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Qualitative Methods in Audience Analysis

Jenna Condie | University of Salford | @jennacondie

Flickr: familymwr

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Session Overview A “how to” focus on qualitative

interviewing Contextualised approach – case

study Develop an interview schedule Pilot your questions on each other Critically analysis of method Back to epistemology and ontology

Flickr: Daniel Y. Go

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Your Case Study: Do TV talent shows no longer have the ‘X Factor’?

As the UKs firstMediaPsych postgraduates, Simon Cowell wants you to investigate why viewing figures are on a downwards trend.

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If we want to understandhow and why, qualitative methods have the

advantage (Maginn et al., 2008).

Simon knows that the viewing figures are down, But he wants you to tell him ‘how’ and ‘why’. He wants to understand what audiences now want from screen media.

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For the purposes of today’s session, the method that you are going to use in this research is qualitative interviews.

Most common Dissertation

Engaging people

Useful

Co-constructed

Only way to get

data you need?

Group

Reflexivity

Interview society

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Qualitative Interviews

Conversations with a purpose (Burgess, 1984)

Mason (1996) • Informal style, thematic, data generated via the

interaction. • Questions – substance, style, scope, sequence

How many interviews are enough? (Guest et al., 2006; Baker & Edwards, 2012)

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Writing Successful Interview Protocols (Jacob & Furgerson, 2012)

1. Pick a topic that is interesting to you (choice?)2. Research should guide your questions3. Use a script for the beginning and end of your

interview4. Questions should be open ended. 5. Start with the basics. 6. Begin with easy to answer questions and move

towards ones that are more difficult or controversial.

7. The phrase “tell me about…”is great way to start a question.

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Writing Successful Interview Protocols (Jacob & Furgerson, 2012)

8. Write big, expansive questions.9. Use prompts.10. Be willing to make “on the spot” revisions to your

interview protocol11. Don’t make the interview too long.12. Practice with a friend.13. Make sure that you can set up a second shorter

interview to help you clarify or ask any questions you missed after you have transcribed the interview.

14. Get ethical approval.

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Flickr: ChicagoGeek

What might ‘audiences’ not want to tell you?

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Narrative & Storytelling

Invite a story “Can you tell me about…”

Rather than “Why did you…?”

See Hollway & Jefferson (2000)

Flickr: bixentro

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Narrative Features:Structure and Temporality

Beginning: “Can you tell me about the first time…?”Middle: “Can you tell me about what it is like now?”End: “Can you tell me where you see yourself in the future?”

Flickr: umjanedoan

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A successful interview schedule? Keep your sample in mind!

For the purposes of today’s session, imagine Simon’s company has provided a database of 100 people who regularly watch television on a Saturday evening.

- How many do you interview?- How do you choose who to interview?

- What are the advantages of this sample?- What are the disadvantages of this sample?

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Developing a successful interview schedule takes time.

Develop some questions with prompts

Pilot: ask each other

Do your questions work (or not)?

Using today’s case study, have a go at the following:

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Tips for the interview (Jacob & Furgerson, 2012)

1. Start with your script.2. Collect consent. 3. Use some type of recording device and only take

brief notes so you can maintain eye contact with your interviewee.

4. Arrange to interview your respondent in a quiet, semi-private place.

5. Be sure that both you and the interviewee block off plenty of uninterrupted time for the interview

Flickr: highersights

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Tips for the interview (Jacob & Furgerson, 2012)

8. Have genuine care, concern, and interest for the person you are interviewing. 9. Use basic counselling skills to help your interviewees feel heard.10. Keep it focused (I disagree)11. LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN!12. End with your script.

Flickr: highersights

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Flickr: MyDigitalSLR

A different researcher would get a different story

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Explore the researcher’s:• interview background/experience• perceptions of the participants • perceptions of NVC; • interpretations of interview findings; • perceptions of how the study might have affected the

researcher; • perceptions of how the researcher might have affected

the participants; • awareness of ethical or political issues; and • identification of unexpected issues or dilemmas that

emerged during the interviews.

Debriefing the researcher (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2008)

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TranscriptionEnsure relevant to analytical approach

What is lost in transcription?

Example from CA (Conversation Analysis)

Oi! I said oi!What you looking at, you little rich boy!We’re poor round here, run home and lock your doorDon’t come round here no more, you could get robbed forReal (yeah) because my manors illMy manors illFor realYeah you know my manors ill, my manors ill!3 A: There’s ↑things that anno:y me when the-

4 (0.6) like she bu- (0.2) ha:lf seven last5 ↓ni:ght the kids were playing in their6 bedroom.7 (0.7)8 A: And ah ca:n’t stop them from playin.9 (0.1)10 A: They were playing in the bedroom an ah11 said (0.5) keep the noise >down.=they12 were playin’ on the piano.<13 (0.5)14 A: An’ then >all of a sudden half seven<15 (0.4) ban:g bang bang sh’d- (0.3) I don’t16 know what she’d done probably ran17 upstairs. She wasn’ in bed.

Excerpt taken from Stokoe and Hepburn (2004) using Jefferson’s (1984) transcription system

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Narrative analysis example

Carole: She was very isolated and I just think she’d have died of loneliness really and I just found it, you know, unbearable. And it was partly my husband sort of saying, well we’ll end up taking care of her eventually, she ought to come here and get used to living here and make her own network of friends while she can. And so, you know, we persuaded her to come and live with us. She needed convincing, you know, that we wanted her.

Interviewer: When you were planning for her to come did you talk it over with the children?

Carole: Oh yes. They were, they felt very strongly, they were upset at her being lonely. (Carole Grant, aged 46, widowed)

Excerpt taken from Mason (2004) Personal narratives, relational selves: residential histories in the living and telling

 Jenna: so you’ve been here six years [William: hmm] and have you always been in, do you mind me asking, are you in socially rented

William: this is, it is yeah, but not always no, I had a house in [city omitted], sold that twenty years ago [Jenna: right ok] and er moved around a bit, I was working in Farlow so I, in fact I was working for the landlord at the time, it used to be council [Jenna: right] I was managing one of the, I managed this estate for a time [Jenna: ok] I was normally at another one further up the road and there was a small bedsit came empty in one of the multi-storey blocks, and they were hard to let so I got that [Jenna: right] I mean being an employee I had to go to case conference and everything just so everything was above board and cosha you know [Jenna: yeah] erm and that was it, and when some neighbours died a few years later, I got moved into a bigger flat because by that time it was fairly clear that the flats were going to have to be emptied for major work to be carried out [Jenna: yeah] so that was it

Jenna: right ok, do you mind us talking about what it was like to live in the high rise first is that ok

Excerpt taken from my research interviews (Condie, forthcoming!)

 

Discursive analysis example

I later removed all fillers = headache!

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Qualitative Data Analysis

Method interconnected with theoretical and methodological approach developed.

Ask yourself the following:• What kind of knowledge does your methodology aim to

produce?• What kinds of assumptions does the methodology make

about the world?• How does the methodology conceptualise the role of the

researcher? (Willig, 2001)

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Qualitative Data Analysis

How well does the use of this data match:1) my ontological perspective on what

constitutes the social world? 2) My epistemological perspective on how

knowledge can be produced? (Mason, 1996, p. 37)

Positivism Interpretivism/Constructionism

Realism Relativism

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Does Simon care about your epistemological and ontological positions. He just wants some answers!

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Epistewhat?Academic

Commercial

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Next: Analysing Qualitative Data

Link: http://www.slideshare.net/jennacondie/working-with-word-for-qualitative-data-analysis