Fontana, Andrea
Frey, James H.
2005
The Interview: From Neutral Stance to Political Involvement in Denzin, NK et al ~ The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research

695
Interviewing “is inextricably and unavoidably historically, politically, and contextually bound. This boundedness refutes the whole tradition of the interview of gathering objective data to be used neutrally for scientific purposes.”

696
“As many have argued convincingly […], interviewing is not merely the neutral exchange of asking questions and getting answers. Two (or more) people are involved in this process, and their exchanges lead to the creation of a collaborative effort called the interview. The key here is the “active” nature of this process (Holstein & Gubrium, 1995) that leads to a contextually bound and mutually created story – the interview.”

“If we proceed from the belief that neutrality is not possible (even assuming that it would be desirable), then taking a stance becomes unavoidable. An increasing number of social scientists have realized that they need to interact as persons with the interviewees and acknowledge that they are doing so.”
-> stance of thesis: change of form and industry of film and entertainment treated as indisputable fact; both creatives and suits are necessary, therefore both deserve each others respect and the attention of thesis; interview partners are harbingers and executers of creative destruction, that’s unavoidable / a fact, therefore thesis’ focus on clean slate / the future, not on ‘how to preserve film’ -> this might seem like thesis is pro-progress or utopian (and it’s definitely rather that than Luddite), but it really just treats these as a given and asks question: what to do now (as creative/suit)?

697
“[Wasserfall] added that, despite claims to “friendship and cooperation,” it is the researcher who ultimately cuts and pastes together the narrative, choosing what will become a part of it and what will be cut.” [Wasserfall, R.; 1993; Reflexivity, feminism, and difference; Qualitative Sociology; 16; 23-41]

697f
“interviewing is one of the most common and powerful ways in which we try to understand our [next page] fellow humans. Interviewing includes a wide variety of forms and a multiplicity of uses. The most common form of interviewing involves individual, face-to-face verbal interchange, but it can also take the form of face-to-face group interchange and telephone surveys. It can be structured, semistructured, or unstructured. […] It can be used for the purpose of measurement, or its scope can be the understanding of an individual or a group perspective.”

713
“Many studies that use unstructured interviews are not reflexive enough about the interpreting process. Common platitudes proclaim that data speak for themselves and that the researcher is neutral, unbiased, and “invisible.”

716
“At last, interviewing is being brought in line with ethnography. There is a growing realization that interviewers are not the mythical neutral tools envisioned by survey research. Interviewers are increasingly seen as active participants in an interaction with respondents, and interviews are seen as negotiated accomplishments of both interviewers and respondents that are shaped by the contexts and situations in which they take place.”

721
“Internet surveys make it easy for respondents to manufacture fictional social realities without anyone knowing the difference (Markham, 1998).”
-> risk of survey

722
“More scholars are realizing that to pit one type of interviewing against another is a futile effort – a leftover from the paradigmatic quantitative/qualitative hostility of past generations. Thus, an increasing number of researchers are using a multimethod approach to achieve broader and often better results.”