Digital Methods and Perpetual Reinvention? Asynchronous Interviewing and Photo Elicitation

Abstract

This chapter considers the ways in which images can be included in online interviewing when researching a group that enjoys the sharing of images to augment their textual communication. At a time when people upload pictures more frequently than ever via social media (Shontell and Yarow, 2014), it is timely and important to extend a visual aspect to digital social research methods, informed by the insights of visual sociology. This approach favours the use of established social research methods online with modest refashioning (Pink, 2012). The development of digital social research methods has been dogged by the idea of innovation as the answer to all social research questions. However, for most people, online social interaction does not necessarily change very quickly (Baym, 2009). The drive for innovation appears misplaced, especially when the ‘new’ aspects of online interaction are constantly overemphasized to the point where existing social research methods are ignored. Yet, in a study of online spaces, where the nature of information can be either visual or textual, and where different types of recording are possible, this approach may be insufficient (Garcia et al., 2009). The chapter thus argues that extending existing methods to newer digital terrain is useful, but in a way that is sensitive to alternate ways of co-producing data with respondents in online spaces.