Abstract

The aim of this study is to define electronic-mail interview, which becomes prevalent in recent years in qualitative research and, to find answers to the question that what kind of advantages and disadvantages have e-interviews with comparison to face-to-face interviews. This paper also aims at contributing to the Turkish body of literature on qualitative study. Without any constraints on time and place, e-interview technique renders possible to get access to many people from different regions simultaneously. Unlike face-to-face interview, e-interview is the computer mediated communication and has some potentiality and limitation peculiar to it. The potentiality and limitation of e-interview is first discussed in interaction and relation between the researcher and participant. The bodiless interaction during e-interview gives no data onto clues to spontaneous, nonverbal communication. For this reason it is focused on the quality of written data sent by participant via e-mail, which is being produced in an isolated context. The written data’s ability to represent participant and social world is also discussed. Lastly, it is talked about informed consent and confidentiality as the basic principles of research ethic and, due to flexible and changing nature of interview, it is urged to apply situated ethic than universal ethic rules.