My Philosophy

Qualitative research plays a large role in the production of audio documentaries. Quality refers to the essential character of something (Kvale, S pp 67). Numbers and statistics fall by the way side in the domain of qualitative research, and interviews, letters, emails, notes and lived experiences are highlighted as the way forward in understanding. For documentarists, qualitative research is used primarily by way of interviewing. Through the interview process, conversation is encouraged which is key in getting to know people, their experiences, feelings and their knowledge on a particular subject. (Kvale, S pp 5) Kvale highlights various aspects of the qualitative research procedure, some of which apply to my documentary process.


Firstly, I found my process to include the aspect of ‘meaning’ to a large degree. What Kvale means by this is that the interview seeks to interpret the meaning of central themes in the world of the subject. The interviewer registers and interprets the meaning of what is said. (Kvale, S pp 30) In my documentary “Pictures of Makana” I was getting to know the history of Grahamstown through the life and philosophy of Makana. The ‘meaning’ aspect however, stipulates that there is always more to a story, an underlying meaning and message. In my case it was a message about humanity and learning from people and from the past. The other aspect of qualitative research that I made use of was ‘description’. In other words, the interview attempts to obtain open nuanced descriptions of different aspects of the subjects’ life world or the topic under discussion. (Kvale, S pp 30)I delve into the concept of description in the audio section of this essay.

Lastly, Kvale touches on the notion of the 1000 page question. This is something that struck a chord with me and thus have decided to include as part of my philosophy. To elaborate, the 1000 page question goes like this: “How shall I find a method to analyse the 1000 pages of interview transcripts I have collected?” A response to this would be that firstly, 1000 pages is too much information to work with, and secondly it’s too late to begin analysing information once it is all collected (the analysis of information should begin before and during the interview so as to avoid a mass of content). What I gathered from this was the importance of quality over quantity. And considering we are concerning ourselves with qualitative research and not quantitative, the saying really does apply here.