Interview Purposes

Interview Purposes

Definitions

Open Question - An open question is likely to have a wide range of long possible answers. For example 'What are your thoughts on the current situation in Ukraine?'

Closed Question - A closed question can be answered with either a single word or shot phrase, tending to be 'yes' or 'no'. For example 'Did you go to school today?'

Direct Question - A direct question are 'normal' questions that you would ask family and friends. For example - 'Wheres the kitchen?' instead of an indirect question like 'please may you tell me where the kitchen is?'.

Leading question - A leading question prompts the respondent to answer in a particular way. For example 'Were you at The Red Lion on the night of june 1st?' instead of 'Where were you on the night of june 1st?'

Interviewer/ Interviewee	Purpose of Interview	Style of Interview	Style of Questions
Russel Brand interviews Westboro Baptist Church	Russel seeks common ground with the notoriously anti-gay leaders	Informal and chatty	Open questions asked as we want to hear the opinion of the Westboro Baptist Church
Arkinson interviews Rowan Atkinson	His role as a comic actor, and his role as Mr Bean	Formal, friendly and chatty	Open question to hear what his has to say about his career
Andrew Marr interviews David Cameron	To understand what is going on with the talk with the EU	Formal and to the point	Open questions to understand what is going on in the talks with the EU

Explain how you could use interviews to enhance your promotional material.

You can use quotes from your interviews in your promotional material to support your cause. If you are going to use quotes you need to make sure that the person being interviewed is linked in someway to your cause and you also have to make sure it supports your views and promotional material.

List the potential people who you could interview.

Dick – South Parade Trust

Vanessa – South Parade Trust

Members of the public walking past the pier

My Dog Sighs – local well-known artist

Mike Hancock – Portsmouth MP

Gerald Vernon-Jackson – Leader of Portsmouth City Council

How could you interview them (on camera, voice recorder, written)

The best way for this project to interview these interviewees is over email, although we won't be able to see their immediate reactions to the question will will have their full answer there written for us, it also gives them time to really think about each question and give their honest opinion. Another way for us the contact and interview these people would be over social media sites, social media sites are free and you can contact and wide range of people easily. Face to face interviews on film would be great for us to use in our web advert, this would be a good idea for us to do when talking to members of the public.

Pick 2 of these interview subjects and write some example questions.

Members of the public:

Do you want the pier to be saved?

Do you think the council are doing enough to save the pier?

What memories do you have about the pier?

How important do you think the pier is to the local community?

What do you think the future of the pier should be?

Have you ever been to an event on the pier?

Celia Clark

How fatal is the current situation of the pier?

Are you doing all you can to help save it?

Is there not any money in the budget to invest in the pier?

How important do you think the pier is to the local community?

Why was the pier sold to the current owners in the first place?

When do you see this problem being resolved?

In groups – decide on interviewees and the questions you will ask, and what type of questions you will ask.

My Dog Sighs:

1) Do you think the pier is worth saving? Why? 

2) Do you think the council are doing enough to save the pier?

3) How important do you think the pier is to the local community?

4) What do you think the future of the pier should be?

5) Are you aware about the current state of the pier? 

6) Do think the pier will ever be re-opened?  

Mike Hancock:

1) What is the Councils view of South Parade Pier?

2) Does the council have any plans for the pier?

3) Do you see the Pier ever re-opening?

4) How much could it cost the council to save or remove the pier?

Vox pop question to public:

Do you think the pier is worth saving? 

Why?

If the pier was to be saved, what you you like to see happen to it?

Make contact with your interview subjects to arrange a convenient time to interview them.

I have emailed local Portsmouth & Southsea street artist My Dog Sighs several times and he has agreed to do an online interview, via email, about his views on the pier, this is included in our final major project file.