Using asynchronous written online communications for qualitative inquiries: a research note

Qualitative online inquiries are being used more and more but their use has been little methodologically refined so far. This is already true for a systematic differentiation between asynchronous/synchronous and oral/written varieties of communication and their specific benefits when we use them as...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inQualitative research : QR Vol. 17; no. 5; pp. 589 - 597
Main Authors Schiek, Daniela, Ullrich, Carsten G
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.10.2017
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Communication
Internet
Qualitative research
Social interaction
e-mail interviews
qualitative online methods
online research
asynchronous methods
written inquiry
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Summary:Qualitative online inquiries are being used more and more but their use has been little methodologically refined so far. This is already true for a systematic differentiation between asynchronous/synchronous and oral/written varieties of communication and their specific benefits when we use them as qualitative research instruments. In this note, we focus on the methodological benefits of asynchronous online communication between absent communication partners with a time lag. Before doing so, we discriminate between synchrony and asynchrony in (human) social interaction and arrange them on a continuum of decreasing action cues and conceptual speech elements.
ISSN:1468-7941
1741-3109
DOI:10.1177/1468794117690216