
Converse and Howard Schuman's Conversations at Random (1974)as an
exemplar of the interview as used in survey research. In this context the
interviewer is carefully instructed to remain as passive as possible, so as to
reduce his or her influence-the scope of the interviewer's function is to
access respondents' answers. This is a rational type of interviewing; it
assumes that there is an objective knowledge out there and that if one is
skilled enough one can access it, just as a skilled surgeon can remove a kid-
ney from a donor and use it in a different context (e.g., for a patient await-
ing transplant).
Holstein and Gubriuln (1995, 1997)regard Jack Douglas's (3 985) cre-
ative interviewing as a romanticist type of interviewing. Creative inter-
viewing is based on feelings; it assumes that researchers, qua interviewers,
need to "get to know" respondents beneath their rational facades, and that
researchers can reach respondents' deep wells of emotion by engaging
them, by sharing feelings and thoughts with them. Douglas's interviewer is
certainly more active and far less neutral than Converse and Schuman's,
but the assumptio~lsare still the same: that it is the skills of interviewers
that will provide access to knowledge and that there is a core knowledge
that researchers can access.
Holstein and Gubrium finally consider the new type of interviewing-
well, "new" isn't exactly accurate, given that their reference for this is the
work of Ithiel de Sola Pool, published in 1957. To wit: "Every inter-
view . . . is an interpersonal drama with a developing plot" (Pool, 1957,
P 193; quoted in Holstein & Gubrium, 1995, p. 14). Holstein and

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
Gubrium ( 3 995) go on to note that thus far we have focused on the whats
of the interview, the substantive findings, and it is time that we pay atten-
tion to the hows of the interview-the contexts, particular situations,
nuances, manners, people involved, and so on in which interview interac-
tions take place. This concept harks back to ethnomethodology, according
to Holstein and Gubrium (1995): "To say that the interview is an interper-
sonal drama with a developing plot is part of a broader claim that reality is
an ongoing, interpretive accomplishment" (p. 16). Garfinkel, Sacks, and
others clearly stated in the late 1960s that reality is an ever-changing,
ongoing accomplishment based on the practical reasoning of the members
of society. It is time to consider the interview as a practical production, the
meaning of which is accomplished at the intersection of the interaction of
interviewer and respondent.
In a later essay, Gubrium and Holstein (1998) continue their argument
by loolting at interviews as storytelling, which they see as a practical pro-
duction used by members of society to accomplish coherence in their
accounts. Once more they encourage us to examine the hows aswell as the
whats of storytelling. Similarly, Madan Sarup (1996) tells us:
Each narrative has two parts; a story (histoire) and a discourse (discourse).
The story is the content, or chain of events. The story is the "what" in a nar-
rative, the discourse is the "how." The discourse is rather like a plot, howthe
reader becomes aware of what happened, the order of appearance of the
events. (p. 17)
Gubrium and Holstein are not alone in advocating this reflexive
approach to interviews. Both David Silverman (1993) and Robert
Dingwall (1997) credit Cicourel's classic work Method and Measurement
in Sociology (1964) with pointing to the interview as a social encounter.
Dingwall (1997) notes:
If the interview is a social encounter, then, logically, it must be analyzed in
the same way as ally other social encounter. The products of an interview
are the outcome of a socially situated activity where the responses are
passed through the role-playing and impression management of both the
interviewer and the respondent. (p. 56)
I. E. Seidman (1991)discusses interviewing as a relationship by relying
upon a principal intellectual antecedent of the ethnomethodologist Alfred
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
schutz (1967). Seidman analyzes the interviewer-respondent relation in
terms of Schutz's "I-thou" relation, in which the two share a reciprocity of
perspective and, by both being "thou" oriented, create a "we" relation-
ship. Thus the respondent is no longer "an object or a type" (Seidman,
1991, p. 73) but becomes an equal participant in the interaction.
The Problematics of New Approaches
Some of the proponents of the ethnomethodologically informed inter-
view are critical of interactionist as well as positivist interview methods.
Dingwall (1997), as well as others, speaks of the romantic movement in
ethnography (and interviewing)-the idea that the nearer we come to the
respondent, the closer we are to apprehending the "real self." This
assumption neglects the fact that the self is a process, ever negotiated and
accomplished in the interaction. Dingwall also faults the "postmodern"
turn; that is, if there is no real self, there is no real world and I can create
one of my own. Finally, he is troubled by the "crusading" nature of the
romantics and asks, "What is the value of a scholarly enterprise that is
more concerned with being 'right on' than with being right?" (p. 64).
In a similar vein, Atkinson and Silverman (1997) reject the postmodern
notion of "polyphonic voices," correctly noting that interviewer and
respondent collaborate together to create an essentially monologic view
of reality. This same rejection could be made using Schutz's (1967) argu-
ment-that is, "I" and "thou" create a unified "we," not two separate ver-
Ethnomethodologically informed interviewing is not, however, im-
mune from criticism itself. Schutz assumes a reciprocity of perspective that
may not exist. Granted, in our interview society we all know the common-
sense routines and ground rules of interviewing, but in other societies this
may not be the case. Isabel Bowler (1997)attempted to interview Pakistani
women about their experience with maternity services and found a total
lack of understanding of the value of social research and interviewing: "I
had told them that I was writing a book on my findings. Yams, who spoke
the better English, translated this with a look of disbelief on her face, and
then they both dissolved into laughter. The hospitals were very good.
There weren't any problems. All was well" (p. 72). Bowler was forced to
conclude that interviewing may not work where there isno "shared notion
of the process of research" (p. 66).
93

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
Silverman (1993) envisions a different problem. He seems to feel
that some ethnomethodologists have suspended their interest in substan-
tive concerns of everyday life, claiming that they cannot address them
until they know more about the ways (methods) in which these realities
are accomplished. He notes, "Put simply, according to one reading of
Cicourel, we would focus on the conversational skills of the participants
rather than on the content of what they are saying and its relation to the
world outside the interview" (p. 98).
Cicourel (1970) states that sociologists need to outline a workable
model of the actor before engaging in the study of self and society.
Garfinkel held similar beliefs. For instance, in his famous study of a trans-
sexual, Agnes, Garfinkel (1967) was examining the routines by which
societal members pass as males or females; he had little or no interest in
issues of transsexuality per se. Thus it would follow that, according
to Silverman's reading of ethnomethodology, we should learn the con-
versational methods before attempting to learn substantive matters in
interviewing.
Future Directions
To borrow from Gubrium and Holstein (1997):"Where do we go from
here?" (p. 97). We share with these two authors a concern with appreciat-
ing the new horizons of postmodernism while simultaneously remain-
ing conservatively committed to the empirical description of everyday
life. Gubrium and Holstein (1998) introduce a technique they call "ana-
lytic bracketing" to deal with the multiple levels of interviewing (and
ethnography):
We may focus, for example, on how a story is being told, while temporarily
deferring our concern for the various whals that are involved-for exam-
ple, the substance, structure, or plot of the story, the context within which it
is told, or the audience to which it is accountable. We can later return to
these issues. (p. 165)
The use of this analytic bracketing allows the authorsto analyze interview-
ing in its coherence and diversity as an event collaboratively achieved, in
which product and process are mutually constituted.
A pressing problem in interviewing concerns the kinds of standards we
should apply to these new and different types of interviews. To assume
E
F
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
absolute relativism is not the solution, for it would lead, in Silverman's
(1997b) words, to the "sociology of navel-gazing" (p. 240). Silverman
proposes an aesthetics for research; he rejects attempts to use literary
formsin sociology: "If I want to read a good poem, why on earth should
I turn to a social science journal?" (p. 240). Silverman's critique of inter-
actioni~tsociology and proposal for aesthetic values seems to focus on the
followingthree points: (a)He attacks the grandiose, political theorizing of
British sociology and invokes a return to more modest, more minute goals;
(b) he rejects the romanticist notion of equating experience (from the
viewpoint) with authenticity; and (c) he notes that in sociology
we mimic the mass media of the interview society, thus succumbing to the
trivial, the kitschy, the gossipy, and the melodramatic and ignoring sim-
plicity and profundity.
Silverman's notion that we should pay attention to minute details in
sociological studies, rather than embarking on grandiose, abstract proj-
ects, in a way is not dissimilar to Lyotard's appeal for a return to local ele-
ments and away from metatheorizing. For Silverman, the "minute" are the
small details that go on in front of our eyes in our everyday lives-very
similar to Garfinkel's mundane routines, which allow us to sustain the
world and interact with each other.
We are in agreement with Silverman that we need to stop deluding our-
selvesthat in our particular method (whichever it may be) we have the key
to the understanding of the self. We also agree that it is imperative that we
look for new standards, as we are quickly digressing into a new form of the
theater of the absurd (without the literary flair, we fear). But we cannot
wait to find a model of the methods used by participants in interviews or in
everyday life before we proceed; Cicourel's (1970)invariant properties of
interaction turned out to be so general as to be of little use to sociological
We need to proceed by looking at the substantive concerns of the mem-
ers of society while simultaneously examining the constructive activities
sed to produce order in everyday life, and, all along, remaining reflexive
out how interviews are accomplished (see Gubrium & Holstein, 1997,
98). For instance, as Carolyn Baker (1997) points out, a researcher's
ling a respondent "I am a mother of three" versus telling her "I am a
iversity professor" accesses different categories and elicits different
ounts. We need to move on with sociological inquiry, even though we
lize conditions are less than perfect. To paraphrase Robert Solow, as
95

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
cited by Geertz (1973): Just because complete asepsis is impossible it
doesn't mean we may just as well perform surgery in a sewer.
A different kind of future direction for interviewing stems largely from
the new feminist interviewing practices. Traditional interview has pains-
takingly attempted to maintain neutrality and achieve objectivity, and has
kept the role of the interviewer as invisible as possible. Feminists, instead,
are rebelling at the practice of exploiting respondents and wish to use
interviewing for ameliorative purposes. To wit: "As researchers with a
commitment to change, we must decenter ourselvesfrom the 'ivory tower'
and construct more participatory, democratic practices. We must keep peo-
ple and politics at the center of our research" (Benmayor, 1991, pp. 372-
173;emphasis added). Denzin (1989a) refers to this approach as the "fem-
inist, communitarian ethical model" (seealso Lincoln, 1995)and tells us:
The feminist, communitarian researcher does not invade the privacy of oth-
ers, use informed consent forms, select subjects randomly, or measure re-
search designs in term of their validity. This framework presumes a
researcher who builds collaborative, reciprocal, trusting, and friendly rela-
tions with those studied. .. . It is also understood that those studied have
claims of ownership over any rnaterial that are produced in the research
process, including field notes.
Combiningthe roles of the scholar and the feminist may be problematic
and, at times, may lead to coilflict if the researcher has a different political
orientation than that of the people studied (Wasserfall, 1993), but this
approach may alsobe very rewarding in allowing the researcher to see pos-
itive results stemming from the research (see Gluck, 1991).
Electronic Interviewing
Another direction currently being taken in interviewing is related to the
changing technologies available. The reliance on the interview as a means
of information gatheringhas most recently expanded to electronic outlets,
with questionnaires being administered via fax, electronic mail, and Web
site. Estimates suggest that nearly 50% of all households have computers,
and nearly half of these utilize the Internet. Software is now available that
allows researchers to schedule and archive interview data gathered via
chat-room interviews. The limited population of potential respondents
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
with access to computersmakes general-population surveys infeasible, but
interviewing can reach 100% of some specialized populations
(schaefer & Dillman, 1998).
It is now possible to engage in "virtual interviewing," in which Internet
connections are used synchronously or asynchronously to obtain informa-
tion. The advantages include low cost, as the result of no telephone or
interviewer charges, and speed of return. Of course, face-to-face inter-
action is eliminated, as is the possibility, for both interviewer and re-
spondent, of reading nonverbal behavior or of cuing from gender, race,
age, class, and other personal characteristics. Thus, establishing an
interviewer-interviewee "relationship" and "living the moment" while
gathering information (Hertz, 1997a) is difficult, if not impossible.
Internet surveys make it easy for respondents to manufacture fictional
social realities without anyone knowing the difference (Markham, 1998).
ofcourse, interviewers can also deceive respondents by claiming experi-
ences or characteristics they do not have in hopes of establishing better
rapport. They can feign responses for the same purpose by claiming "false
nonverbals," such as telling respondents that they "laughed" or "were
pained" by particular comments. Markham (1998), in her autoethnog-
raphy of Internet interviewing, reports that electronic interviews take 1011-
ger than their traditional counterparts and that responses are more cryptic
and less in depth, but the interviewer has more time to phrase follow-up
questions or probes properly.
It is also virtually impossible to preserve anonymity in Internet e-mail
surveys,but chat rooms and similar sites do permit the use of pseudonyms.
Although electronic interviews are currently used primarily for quantita-
tive research and usually employ structured questionnaires, it is only a
matter of time before researchers adapt these techniques to qualitative
work, just as they have adapted electronic techniques of data analysis. For
example, Marlchain immersed herself in the process of engagingwith vari-
ous electronic or Internet formats (i.e., chat rooms, listservs) to interview
other participants and to document her journey in the virtual world, learn-
gthe experience of cyberspace and the meaning participants attached to
eir on-line lifestyles. She asks an intriguing question: "Can I have a self
here my body does not exist?" (p. 8).
The future may see considerable ethnography by means of computer-
mediated communication, where virtual space rather than a living room
r a workplace is the setting of the interview. It remains to be seen whether
97

METHODS OF COLLECTINGAND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
electronic interviewing will allow researchers to obtain "thick descrip-
tions" or accounts of subjective experiences, and whether such inter-
viewing will provide the "process context" so important to qualitative
interviews. In addition, researchers conducting such interviewing can
never be sure they are receiving answers from desired or eligible respon-
dents. Interviewing via the Internet is so prominent today that researchers
are studying its effects on response quality. Schaefer and Dillman (1998),
for example, found that e-mail surveys achieved similar response rates to
mail surveys but yielded better-quality data in terms of item completion
and more detailed responses to open-ended questions.
There are clearly many unanswered questions and problems related to
the use of electronic interviewing. This mode of interviewing will obvi-
ously increase in the forthcoming millennium, aspeople rely increasinglyon
electronic modes of communication. But just how much Internet commu-
nication will displace face-to-face interviewing is a matter that only time
will tell.
+ Conclusion
In this chapter we have examined the interview, from structured types to
interview as negotiated text. We have outlined the history of interviewing,
with its qualitative and quantitative origins. We have looked at structured,
group, and various types of unstructured interviewing. We have examined
the importance of gender in interviewing and the ways in which framing
and interpreting affect interviews. We have examined the importance of
ethics in interviewing, and, finally we have discussed the latest trends in
interviewing.
We have included discussion of the whole gamut of interviews, despite
the fact that this book is concerned with qualitative research, because we
believe that researchers must be cognizant of all the various types of inter-
views if they areto gain a clear understanding of interviewing. Clearly, cer-
tain types of interviewing are better suitedto particular kinds of situations,
and researchers must be aware of the implications, pitfalls, and problems
of the types of interviews they choose. If we wish to find out how many
people oppose the establishment of a nuclear repository in their area, a
structured type of interview, such as that used in survey research, is the
best tool; we can quantify and code the responses and use mathematical
models to explain our findings. If we are interested in opinions about a
The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
given product, a focus group interview will provide us with the most effi-
cient results, whereas if we wish to know about the lives of Palestinian
women in the resistance (Gluck, 1991), we need to interview them at
length and in depth in an unstructured way. In the first example used
above, and perhaps in the second, we can speak in the formal language of
rigor and verifiability of findings; in the third example we can
speak of understanding a negotiated way of life.
More scholars are realizing that to pit one type of interviewing against
another is futile, a leftover from the paradigmatic quantitative/qualitative
hostility of past generations. Thus an increasing number of researchers are
using multimethod approaches to achieve broader and often better results.
This multimethod approach, referred to as triangulation (Denzin, 1989b;
Flick, 1998),allows researchers to use different methods in different com-
binations. For instance, group interviewing has long been used to comple-
ment survey research and is now being used to complement participant
observation (Morgan, 1988). Human beings are complex, and their lives
are ever changing; the more methods we use to study them, the better our
chances to gain some understanding of how they construct their lives and
the stories they tell us about them.
The brief journey we have talten through the world of interviewing
should allow us to be better informed and perhaps more sensitized to the
problematics of aslting questions for sociological reasons. We must re-
member that each individual has his or her own social history and an indi-
vidual perspective on the world. Thus we cannot take our task for granted.
As Oakley (1981) notes, "Interviewing is rather like a marriage: every-
body knows what it is, an awful lot of people do it, and yet behind each
closed front door there is a world of secrets" (p. 41). She is quite correct-
we all think we know how to ask questions and talk to people, from com-
mon, everyday folks to highly qualified quantophrenic experts. Yet to
learn about people we must treat them as people, and they will work with
US to help us create accounts of their lives. As long as many researchers
continue to treat respondents as unimportant, faceless individuals whose
only contribution is to fill one more boxed response, the answers we, as
researchers, get will be commensurable with the questions we ask and the
ways we ask them. We are no different from Gertrude Stein, who, on her
deathbed, asked her lifelong companion, Alice B. Toklas, "What is the
answer?" And when Alice could not bring herself to speak, Gertrude
asked, "In that case, what is the question?"
99

METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS The Interv~ewFrom Structured Questions to Negotiated Text
+ References
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Rethinlung Observation
F~omMethod to Context
Michael V Angrosino and
Kimberly A. Mays de Perez
+ Observation: Basic Assumptions
Observation has been characterized as "the fundamental base of all re-
search methods" in the social and behavioral sciences (Adler & Adler,
1994, p. 389) and as "the mainstay of the ethnographic enterprise"
(Werner & Schoepfle, 1987, p. 257). Even studies based on direct inter-
views employ observational techniques to note body language and other
gestural cues that lend meaning to the words of the persons being inter-
viewed. Social scientists are observers both of human activities and of the
physicalsettings in which such activitiestake place. Some such observation
may take place in a lab or clinic, in which case the activity may be the result
of a controlled experiment. On the other hand, it is also possible to con-
uct observations in settings that are the "natural" loci of those activities.
ome scholars have criticized the very concept of the "natural" setting,
OTE: We thank Alvin VC: Wolfe and Kathryn Borinan for sharing their insights
ces with us during the preparation of this chapter. We also gratefully acknowl-
tive criticism of Arthur Rochner, Norman Denzin, Yvonila
107