Towards a method for research interviews using e-mail

Researching people's ideas and experiences of Urban and Planning Studies can be carried out in a variety of ways, but the most obvious is to ask them. This can be done qualitatively, using semi-structured or unstructured interviews, at an early stage of the research process, when it is important to explore participants' ideas prior to any quantitative investigation, or for investigations where in-depth and detailed information about individual thinking is important. Face-to-face interviews are a 'gold standard' against which other qualitative methods of investigation can be compared. However, contemporary developments in technology provide a wider range of opportunities for qualitative researchers to collect rich data for analysis. Such technologies enable participation from any part of the world at any time, and allow the collection of video material that can capture many aspects of verbal and non-verbal interaction for further analysis. The use of e-mail interviews provides a relatively low-tech methodology for investigations and has advantages over a live interview, on the one hand, and a high-tech video interview, on the other.