 |
Reaching research participants online
|
|
|
|
REACHING RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS ONLINE
Thus far, we have considered approaches to online criminological inquiry in which the researcher acquires information and data at a remove from the actors who nor- mally comprise the heart of social research. Now we turn to consider how you can use the internet and related communication technologies to directly engage and interact with research subjects. These engagements take a number of forms, adapting ‘conventional’ research techniques to the online environment, including: one-to-one interviewing, focus groups or collective interviews, forms of participant and
non-participant observation (ethnography) and surveys via questionnaires. Each will be outlined and discussed in turn, alongside their benefits and drawbacks when com- pared to offline research methods.
Doing interviews online
The interview is a key instrument at the disposal of criminologists and other social researchers. It is an effective way of gathering primary data through direct interac- tion with research subjects, and permits the researcher to draw out fine-grained details about opinion and experience (qualitative data) which are particularly valued in interpretive research (Chamberlain, 2013: 51–2). Online research interviews can be either asynchronous or synchronous (Bryman, 2012: 658). Asynchronous inter- viewing does not occur in real time, as the research will typically send the subject a list of interview questions (e. g. by email) to which they will respond at some later point, hours, days or weeks later. The researcher may then re-engage the subject with further questions if the initial responses are found to be particularly interesting, or if elaboration or clarification is needed. In this way, the interview can stretch over some considerable period of time and involve numerous ‘turns’ between the researcher and the respondent. On the plus side, taking time in this way can allow both parties to consider and reflect on their questions and answers, and also allows the respondent to potentially commit more time and effort to the research than might be the case with a single interview session (Meho, 2006: 1288). On the negative side, the time lag between questions and responses can render the interview less spontaneous and make it difficult to establish rapport – something that is particularly important when researching potentially sensitive issues including crime and victimization. Synchronous online interviews, in contrast, occur in real time just like conventional face-to-face interviews, only using electronic communication channels; these may be text-only (with the interviewer and respondent exchanging typed answers via a messaging service), or multi-mediated, as when using video-over-internet services such as Skype. Synchronous interviews of this kind can go a considerable way to replicating the immediacy of face-to-face research encounters, and video-based interviews also have the benefit of enabling the interacting parties to use a range of non-verbal or ‘para- linguistic’ cues which are central to human communication (Fichten et al., 1992).
|
|
|
Whether synchronous or asynchronous, online research interviews offer a number
of distinct advantages over their traditional face-to-face counterparts, alongside some notable limitations. Amongst the advantages, we can include:
· Time and cost savings. Meeting research participants to conduct interviews can require both money (such as travel and accommodation costs) and the associated time required. If the interviewees are not local to where you happen to be living, studying and researching, these costs can become prohibitive (unless you are in the enviable situation of having substantial dedicated funds available, such as a
research grant). Interviewing online minimizes these difficulties, and allows us to conduct research with populations who might otherwise remain inaccessible for all practical purposes (such as those residing in another country or continent).
· 
Reaching targets for sample size. Online methods such as email interviewing are
well suited to snowball or chain-referral sampling, where initial respondents act as contacts through which further participants can be recruited (Biernacki and Waldorf, 1981). Use of participants’ existing electronic networks and associations can prove vital for rapidly accumulating a significant number of interviewees, especially where this might otherwise prove difficult, as with some small and hard-to-reach populations.
· Anonymity and distance. Generally speaking, researchers view interactional dis-
tance as a barrier to effective qualitative data collection; as already noted, it is felt that the absence of face-to-face interaction can undermine attempts to build rap- port between interviewer and interviewee, making it less likely that disclosures on sensitive, personal or controversial topics will be forthcoming. However, con- versely, the kind of distance associated with some forms of online interviewing (such as asynchronous email interactions) may sometimes make it easier for respondents to offer such disclosures, especially if they are accompanied by intense emotional responses such as guilt, embarrassment or shame.
The above kinds of advantages notwithstanding, you will need to bear in mind some limitations that accompany such methods, including:
· Non-response. Given the sheer volume of unsolicited emails that computer users commonly receive, it is unsurprising that invitations to participate may be met with very low response rates (Meho, 2006: 1288). For example, prospective interviewees may simply dismiss an invitation as ‘spam’ or ‘junk’ and delete it without even reading; alternatively, they may read the communication but decide not to respond due to suspicions about the motives of unknown individuals asking to interact with them (an understandable response given the volume of fraud- related communications that target internet users).
· Sampling problems. Unlike quantitative research, qualitative inquiry tends to be
far less concerned with assembling a sample that can be taken as representative of the general population, and from which one might be able to make broad infer- ences about society as a whole. Nevertheless, turning to online tools in order to connect with interviewees does generate some problems. At the start of this chap- ter, I noted how rapidly the internet has grown over just a couple of decades, and how widely it is now used globally. However, there remain significant gaps and imbalances between those who are ‘connected’ and those who are not – what new media researchers call the ‘digital divide’ (Ragnedda and Muschert, 2013). Social inequalities based around income, education, age, gender and geography affect the number of people from different social groups who have access to, and regu- larly make use of, new communication technologies. As a consequence, there will
|
|
|
inevitably be some groups that will prove difficult to recruit and interview using online techniques. For example, given the continuing low levels of internet use amongst older people (those 70+ years of age) (Friemel, 2016), it would be very challenging to use online interviews to study, say, seniors’ experiences and percep- tions of crime in their neighbourhoods.
|
|
|
