interview_presentation.pptx | |
File Size: | 805 kb |
File Type: | pptx |
Understanding Interviews
Hi there, I’m Zak, and here I’m going to be talking about interviews. I’ll be looking at why we have them, how they’re consumed, how they’re put together, what they do; and I’ll be including examples of styles and techniques from real interviews as I go along. So first, I ask you, why do we have interviews at all? What’s the point – what’s the purpose of sitting down with someone and asking them questions? Well, as human beings it is our nature to interact and know things about each other. We like to stay up to date and informed, and interviews are pretty much the most basic way of achieving this. They help us to gather information about the things that are going on; obtain other peoples’ opinions and, through expression and explanation, understand how they justify them; find out information and spread it; we use them for research; to enhance our understanding of a topic – the list goes on but those are some of the main reasons we actually carry out interviews.
And how do we present these interviews? How are they consumed by the public? The main way is through TV; often people are interviewed live on things like chat shows and debates – like the News, or programs like The Jeremy Kyle Show. The other big contender is Radio; programs like Woman’s Hour or Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 are examples of Radio interviews. The other media products in which we view interviews are: Prints like newspapers and magazines; the Internet: for example video websites like YouTube or sharing networks like Twitter – and of course Internet News pages; Editorials; there’s Sport; News; Feature-writers -- the list goes on. The point is, in the well-connected world we live in today, it isn’t difficult to find an interview, because they’re on pretty much all media. To demonstrate this I’ve picked out a few interviews that I found pretty easily on the internet – I’ll be using them as examples to what I’m talking about. There are three interviews – a video interview with Quentin Tarantino, a radio interview with Tim Minchin and a written interview with Ben Wheatley.
There’s a certain way to construct an interview properly. You have to do it in stages – starting with a clear introduction: these are the first few remarks of courtesy that get the ball rolling. It can be a few sentences, or it can be just one, as Krishnan Guru-Murthy demonstrates here on Channel 4 News. Then the interviewer does some developmental questioning – where he or she asks a series of small questions that build up and contribute to the main topic. While they do this they need to be building the interviewee’s confidence by asking easy, relevant questions that can make the guest feel like they’re doing well in the interview while still providing interesting things to talk about. This is all building up to when the interviewer asks the key questions – the questions whose answers are the entire purpose of the interview. During these questions, there may be some need for sound bites – these are almost like cutaways in the middle of the interview – where videos or snippets of media are provided as anecdotes. After this it’s fairly simple – the interviewer finishes off with a summary, by going over everything that’s been said in the interview with a basic list of the interviewee’s answers; and a wind-up where they finish off the interview by saying thank you and good bye to the guest.
So, that covers the structure of interviews, but there’s more to it than just planning what to talk about. It’s how to say it as well. Here is a list of question types – because there is more to a question than just the topic of conversation – a lot of thought goes into how the interviewer will construct the sentence.
Open questions – require an answer that’s more than just a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. Open questions look for a statement or an explanation to something.
Closed questions – require purely a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
Single questions – only have one point to the question. “How are you today?”
Multiple questions – obviously, there’s more than one point to a multiple question – “how are you today, have you been keeping well?”
Direct questions – requires a specific answer – “Where were you at 9am on Sunday morning?”
Suggestive questions – these hint that something may be the case without actually saying it. “Would you agree that the country needs a better police force?” – “doesn’t it,” “isn’t it,” “weren’t you?” etc. can replace the suggestive part of the question.
The interviewer needs to be good with their communication skills as well – for example they need to be able to build rapport with the guest so that a positive atmosphere is created. Active Listening is important too – this is essentially appearing interested and showing that you are – by responding to what the interviewee is talking about – by giving opinions and asking mini-questions about their answers. Body language is also important; the interviewer needs to physically appear interested in what the guest is talking about. This can be identified in the form of hand gestures and sitting positions etc. A thing like crossing arms or legs isn’t great as it represents a barrier between the guest and the interviewer and the atmosphere is affected.
It’s slightly different on the telephone or radio – the techniques are similar but obviously not exactly the same as a video interview’s techniques. There’s the gathering of information – asking short, easy questions that are broad in answerability. This is quite similar to confidence building as the interviewee feels more comfortable with the easy questions. Another technique is obtaining comments – this is like suggestive questioning but less tactical and planned – more like having a chat with the interviewee.
And how do we present these interviews? How are they consumed by the public? The main way is through TV; often people are interviewed live on things like chat shows and debates – like the News, or programs like The Jeremy Kyle Show. The other big contender is Radio; programs like Woman’s Hour or Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 are examples of Radio interviews. The other media products in which we view interviews are: Prints like newspapers and magazines; the Internet: for example video websites like YouTube or sharing networks like Twitter – and of course Internet News pages; Editorials; there’s Sport; News; Feature-writers -- the list goes on. The point is, in the well-connected world we live in today, it isn’t difficult to find an interview, because they’re on pretty much all media. To demonstrate this I’ve picked out a few interviews that I found pretty easily on the internet – I’ll be using them as examples to what I’m talking about. There are three interviews – a video interview with Quentin Tarantino, a radio interview with Tim Minchin and a written interview with Ben Wheatley.
There’s a certain way to construct an interview properly. You have to do it in stages – starting with a clear introduction: these are the first few remarks of courtesy that get the ball rolling. It can be a few sentences, or it can be just one, as Krishnan Guru-Murthy demonstrates here on Channel 4 News. Then the interviewer does some developmental questioning – where he or she asks a series of small questions that build up and contribute to the main topic. While they do this they need to be building the interviewee’s confidence by asking easy, relevant questions that can make the guest feel like they’re doing well in the interview while still providing interesting things to talk about. This is all building up to when the interviewer asks the key questions – the questions whose answers are the entire purpose of the interview. During these questions, there may be some need for sound bites – these are almost like cutaways in the middle of the interview – where videos or snippets of media are provided as anecdotes. After this it’s fairly simple – the interviewer finishes off with a summary, by going over everything that’s been said in the interview with a basic list of the interviewee’s answers; and a wind-up where they finish off the interview by saying thank you and good bye to the guest.
So, that covers the structure of interviews, but there’s more to it than just planning what to talk about. It’s how to say it as well. Here is a list of question types – because there is more to a question than just the topic of conversation – a lot of thought goes into how the interviewer will construct the sentence.
Open questions – require an answer that’s more than just a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. Open questions look for a statement or an explanation to something.
Closed questions – require purely a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
Single questions – only have one point to the question. “How are you today?”
Multiple questions – obviously, there’s more than one point to a multiple question – “how are you today, have you been keeping well?”
Direct questions – requires a specific answer – “Where were you at 9am on Sunday morning?”
Suggestive questions – these hint that something may be the case without actually saying it. “Would you agree that the country needs a better police force?” – “doesn’t it,” “isn’t it,” “weren’t you?” etc. can replace the suggestive part of the question.
The interviewer needs to be good with their communication skills as well – for example they need to be able to build rapport with the guest so that a positive atmosphere is created. Active Listening is important too – this is essentially appearing interested and showing that you are – by responding to what the interviewee is talking about – by giving opinions and asking mini-questions about their answers. Body language is also important; the interviewer needs to physically appear interested in what the guest is talking about. This can be identified in the form of hand gestures and sitting positions etc. A thing like crossing arms or legs isn’t great as it represents a barrier between the guest and the interviewer and the atmosphere is affected.
It’s slightly different on the telephone or radio – the techniques are similar but obviously not exactly the same as a video interview’s techniques. There’s the gathering of information – asking short, easy questions that are broad in answerability. This is quite similar to confidence building as the interviewee feels more comfortable with the easy questions. Another technique is obtaining comments – this is like suggestive questioning but less tactical and planned – more like having a chat with the interviewee.