National Centre for Research Methods (UK): Using Email Interviews

This toolkit draws on my experiences of using email interviews in a qualitative, mixed method study of older (30+) music fans in three popular music ‘scenes’: Northern and rare soul, Rock, and Electronic Dance Music (EDM). I used participant observation and interviews, with one traditional and one online approach for each. Participant observation was done at music events and on virtual music discussion forums. Interviews took place either face-to-face or via email. This toolkit concentrates on my experiences of using email interviews, reflecting on how this method affected data collection and
analysis, and discussing how the method works in practice.