The Need for a New Perspective on Interviewing

Interviews are defined as communicative exchanges whereby an interviewer asks questions and an interviewee answers them. The purpose of this chapter is threefold: to provide a brief description of the received understanding of research interviews, interview protocols, and interview practices. Interviewing in general is also described. It is argued that the basis of interviewing is an informational theory of communication deficit. The suitability of applying this theory to interviewing is critiqued. The critique replaces information theory with a specific functional theory of communication. The result is a wider view on interviewing as a collection of completed acts of communication (texts), accounting for the interviewing process and its artifacts (audiovisual records, transcripts) as well as related texts associated with the ethical, legal, and managerial conditions and requirements under which it occurs.