Second-Cycle Codes/Primary Categories Subcategories for ‘Networking’ code
-Doing ‘extra’ work -Establishing connections -Finding work -Friendship -Hiring -Maintaining connections -Networking -Trusting people -Socialising
Source: Interview Data, 2013.
-Hiring -Networks -Networking -Embodied -Gendered behaviours -Genuine -Managed -Merging of friend/colleague categories -Selective -Vital/Necessary
As illustrated in Figure 3, based on first-cycle codes I developed three primary second-cycle codes from this particular grouping. They were: hiring, networks, and networking. I then re-analysed my data using networking as a filter through which I sorted transcript excerpts. Both of the other second-cycle codes, hiring and networks, were absorbed into the larger networking process code due to the fact that both were enmeshed within the larger networking process as evidenced in the transcripts. The back and forth process of coding, data analysis, and conceptual development created a rich set of primary categories and subcategories to explore.
During analysis I found myself grappling with issues regarding my interpretations of participants’ reported experiences and how these experiences could be used to analyse larger questions about gendered power in the film and television industry. It was occasionally tempting to view the experiences my participants described as factual, but I also knew that experiential data is open to interpretation and
subjectively shaped by context. It became a kind of tug of war between multiple perspectives. On the one hand I wanted to treat my participants’ reports as factual and to use these ‘facts’ as a way to comment on gendered issues in the film and
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television industry. On the other hand, it was important to remember that these reports were my participants’ interpretations of their experiences and that the positionalities of subject and researcher would influence how I analysed them (Letherby 2003; Maynard 1994). Ultimately, I attempted to balance these perspectives in my analysis. I think that grappling with such methodological questions and debates helps researchers to create more informed analyses and encourages us to continue to practice reflexivity.
The challenge of connecting experience to material reality is a topic that has been explored and debated extensively by feminist scholars (DeVault and Gross 2007; Hesse-Biber 2012; Hesse-Biber, Leavy, and Yaiser 2004; Letherby 2003;
Ramazanoglu and Holland 2002; Scott 1991; Skeggs 1995). The power I had to interpret my participants’ experiences while also trying to maintain their subjective voices was sometimes difficult to reconcile. I was aware that I was making the choices when it came to representing my participants. I was choosing which themes I thought were important from the interviews and assigning them weight according to what I thought were the most salient points. I decided which interview segments to include in my analysis chapters because I thought they best illustrated what
participants had talked about. While I used a wide range of viewpoints I refer to particular participants more often in my thesis than others and use extracts from their interviews with greater frequency. For example, I use segments from my interview with Anabelle throughout the analysis chapters of this thesis more often than any other participant. I know this. I use her interview frequently because her narrative style seemed to articulate common experiences among my participants extremely well. These were all choices I made according to my interpretations of the data. These are difficult realities of the research process to accept. Similar to Letherby (2003), I think that while this thesis does not, and indeed cannot, present the ultimate ‘truth’ of women’s experiences in the industry, I nevertheless think that my work constitutes a valid, if only partial, analysis of an as yet unexplored topic.
Furthermore, and again drawing on Letherby (2002), even though full representation of participants may be impossible, an incomplete representation is better than no representation at all.
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Throughout my fieldwork and data analysis I was engaged in an on-going process of analysing the interviews. While there was a distinct period during which data analysis was my primary concern, in reality the data continued to ‘work’ on me, and still does. Through this on-going process I settled upon three main areas of analysis. The first of these was women’s entry into film and television work and why, despite its precarious nature, they continue to work in this sector. Next, I focus on the networking practices and mentoring experiences of my participants and the vital role these processes play in a career in film and television. Finally, I discuss how my participants reported experiencing sexism and discrimination in the contemporary industry and how they negotiated their encounters with these attitudes.
Conclusion
It was challenging and occasionally frustrating to grapple with the issues discussed in this chapter and to wrestle with debates regarding feminist epistemology, ethical research practice, participant recruitment, power relations, data analysis, and the myriad other decisions and issues that accompany a research project. However, through this process I learned more about my own theoretical perspectives and thus was better able to account for my own position in relation to the research. I have learned that I am not a postmodern and/or post-structuralist feminist. The
contributions of these theoretical perspectives are important, especially when considering their influence on discourse analysis as well as queer theory. However, for my research I used feminist production studies as a lens because it accounts for the specific historical context of the film and television industry while integrating a gendered perspective into the contemporary material realities of this sector. I employed a combination of a generic inductive qualitative approach and grounded theory methods for data coding and analysis. This created the categories and subcategories that I explore further in the following chapters of this thesis.
In addition to the methodological choices and challenges discussed above, my own material realities also influenced this project. The time restrictions for completing a PhD and the fact that my fieldwork was self-funded imposed some limitations on my research. As with any research project, there were inevitable bumps along the way and my individual standpoints and perspectives as a researcher influenced the choices
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I made and the analysis of my data. However, despite these limitations, my research helps to illuminate the experiences of women in the contemporary US film and television industry in a manner that has not been previously explored. The following three chapters explore the primary categories I developed during my data analysis process as described in this Methodology. I begin with an analysis of my
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