Moving Beyond Text-and-Talk in Qualitative Health Research: Methodological Considerations of Using Multiple Media for Data Collection

Abstract

Qualitative researchers are increasingly making use of multiple media to collect data within a single study. Such approaches may have the potential to generate rich insights; however, there are also potential methodological challenges in simultaneously analyzing data from multiple media. Using three case studies from our work with women who had recurrent breast cancer in South Africa, we explore four challenges of using multiple media to collect data: (a) how to understand the repetition of themes (or lack thereof) across multiple media; (b) whether or not data collected from multiple media over a protracted period should be read as longitudinal data reflecting a dynamic process; (c) what impact using multiple media has on the participant–researcher relationship; and (d) how the medium may shape the data obtained. We propose that the value of using multiple methods lies in the opportunity they provide to understand how participants engage with the different media.