Online Communities in Saudi Arabia: Evaluating the Impact on Culture Through Online Semi-Structured Interviews

Reflecting on the use of Google Docs for online interviews: Innovation in qualitative data collection

“…There are a number of practical advantages of using online or web-based tools such as reduction of travel expenses and time spent (Walker, 2013a), and the speed of data collection is often quicker than traditional methods (Walker, 2013b). It also facilitates access to ‘hard to reach’ groups and individuals due to geography (Madge and O’Connor, 2002), for cultural reasons (Al-Saggaf and Williamson, 2004) or due to the sensitivity of the subject (Davis et al, 2004), Google Docs can be used both synchronously and asynchronously, and, as Google Docs interviews are transcribed verbatim, there are significant cost, time and travel savings.…”

“…Two of the key challenges in online interviewing are anonymity (Bolderston, 2012) and data security (King and Horrocks, 2010). In face-to-face interviews, participants are not anonymous, and this can pose as a problem for participants who wish to remain anonymous for cultural reasons (Al-Saggaf and Williamson, 2004) or due to the sensitive nature of the research topic (Davis et al, 2004). Online interviewing offers the option of greater anonymity.…”

“…chat rooms), these tend not to present the text in a complete document, but rather in numerous posts that have to be copied into a document and processed. Second, as Google Docs can be used synchronously, it can be used as an alternative to face-to-face interviews (individual or group) reducing time for travel and allowing for the possibility of reaching groups that are difficult to access either geographically or culturally (Al-Saggaf and Williamson, 2004). Furthermore, when using Google Docs synchronously interviewer and interviewee do not see or hear each other, which provides a sphere of pseudoanonymity (Wilson et al, 1998).…”