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Narrative journalism as complementary inquiry
Author(s) -
Jørgen Jeppesen,
Helle Ploug Hansen
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
qualitative studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1903-7031
DOI - 10.7146/qs.v2i2.5512
Subject(s) - narrative , craft , journalism , sociology , reflexivity , sensibility , transparency (behavior) , dialogic , power (physics) , narrative inquiry , aesthetics , epistemology , media studies , literature , visual arts , social science , pedagogy , art , computer science , philosophy , physics , computer security , quantum mechanics
Narrative journalism is a method to craft stories worth reading about real people. In this article, we explore the ability of that communicative power to produce insights complementary to those obtainable through traditional qualitative and quantitative research methods. With examples from a study of journalistic narrative as patient involvement in professional rehabilitation, interview data transcribed as stories are analyzed for qualities of heterogeneity, sensibility, transparency, and reflexivity. Building on sociological theories of thinking with stories, writing as inquiry, and public journalism as ethnography, we suggest that narrative journalism as a common practice might unfold dimensions of subjective otherness of the self. Aspiring to unite writing in both transparently confrontational and empathetically dialogic ways, the narrative journalistic method holds a potential to expose dynamics of power within the interview.