I conducted my interview with a friend of mine from a country in the MENA region about his use of social media, and posting about politics on social media among the people he knows. It was not the greatest interview I’ve given. As my partners in the Box 22 activity pointed out to me, I stuck too strictly to my prepared questions, not asking for elaboration or delving deeper into any particular moments. Furthermore, I chose to cut fillers and misspoken phrases in my transcript, which as was pointed out to me, may have detracted from the sense of climate in my interview.

Listening to my interview a second time, I realized that it was clunky. The conversation jumped from topic to topic without smooth sequencing or follow-ups. In attempting to accommodate my friend’s non-native English, I removed colloquialisms from my language, and spoke more slowly, which impaired the naturalness of my speaking. It was interesting, because this friend and I had had fairly fluent conversations in person before, and even over video chat in the past, but the tripled layer of virtual communication, language, and formalized setting strongly distorted the flow of the interview.

Anna referred to my tone as one of caring, as if I were trying to support my friend if he were struggling through a sentence or phrase. It’s true that I wanted to make being interviewed easier for him, but I wonder if perhaps instead of fighting the communication issues, I had allowed them to show in my interview if that would have improved its quality. In normal conversations with this friend, I would use English expressions intentionally; idioms were the field of language he most wants to practice. Him asking what a word means would likely not detract from an interview’s transcript.

This was truly an important exercise in conducting interviews through a language barrier. Next, I want to try conducting one in a language I am not fluent in.

 

S: Okay, wonderful. So it’s gonna ask you the same questions that I sent you, I might add a couple extra ones. And feel free to let me know if you don’t understand anything.

A: All right.

S: So I just want to find out a little bit about your relationship with social media and how social media works with politics. So what kind of social media do you use? 

A: For me, I use like Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And that’s it.

S: Okay, which one do you use the most?

A: For sure Whatsapp. 

S: Whatsapp? Okay. What do you use Whatsapp for?

A: Mostly for messaging. Okay, and for texting my advisors, the scholarship, college

and here also my, friends in the village, my family, you know.

S: It’s your main means of texting?

A: Oh, yeah.

S: And what do you use the other types of social media for? Well, what do you use Facebook and Twitter and the other ones for?

A: Facebook just like, you know, see the other people like daily activities, their posts and stuff like that. And Instagram to see like, and look on the actors and public figures, you know? Yeah, like this! (laughing)

S: Do you mostly use social media in English or in Arabic?

A: In English, all my social media here in English. Everything. A little bit in Arabic.

S: Do most people you know do that or is that only you?

A: Yeah, most people. Now, you know, I turn it to Spanish and English.

S: I’ve seen you post in Spanish.

A: Oh, yeah. And a little bit in Arabic.

S: All right. Cool. And do you ever post on social media about politics?

A: No, you know, I just keep it to myself and the people around me, okay? Yeah, you know, the trusted people and the people who have, like the credibility so that I can share with them my thoughts or my politics. That’s it.

S: Why don’t you post about politics?

A: I don’t know, you know, maybe I just don’t care about that. I don’t want to be accused of something, you know, right. Here, there is no, like, the space and the freedom like in the US, that I can say anything and everything. Just to keep it to myself. And I can’t suppress everything, alright? So the people around me is the people I talk to.

S: Do you ever text people on WhatsApp about politics?

A: You know, if someone evoke me about some about a certain topic, you know? I just entered the conversation and I just say no reply to his message. That’s it.