The Long Interview by Grant McCracken (ISBN: 0803933533)

Once the “grand tour” is underway, it is relatively easy to sustain it in an unobtrusive way. The simplest
way of doing so is through the use of “floating prompts” through the careful exploitation of several
features of everyday speech. Simply raising ones eyebrows (the “eyebrow flash,” as it is called in the
paralinguistic literature) at the end of the respondents utterance almost always prompts them to expand
upon it. A slightly more conspicuous device is simply to repeat the key term of the respondent’s last
remark with interrogative tone. (Respondent: “so, me and my girlfriend decided to go out and get
wrecked.” Interviewer: “Wrecked?” Respondent: “Yeh, you know, really, really blasted.”) If these
techniques are not effective, the interviewer can be more forthcoming (“What do you mean, ‘blasted’,
exactly?”) but not the more obtrusive (“Do you mean ‘intoxicated’?”).

The object here is to watch for key terms (such as “wrecked” and “blasted”) as they emerge from the
testimony and to prompt the respondent to say more about them. Floating prompts allow this is relatively
unobtrusive, spontaneous way. Used in combination grand tour questions and floating prompts are
sometimes enough to elicit all of the testimony the investigator needs. However, it is frequently the case
that the categories that have been identified in the literature review and the cultural review do not emerge
spontaneously in the course of the interview. In these cases, the investigator must be prepared to take a
more proactive and obtrusive position. In these instances, the investigator must resort to “planned
prompts”.

Planned Prompts are especially important when topics belong to the realm of the self-evident or the
imponderable. The purpose of this second category of prompts is to give respondents something “to push
off against”. It is to give them an opportunity to consider and discuss phenomena that do not come readily
to mind or speech. Perhaps the most important planned prompt is the “contrast” prompt (e.g., what is the
difference between categories “x” and “y” i.e., what is the difference between “blasted” and “wrecked”?).
These contrast questions should be restricted first to terms that the respondent has introduced.

Only when these have been exhausted should the investigator introduce terms culled from the literature
and cultural reviews. These planned prompts should be placed in the interview at the very end of each
question category, so that they are not asked until, and unless, the material they are designed to elicit
has failed to surface spontaneously.

Another planned prompting strategy is “category” questions. These are questions that allow the
investigator to account for all of the formal characteristics of the topic under discussion. For instance,
when what is being investigated is an activity or event, the investigator will want to determine how the
respondent identifies each of its many aspects. Most of these will drift into the testimony in response to
the grand tour questions, but many will go accidentally unconsidered. The investigator will want to know
how the respondent defines the events key actors, central action, dramatic structure, important props,
necessary audience, ascribed roles, designated critics, social significance, cultural significance and the
consequences of good and bad performances. What does not emerge from grand-tour testimony, must be
gone after.

Product Selection - Objectives & Strategies

The objective in investigating a topic like product selection is to “get under” the commonplace view of the
activity and see how the individual really sees and experiences it.

One way to set about systematically gathering information to do this is to think about the process as a
dramatic production. You must determine what the important roles are, who will occupy these roles, how
well the roles are enacted, who the director and prompter of the proceedings is, what the stage is, how
the action is organized and scheduled, who the audience is, who the critics are, what is accomplished for
actors and audience when the production goes well, what happens, on the other hand, when the
production goes badly, what kind of things can go wrong, how they will be set right and son on.

Again, the object is to get past the formal and ordinary description of the event into the hidden social and
cultural realities. For instance, it would be easy enough to go out and collect a set of statements about
what Christmas is. Respondents are willing to trot out a set of conventional descriptions. Christmas is a
time to celebrate a religious occasion, get together with family, exchange gifts and look back at the year.
But this would not tell us anything about Christmas and it certainly would not justify the time, difficulty,
and expense of qualitative investigation.

But the careful investigator through patient observation, intelligent questioning and active listening can
learn much more. What he or she wants to do is determine some of the following questions: what
activities make up Christmas, when does each of them start, who undertakes them, what part does
gender play here; what does Christmas decoration do to the character of the home, how do people decide
what to buy for one another; what are the consequences of a good gift and a bad one; how do families

Summary by Jon Strande Page 1 of 2

The Long Interview by Grant McCracken (ISBN: 0803933533)

plan for their time together; what diplomatic preparations are made to make sure that people get along
and “Grandpa Henry and Uncle Rupert don’t get at one another this year”; how the nature of family
interaction changes in the Christmas season; how does participating in the ritual and gift exchanges of
Christmas have short-term and long-term consequences for how the family defines itself and gets along;
what family activities are particular to the Christmas season; what difference will it make to the nature of
family interaction if the activity is (1) watching a football game, (2) going for a walk in the country, (3)
going to a movie; sometimes Christmas means that men spend more time around the house than usual,
how do they respond; what do children learn about their families and their societies at Christmas; what
special role do women play in organizing Christmas and family life at Christmas?

It is worth pointing out here that most of these questions cannot be asked directly. The can be answered
only be asking other questions, and piecing answers together.

Summary by Jon Strande Page 2 of 2