For assignment 4, we had to choose a topic from a list in the design studies, and go out and interview a selection of people in order to gauge a selection of responses. I chose "How do magazines influence people’s ideas of design and taste?" as I am dedicated follower of Vogue, so thought I might learn something about how much I am also influenced by the constant bombardment of advertising that we are subjected to on a daily basis.
Decided to go for an unstructured approach, with a list of set question, but wasn't afraid to go off course if need be. I had originally intended to ask three different individuals, but for my last interview, I had a mother and daughter out shopping together, and decided to interview them both separately, although they were both present. My dad was throwing a party this weekend for his work colleagues, and I thought it may be more interested to interview slightly older members of the public, as I’m fed up of asking students seeing as I am one, and didn’t think I’d be able to get that much new information than what I could say myself. It was also a safe environment to interview as I could just take them into the guest room of our house. This post is a tad late, but I was very preoccupied on Friday evening having to cajole my rather inebriated father and his friend down from the coffee table during their rendition of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again”. Hideous.
I started off asking general questions about the last items my interviewee’s had purchased, most of which were clothes, ranging from the high street to boutiques, and had one woman who had last bought food for her lunch. My first interviewee was a nurse, who was a friend of my mum’s who she knows through Unison. She gave me a fairly interesting set of answers, including denouncing magazines; she instead chose a newspaper The Socialist Worker, which I occasionally read, and my parents do as well. It’s fairly self explanatory, but she chose this particular newspaper in order to keep up with current affairs, and due to her political views. I wouldn’t say this was particularly helpful to me, as it was more magazines that I was interested in, but it was an interesting response seeing as all my other interviewees read magazines. She read The New Statesman as well, which is a weekly left wing political magazine that my family and I also read, so I didn’t seem to be getting very far on getting opinions that differed very much from my own. However, in terms of music and television, she was a fan of the Manic Street Preachers, whose only song I know is “If you tolerate this, then your children will be next”, which tells the tale of fascism in Spain, so you can see links between reading material and musical tastes.
My second interviewee was a Debbie, female colleague of my dad’s, and is a social worker. (My dad’s a criminal justice assistant, which none of us know what that means, but we assume it’s some form of superhero.) She was the one who’s ‘last purchased item’ was sushi and grapes, and the only one to answer an item that wasn’t clothes related. She was also the only one to have considered her purchase; all the others had acted on impulse. She is a monthly subscriber of ‘Zest’ a health and well being magazine, and chose it purely for the reason “makes me feel healthier without doing anything”. Already, I can see patterns emerging as Debbie was choosing seemed to be choosing ‘healthy’ items over anything else by choosing fruit and fish as her lunch, and subscribing to a health magazine, which although she appears flippant in her answer of why she chooses it, it does obviously influence her lifestyle.
She is a listener of Radio 2, and watched only 2 television programmes; Hustle and Coronation Street, and answered that she limited herself to these two, and these two only, suggesting that she wasn’t a big fan of vegging out in front of the TV screen, again, encouraging the trend as before that she cares about her health.
My third and final interviewees were mother and daughter, Margaret and Susan. I happened to stop them as they passed me in Dundee City Library. I originally targeted Susan, but it became clear Margaret wasn’t going to let her answer for herself, so I asked Susan first and then her mother. Their answers were very similar; they shopped in the same places, and both relied on each other for answers. For example, when I asked Susan what television programmes did she watch, her mother immediately answered “you like Sex and the City, don’t you?” and the same happened when I posed the same question to Margaret as she paused to think, and Susan said “what’s that one with David Jason?” They definitely influenced each other’s answers which was interesting as the two obviously have a very close relationship. Both subscribed regularly to magazines; Susan; Vogue and Elle Decoration, Margaret: Good Housekeeping, Woman and Home, She and Prima, and Susan would read She once her mother had finished with it. Margaret also circulated the magazines within her circle of friends, and gave me much more positive answers when it came to questions relating to music/film/theatre as Margaret was a regular listener to Radio 2 and went at least 4 times a year to plays in Dundee, as well as a variety of shows in Glasgow and Edinburgh, whereas Susan had less opinions on music and opted to just listen to whatever CD was in the car which I thought slightly odd seeing as she lives in Dundee and commutes every morning to Kinross to teach which is considerable journey. Susan is an art and design teacher, so I assumed she’s by more up to date with theatre and music, but it would appear that her mother had more of idea of what was currently popular in the charts. However, Susan did choose her magazines with the intention to keep up to date with interior design and architecture, so is obviously taking in her surrounding, just not through perhaps the most obvious channels.
I enjoyed assignment 4, although in future will need to think my questions through more thoroughly and be more specific to my area, but think the unstructured interview technique worked well.
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