Interview Essay: Facebook Interview With Jodi Van Zandt-Calvert

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Facebook Interview with Jodi Van Zandt-Calvert

I must admit I began the interview with a few preconceived notions about my interviewee but as with any interview, if you pay particular attention to the person’s verbal and non-verbal cues it can give you tremendous insight as to who someone is at heart. Additionally, the medium in which an interview is conducted can greatly influence how the answers are interpreted. The interviewer needs to understand how to interpret what is being said and how it’s being said regardless of the medium. Interviews can also tell you a lot by what the person doesn 't say by interpreting the silence or noticing if the person strays off topic. Furthermore, interviews can give insight into the interviewer as well …show more content…

I interviewed my wife’s friend, Jodi Van Zandt-Calvert. To be honest, Jodi was not my initial target for the interview. She wasn’t even my second choice or third. I came to interview Jodi strictly by circumstance and availability. My first choice was my friend, Bianca from Australia. I felt she would give an interesting cross-cultural view on the interview questions but alas she fell ill and had to go to the hospital during our scheduled interview time. I then reached out to my second and third choices for the interview, neither were available. My wife then asked her friend Jodi if she would consent to the interview and Jodi volunteered. Prior to the interview I did not know Jodi well. I only knew her from the comments she would post on my wife’s Facebook statuses and by reading her Facebook bio. Based on that information I made some inferences (West & Turner, 2011, p. 72) about her. My personal interpretation of the facts that Jodi presented were that she seems to be friendly and supportive when commenting on my wife’s statuses. However, her Facebook bio paints a different picture of her and due to her responses, I stereotyped (West & Turner, 2011, p. 50) her as stuck-up. Because of this fixed mental image I had of her, I began the interview prepared to defend myself and my line …show more content…

I opted to conduct my interview over Facebook messenger. This gave me a way to interview someone who lives quite a distance from me and keep a record of the interview. Even though interviewing over a social media medium may seem inhibiting due to the fact that you cannot hear the person 's voice or read their body language, it actually gives you just as much insight. Luckily, I made a conscious decision to keep an open mind about Jodi and it did not take long for her to shatter my image of her as being stuck-up. An important aspect to realize about stereotypes is that they are not always correct. West and Turner make an excellent point when discussing perceptions, “without patience and tolerance, you won’t be able to check the accuracy of your perceptions” (West & Turner, 2011, p. 72). Had I gone into this interview without patience and tolerance I would not have been able to disprove my own perception of Jodi. I feel that if I had conducted this interview over Skype or some other form of video chat, Jodi would have been able to instantly shown me that she is not stuck-up. I would have been able to judge by her non-verbal cues such as body language and tone of voice. There was one point where Jodi strayed off the topic and began a side conversation. It was after I asked her, “How would you like to be remembered/what

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