Conducting remote interviews, new eldorado or last resort?

2023-05-31 12:00:19

Lhe “remote” survey in sociology is not new, and the telephone has been used quite widely for decades to conduct interviews or administer questionnaires. Nevertheless, in the field of qualitative surveys by interviews and observations, it is the so-called “ethnographic” approaches, based on a long-term insertion within a social world, involving the establishment of relationships of trust, which appear as the more legitimate. This has contributed to limiting the use of the telephone to specific configurations, significantly on delicate questions such as sexuality or for the occasional collection of information.

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The confinements and health measures linked to the Covid-19 pandemic have marked the rediscovery, by many sociologists, of the telephone and videoconferencing as research methods. Several recent articles, notably in the French journal of sociology (n^o 63-2) journals Genesis (n^o 126), Practical Sociologies (n^o 43) et Socio-anthropologie, discuss how practices have adapted to distance. Their authors underline both the limits of remote interviewing and the possibilities it opens up for knowledge of the social world.

Often, the distance is less conducive to establishing a relationship of trust, and technical problems make certain exchanges a way of the cross. Being at a distance prevents complete observation of the social scene of the interview: the setting is only visible in the field of the camera, a large part of the bodily attitudes escape the gaze, just like the clothing or the way of stand. These elements usually make it possible to analyze the context of the interview and enrich the analysis of the comments gathered.

The framework is also more restricted: on the phone or by video, there is no possibility of continuing to discuss on the doorstep, a privileged moment when elements that have been unsaid until now are expressed. Finally, in surveys conducted among professionals, working on computers and now accustomed to teleworking, the attention devoted to the interview and to the questions asked competes with other activities carried out in parallel, over the tabs open on the ‘screen.

Stories that are difficult to deliver face-to-face

However, the distance has advantages, often mirroring the previous disadvantages. It thus makes it possible to collect intimate stories that are difficult to deliver face to face. The remote interview can also reassure: it can be interrupted much more easily, we choose what we show of our environment and of ourselves, it resembles situations that have become familiar – whether it is videoconference meetings or family or friend video calls. Conducting interviews remotely makes it possible to reduce geographical distances and thus to diversify the social origins and places of residence of respondents – with the limitations due to unequal access to new technologies.

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