In-depth interviewing

As a complementary research method to qualitative textual analysis, in-depth

interviewing was employed. Qualitative interviewing has been described by Bingham and Moore in their book How to Interview as “conversation with a purpose” (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002, pg. 171). In this case, the purpose of conversation was to determine sports journalists’ perceptions of Twitter’s impact on the news production practices of their profession. Lindlof and Taylor list eight aims of this particularly methodology, which include several that apply directly to such a

research question: “understanding the social actor’s experience and perspective through stories, accounts, and explanations;” “inquiring about occurrences in the past;” “testing hypotheses developed in the field;” and “achieving efficiency in data collection” (pg. 173).

Among the six types of interviews outlined by Lindlof and Taylor, the project employed respondent interviews. In “The Controversy Over Detailed Interviews,” Lazarsfeld lists the goals of respondent interviews as follows: “(1) to clarify the meanings of common concepts and opinions; (2) to distinguished the decisive elements of an expressed opinion; (3) to determine what influenced a person to form an opinion or act in a certain way; (4) to classify complex attitude patterns; and (5) to understand the interpretations that people attribute to their

motivations to act” (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002, pg. 178). Since the use of Twitter is a relatively new development in sports journalism—in particular—and journalism—as a whole—respondent interviews were particularly appropriate, because despite the interviewees’ level of expertise about their particular world, their sense of individuality as they speak only for themselves about their unique involvement with a new medium was the primary focus of this project. In other words, where the long-established world of sports journalism and the newly-popularized practice of tweeting intersect, sports writers were looked upon as respondents.

Practically speaking, this project employed in-depth, semi-structured interviews, which were both open-ended and ethnographic, rather than limited and surface-level (Fontana & Frey, 2000, pg. 652). The pool of nine interviewees was comprised of sportswriters from the top twenty-five newspapers in the United States based on circulation (Appendix A). Newspaper journalists were the focus of these interviews because their platform has long been the standard- bearer for what is considered traditional news, therefore they seemed ideal candidates to

illustrate whether traditional news production was being impacted by the new supplementary platform of Twitter.

Due to the geographic parameters involved with such a sample, the interviews were conducted over the phone, rather than in-person. While Hon and Brunner (2000) explain geographical diversity as an advantage of telephone interviewing, Rubin and Rubin (1995) do point out such disadvantages as missing both non-verbal cues and the actions of the interviewee in her or his environment. The interviewees were solicited via their Twitter or business email accounts according to those who responded most quickly to direct messages or email messages.

The same series of twenty-three questions was posed to all of the interviewees (Appendix B). The interviews were semi-structured in that they allowed for open-ended responses, as well as follow-up questions that sought elaboration on relevant comments that varied from interview to interview. Additionally, unique questions were sometimes crafted prior to the interview according to the texts of tweets that particular interviewees produced either during or outside of the aforementioned one-week time frame during which data was collected. The primary line of questioning in these interviews was aimed at determining if the use of Twitter was affecting the decision-making of sports journalists and how this is being done. Secondarily, the interviewees were questioned about their individual experiences using Twitter.

Due to the involvement of human research subjects, Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval was obtained prior to the beginning of the interview process. IRB Protocol H11324 was approved for a period of February 25, 2011 until February 24, 2012. Along with approving the research protocol, the IRB reviewed and approved a copy of the recruiting message, twenty-three question interview script, and consent form. The university-approved consent form was sent to

each of the nine interviewees, either via standard mail or email, and a signed copy was returned, which will be kept on file for a period of five years after the research was completed.

The interviews, which were tape-recorded, took place between February 27 and March 7, 2011, and ranged from 17 minutes and 42 seconds to 57 minutes and 28 seconds. They were all conducted by the same interviewer. The interviews began with questions designed to ease the interviewee into the interview process, such as when and why they personally began using Twitter and how it plays a role in their day-to-day journalistic routine. Then, Twitter was posed as both a source and an outlet for content to the interviewees, who were asked to compare the platform to other platforms designed for the same two uses. Furthermore, the benefits and pitfalls of Twitter were considered, as well as which of those might relate uniquely to sports journalism. The interview proceeded with questions regarding Twitter and its potential success or failure as a journalistic tool, concluding with the most pointed question regarding whether Twitter has ultimately improved or reduced the quality of work. This question was reserved for last due to conflict that may arise between journalists, who view Twitter negatively, and their employers, who view the platform positively and require that their employees use it. Since the interviewees agreed to make their interviews public, and not confidential—for reasons such as the desire to identify them as influential voices and connect their interviews with their tweets—it was

anticipated that such conflict might result in the interviewee becoming uncomfortable or refusing to answer the question. However, the question was received positively by all nine interviewees. Toward the end of each interview, the interviewee was asked if she or he had any anecdotes or examples from their respective Twitter feeds that they thought were worth mentioning in relation to the subject matter being discussed. In conclusion, they were asked for any final comments concerning the subject which may not have been prompted by the interviewer.