Collecting Qualitative Data: A Practical Guide to Textual, Media and Virtual Techniques

Is there more to qualitative data collection than face-to-face interviews? Answering with a resounding 'yes', this book introduces the reader to a wide array of exciting and novel techniques for collecting qualitative data in the social and health sciences. Collecting Qualitative Data offers a practical and accessible guide to textual, media and virtual methods currently under-utilised within qualitative research. Contributors from a range of disciplines share their experiences of implementing a particular technique, provide step-by-step guidance to using that approach, and highlight both the potential and pitfalls. From gathering blog data to the story completion method to conducting focus groups online, the methods and data types featured in this book are ideally suited to student projects and other time- and resource-limited research. In presenting several innovative ways that data can be collected, new modes of scholarship and new research orientations are opened up to student researchers and established scholars alike.

Table of Contents:
1. Collecting textual, media and virtual data in qualitative research Virginia Braun, Victoria Clarke and Debra Gray; Part I. Textual Data Collection: 2. Short but often sweet: the surprising potential of qualitative survey methods Gareth Terry and Virginia Braun; 3. Once upon a time…: story completion methods Victoria Clarke, Nikki Hayfield, Naomi Moller, Irmgard Tischner and the Story Completion Research Group; 4. Hypothetically speaking: using vignettes as a stand-alone qualitative method Debra Gray, Bronwen Royall and Helen Malson; 5. 'Coughing everything out': the solicited diary method Paula Meth; Part II. Media Data Collection: 6. Making media data: an introduction to qualitative media research Laura García-Favaro, Rosalind Gill and Laura Harvey; 7. 'God's great leveller': talkback radio as qualitative data Scott Hanson-Easey and Martha Augoustinos; 8. Archives of everyday life: using blogs in research Nicholas Hookway; 9. Online discussion forums: a rich and vibrant source of data David Giles; Part III. Virtual Data Collection: 10. 'Type me your answer': generating interview data via email Lucy Gibson; 11. A productive chat: instant messaging interviewing Pamela J. Lannutti; 12. I'm not with you, yet I am… virtual face-to-face interviews Paul Hanna and Shadreck Mwale; 13. Meeting in virtual spaces: conducting online focus groups Fiona Fox.

About the Author :
Virginia Braun is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland. A feminist and critical psychologist, she has researched and published extensively on gender, bodies, sex/sexuality and health. She is co-author of the award-winning textbook Successful Qualitative Research (2013) as well as numerous other methodological works. Notably, with Victoria Clarke, she developed an approach to thematic analysis that has become a very widely used qualitative method in the social and health sciences. Victoria Clarke is an Associate Professor in Sexuality Studies at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She has published three prize-winning books, including most recently Successful Qualitative Research (2013). She has conducted ESRC and British Academy funded research on family and relationships, and has published over 70 papers on topics including appearance psychology, human sexuality, LGBTQ psychology and qualitative methods. With Virginia Braun, she developed an approach to thematic analysis that has become a very widely used qualitative method in the social and health sciences. Debra Gray is a Reader in Social Psychology at the University of Winchester. She is a critical social psychologist whose work explores the intersecting areas of social, political and environmental psychology. She has published widely on many topics relating to participation in political, community and health settings and collective socio-spatial identities and intergroup relations. She has an ongoing interest in the intersection of research and practice, and works with many third-sector and public-sector organisations. She has expertise in a wide range of qualitative methods, and she is interested in creative (and multi-modal) ways to collect, analyse and use qualitative data.

Review :
'Collecting Qualitative Data is an accessible, informative, and educational text that brings new life to qualitative methodologies. Edited by leading scholars in the field and including contributions on a diverse range of approaches to qualitative data collection, this book is a must have for anyone who utilises qualitative methods.' Damien W. Riggs, Flinders University of South Australia 'With classic brilliance and creativity, Braun, Clarke and Gray have curated an intellectually exciting, thoroughly accessible and methodologically expansive 'field guide' to the practice of collecting qualitative data. The volume is a luscious invitation to new platforms for qualitative inquiry, advancing the landscape of research into the realms of internet, talk radio, online focus groups, diaries and blog based research.' Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Critical Psychology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York