Friday, December 9, 2016

Interviewing people for the muckraking project

Like all the other groups, we interviewed several people for our project. Since our topic was sensitive (drug use), all the interviews had to be anonymous. However, when interviewing a member of the faculty, I forgot to mention this until halfway through the interview, when they answered a question with "overall, on record, it’s just not a good idea." At that point I asked them if they preferred to be anonymous and of course they agreed, though they did say that their answers were the same.

After analyzing the interview for the project, I noticed that there were a few inconsistencies. For example, they said that using marijuana at all was just not a good idea because of the damage it causes to the brain. However, when asked what they thought about it being for medical purposes, they said that it could be effective, and perhaps even be prescribed instead of classic medication alongside therapy.

Their overall stance on the issue was the same (teenagers should not use marijuana recreationally), but they gave conflicting reasons. To me, it seems like they started the interview answering the questions like the administration would expect them to. After all, there are negative consequences for encouraging students to use drugs. So their behavior was totally reasonable and to be expected. However, it does mean that the answers we got may have not been entirely accurate, representing the stereotypical, safe opinion (marijuana is bad for your brain, don't do drugs) rather than the possibly different opinion that the interviewee had himself.

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