E-Mail Interviews with Senior Legal Professional Women in Australia

Abstract

The development of successful interactions utilizing e-mail, as an asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology to conduct qualitative social research, relies upon a host of social norms, symbols and meaning systems well articulated by the micro-sociological theory Symbolic Interactionism. This chapter examines some benefits and consequences of using e-mail interviews to collect data from female senior counsels about contemporary stereotypes of successful barristers in Australia. Despite benefits of cost efficiency, ease of traversing geographical distance and a myriad of claims made by researchers heralding the advantages of e-mail as a data collection tool, this research questions e-mail’s applicability to recruit busy professional participants and elicit in-depth responses to written interview questions when ongoing dialogue is unsolicited. Drawing upon primary data provided by senior counsels, key examples are provided to demonstrate the potential for miscommunication, paucity of communication and inflexibility e-mail may engender when social interactions, beyond the distribution of research instruments, are absent.

Unveiling the Male Corset

“…Facebook chat was selected as the online interview environment because of its simple and convenient user interface, easily filtered privacy settings, security and password-protection options, all of which provided both researchers and participants a private discussion forum without third-party interference. Moreover, Facebook chat offered a near synchronous online environment that allowed participants time to respond without feeling the social pressure interview participants may experience in face-to-face settings (Ragusa and Groves 2010). Pre-arranged interview times were negotiated between the researchers and participants and once both were online, or “active,” the interviewer opened a new conversation.…”