East Georgia State College Sociology Case Study

International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 2018
VOL. 21, NO. 4, 425?438
https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2018.1431192
Friendships with benefits? Examining the role of friendship in
semi-structured interviews within music research
Rapha?l Nowak
and Jo Haynes?
Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Nathan, Australia
ABSTRACT
This article explores the ?methodology of friendship? and its wider potential
within music research. Drawing on two research examples that made use of
?friendship? in distinct fashions ? one that explores music listening practices
in everyday life and the other, music as a site for racialisation ? the article
discusses how friendship can be incorporated within semi-structured
interviews. The case studies act as examples of how to negotiate alterity in
music research and how friendship represents a potential for gathering more
detailed data. The notion of ?alterity?, at the core of research relationships is
critical to shift the conversation to an informal tone and improve the depth
of the discourses gathered from informants. Consequently, this article
addresses debates within qualitative (music) sociology by reconsidering
friendship as an axis of power and examines the nature of the data gathered
in semi-structured interviews through the methodology of friendship.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 2 September 2017
Accepted 17 January 2018
KEYWORDS
Alterity; insider knowledge;
listening practices;
methodology of friendship;
sociology of music
1. Introduction
This article explores different uses and manifestations of the methodology of friendship in qualitative empirical research in music sociology. Music is a very peculiar cultural object, notably due to its
?ubiquity? (see Kassabian, 2013) and its association with various aspects of everyday life (see DeNora,
2000). Empirical research about the ways in which music is present within everyday life and how it
mediates social relationships tends to include various types of participants, including ?normal individuals? (DeNora, 2000; Lilliestam, 2013; Martin, 2006), in an age when all individuals are supposedly
music ?amateurs? (Hennion, Maisonneuve, & Gomart, 2000). Music also has the potential to connect
people (DeNora, 2000; Hesmondhalgh, 2013). In this regard, the relationship between the researcher
and their participants may vary, from the very beginning of empirical research, or within the unfolding
context of empirical research.
Social researchers constantly seek to develop new empirical tools that will better their ?sociological
imagination? (Wright-Mills, 1962). In contemporary societies that are said to have become increasingly
complex (see Urry, 2006), some authors point to the ?coming crisis? of empirical sociology (see Beer,
2009; Savage & Burrows, 2007), while others remain sceptical of methodological innovations (see
Travers, 2009; Wiles, Crow, & Pain, 2011). The entanglement of globalised, technological and societal
processes brings sociologists to interrogate what the adequate empirical tools are to grasp complex

CONTACT Rapha?l Nowak
[email protected]
?
School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies, University of Bristol, United Kingdom.
? 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
426
?R. NOWAK AND J. HAYNES
issues. Specifically, this article responds to a long-lasting need to explore new empirical means to
capture the ways in which music mediates everyday life and social relationships (see discussions by
Beer, 2009; Cohen, 1993; Grazian, 2004 among others). Because music is a ubiquitous and yet elusive
cultural object, practices of music consumption and its mediation of social relationships requires a
nuanced empirical approach.
This article revisits friendship as the basis of a methodology that can be refined and applied within
the context of semi-structured interviews in music research. Rather than viewing friendship as a
methodological complication that is ideally distinct from the context of research, we first argue that
its variety of modes, purposes and visibilities in people?s lives today, suggests that its incorporation or
development within cultural research offers theoretical and methodological opportunities. Friendship
not only enables access to diverse cultural practices that individuals are embedded within, it also disrupts a priori relationships often assumed between ?classic? social variables and forms of distinction
thereby enabling a deeper excavation of the mechanisms through which music operates.
In line with the precepts of the cultural turn in sociology, we also argue in this article that the
?methodology of friendship? (see for example Owton & Allen-Collinson, 2014; Taylor, 2011; TillmannHealy, 2003) is a tool that sheds light upon the intricate ways in which individuals experience their
everyday lives and thus, upon how ?everyday life? is a site of contestation and struggle (see Bennett,
2005). Recently adapted from anthropological research,1 this method is primarily used in participant
observations where researchers have the possibility to prolong the time spent with their informants. In
these conditions, researchers benefit from a favourable terrain to develop friendship and negotiate the
variable of alterity with their informants, which is the primary tenet to become an insider researcher.
However, the methodology of friendship also incorporates intimacies derived from friend-informants,
whereby the researcher?s existing friendships may be embedded within or overlap with the research
space. Where research focuses on cultural contexts that researchers are already embedded within such
as music subcultures and scenes and/or where participants are difficult to access, existing networks of
friends are often essential to the research as informants. Furthermore, carrying out semi-structured
interviews in music research with friend-informants can facilitate the potential for deeper analysis by
enhancing the interpretative practice through shared knowledge.
This article explores the potential of both modes of friendship in semi-structured interviews ?
informant-friends and friend-informants. It is organised into seven sections. Following this introduction, the second section briefly defines the scope and meaning of friendship emphasising variability
and levels of visibility and meaning. The third section then looks at the methodology of friendship
and its application in recent research including studies of music scenes, in order to discuss how this
empirical tool represents a relevant step forward in qualitative sociological research. We then proceed
in the fourth section to deconstruct the configuration of semi-structured interviews in order to identify
how principles of the methodology of friendship can be implemented within the encounters between
the researcher and their informants. The fifth section discusses research on music listening practices
in everyday life, before moving on to scrutinise the application of the methodology of friendship
to Nowak?s research example. The sixth section examines Haynes? research example focused on music
and race and offers critical reflections of the changing knowledge relations derived from friend-informants. The seventh section concludes by evaluating the outcomes of the use of this method on
research on music and listening practices in everyday life.
2. The space of/for friendship in qualitative sociological research
The role and status of friendship in qualitative research is subject to critical consideration within
methodological debates about ?insiderism? or ?insider knowledge? (Browne, 2003), ?insider research?
(Hodkinson, 2005) or ?insiders and outsiders? (Merton, 1972).2 Such debates question the differential
impact that the degree of social or cultural proximity between researcher and informants or researcher
and field of enquiry has on knowledge production. Friendship, along with shared social status derived
from belonging to the same social category (e.g. gender, class, ethnicity or sexuality), constitute the two
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY?
427
?axes of power? that grant insider status within research (Browne, 2003).3 While there is acknowledgement that the insider/outsider dichotomy should be thought of more as a ?continuum? and ?contextual?
(see Nowicka & Ryan, 2015), this is typically based on emphasising how knowledge is produced by
social actors that have multi-sited positionality constituted by a variety of combinations of shared or
different social characteristics. There is however less consideration of the ways in which friendship
itself is defined and experienced over time and precisely how the varying quality, intensity and characteristics of each friendship shapes knowledge production and how in turn this knowledge may have
a reciprocal impact on existing friendships themselves. Thus, the implementation of friendship within
qualitative research is often akin to a ?black box?, where although its impact and effect is considered
in relation to critical distance, analytical rigour, bias and ethical considerations, its internal dynamics
and implementation are opaque.
Pahl and Spencer (2010) explore the salience of contemporary friendship and suggest that there
is no consensus on what a friend is, or should be. Moreover, as Rawlins argues, ?[s]tatic definitions of
friendship fail to capture the lived actualities of friendships ? their finitude, flexibility, and fragility?
(2008, p. 13). Indeed, Rawlins sees friendship as manifesting itself in a myriad of ?varieties, tensions
and functions? (2008, p. 2). Similarly, Pahl and Spencer argue that actual friendship incorporates a
range of modes, meanings and visibilities such that individuals tend to have a coterie of intimate and
non-intimate friends ranging from:
simple relationships based on shared activities, fun or favours, to more complex and intimate ties involving
emotional support and trust ? from associates and what some referred to as ?champagne friends?, to confidants
and ?soul-mates?. (2010, p. 4)
Friendship therefore, as Rawlins suggests, ?exist on a panoramic continuum of everyday contingencies?
(2008, p. 13). In addition, the meaningfulness of the distinction between friendships and relationships
with family members is becoming blurred given that, ?some friends may play family-like roles and
some family members play friend-like roles? (Pahl & Spencer, 2010, p. 10). Thus, family relationships
are potentially qualitatively similar to our relationships to friends and can similarly be experienced
through differing levels of companionship, intimacy and support.
In light of the variation in friendship and family experiences and ties, people are therefore better
understood as being embedded in what Pahl and Spencer (2010, p. 14) describe as a ?personal community?, which refers to an individual?s collection of important personal relationships at a particular time
that can be derived from and situated within and across work, leisure, family, cultural and political
pursuits. Rawlins (2008) invites us to think about how friendship unfolds ?across the life course?. Indeed,
friendship must not be thought of as a monolithic category, but rather as configured in context by
interpersonal relationships. Moreover, we would add that as social media has facilitated friendships and
relationships that transcend vast geographical boundaries, the assemblage of personal ties an individual has can also incorporate some that never have any corresponding offline, face-to-face experience.
The issues and topics that researchers develop interest in are often derived from their lived experiences and/or are features of the social and cultural milieus they are embedded within. In this sense,
given the relative proximity and/or overlap between researchers and their lived experiences, including
their assemblage of personal ties and the sites of sociological interest, the research space does not have
to be conceived as elsewhere or somewhere separate ? an objectified social space that researchers enter
temporarily. Instead, as Browne suggests, they are better conceptualised as spaces where ?
researchers and participants come into being through what we do and the dynamics between researchers and
participants, there are no pre-existing scripts, actors or spaces that are simply observed. Rather, through research
performances and relations we (re)create research accounts, spaces, researchers and participants. (2003, p. 134)
Our personal ties in which we are embedded ? with both friends and family ? are already and inadvertently subject to our sociological gaze. Instead of attempting to methodologically excise research/
researchers from their everyday experiences and embeddedness within social and cultural milieu as
an attempt to seek social and critical distance, closer examination of our embeddedness within the
428
?R. NOWAK AND J. HAYNES
research space and how sameness/difference and degrees of intimacy are negotiated is likely to enable
the production of more authentic and nuanced knowledge.
Some of the earlier writing on friendship as method, acknowledges these negotiations. For instance,
Tillman-Healy suggests that,
[f]riendship and fieldwork are similar endeavours. Both involve being in the world with others. To friendship
and fieldwork communities, we must gain entr?e. We negotiate roles (e.g. student, confidant, and advocate),
shifting from one to another as the relational context warrants. (2003, p. 732)
Thus, an important principle of a methodology of friendship is that the research space can be framed
as incorporating friendship?informant relations as an inevitable condition of knowledge production
and as a potential site for developing informant-friendships, but nevertheless friendship is a condition
that is both subject to sustained analysis and susceptible to change because of the dynamics of research
and the shifting nature of insider?outsider relations themselves.
3. Insider knowledge and accounting for experiences in qualitative research
The methodology of friendship, has recently been adopted from the field of anthropology and on
balance more attention has been paid to informant-friendships, that is, those ties that develop because
of closeness and proximity during fieldwork. Indeed, Oakley?s incorporation of elements of friendship
into research interviews for women was described as ?a ?transition to friendship?, based on shared
gender subordination? (2016, p. 196) and thus, about developing/assuming informant-friendships. In
this section, we discuss and assess some examples where alterity between researchers and participants
has been negotiated. By discussing research examples focused on subcultures and scenes where alterity
between researchers and participants has been negotiated, we identify some of the important elements
of a methodology of friendship that require consideration in sociological studies of culture.
In an essay tackling the idea of ?insider knowledge?, Andy Bennett notes that ?? several researchers
have cited [?] pre-existing ties with their chosen research topic as a clear methodological advantage
over researches with no such connection? (2003, p. 189). He notably refers to the work of Ben Malbon
(1999) on clubbing.4 Thus, Malbon states that his prior belonging to this particular music scene,
anchoring him as an ?insider?, offers him the possibility to gather more accurate information from his
fieldwork enquiry:
? My own background as a clubber was, I believe, crucial in establishing my credentials as someone who was
both genuinely interested in and could readily emphasise with [clubbers?] experiences rather than merely as
someone who happened to be ?doing a project? on nightclubs as his ?job?. (1999, p. 189)
Bennett (2003) is however sceptical of the notion of insider knowledge in the way it has been developed
by studies following the academic tradition of the Birmingham School of Contemporary Cultural
Studies (CCCS). He argues that there are inherent ethical and methodological issues to this approach,
and that there is little evidence about the effectiveness of such method. The most salient ethical issues
associated with insider knowledge include the possibility of peer pressure or coercion associated with
having insider knowledge as a friend or member of a shared (sub)culture where, as Browne suggests,
there is ?a sense of duty or empathy related to participants? own experiences of undertaking research?
(2003, p. 137). Moreover, there is the potential for exploitative relations because both parties may not
be fully aware of what the appropriate boundary should be in terms of disclosure and thus whether
informed consent has been adequately provided. Pointing out the pitfalls of potential methodological
biases in particular, including the lack of critical evaluation and genuine reflexivity about the ?methodological advantages? that such insider knowledge delivers within the research process ?beyond anything
more than an anecdotal sense? (2002, p. 461), Bennett calls for a greater concern for the ?social actors
at the center of [the] research? (2003, p. 195).
Bennett?s critique of the notion of insider knowledge as developed by cultural studies theorists is the
basis upon which an account of the ?methodology of friendship? can be developed. Indeed, by inspecting
the ethical implications of the relationship researchers have with their informants and by carefully
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY?
429
examining the degree to which friendship as method manifests itself prior to or during fieldwork, the
potential of the methodology of friendship for sociological knowledge can be uncovered. Although
it may create a more complex set of ethical considerations with regard to the meaning of informed
consent for instance, there is wider acknowledgement that informed consent is an ongoing process in
research anyway where the mode and method of how it is negotiated and achieved is specific to each
research context, rather than being a straightforward, one-time agreement (Wiles, Crow, Charles, &
Heath, 2007). Thus, if considered carefully, ?insider knowledge? does not jeopardise the ethical and
ideological dimensions of sociological research to gather deeper discourses. On the contrary, insider
knowledge conditions the inception of principles of friendship within the empirical fieldwork. Several
existing accounts have reflexively pointed out the advantages of drawing on insider knowledge and
the methodology of friendship in qualitative research (see Brewer, 2000; Edwards, 2002; Hodkinson,
2005; Kong, Mahoney, & Plummer, 2002; Merton, 1972; Taylor, 2011; Wolcott, 1999). These discussions have triggered the implementation of this method within various aspects of qualitative enquiries.
While no magical recipe exists to ensure a productive management of alterity between the researcher
and their informants, the ?methodology of friendship? is a toolkit that researchers can appropriate
and adapt to the particularities of their specific research, in order to obtain conclusive results and
maintain an ethical position. Indeed, the methodology of friendship provides different reflexive tools
that researchers can adopt and adapt to the particular case study they embed themselves into. This
toolkit does not differ from simply having insider knowledge, but it rationalises such approach and
enables an upstream reflexive and methodological process that precedes the collection of empirical
data. In addition to enabling access to a variety of practices that individuals are culturally embedded
within, another element of this toolkit is the relative level of intimacy ? the degree of emotional and/
or cognitive closeness (Jamieson, 2011) ? afforded by friend?informant or informant?friend relations
which can potentially disrupt elements of competitive individualism and status battles that often configure cultural research where there is a tendency for music/culture to be the means of identity claims.
The empirical work conducted by Jodie Taylor on the Queer scene in Brisbane (Australia) provides
a persuasive discussion of the methodology of friendship through the friend-informant route. By
actively participating in the Brisbane Queer scene as an ?intimate-insider?, Taylor forged friendships
with some of its members (2011, p. 4). Such involvement in the scene configures her approach as a
researcher, which brings her to consider the management of the relationship with her informants and
the type of data she gathers. Drawing on the work of Roseneil (1993), Taylor identifies three advantages to conducting insider research: ?deeper levels of understanding afforded by prior knowledge;
knowing the lingo or native speak of field participants and thus being ?empirically literate?? (2011, p.
6). Despite some issues relating to the ?dilemmas of intimacy?, including ?professional and personal
ethical conduct, accountability, the potential for data distortion?, ?role displacement or confusion and
the vulnerability of friendship?, as well as the interpretative challenges associated with intimacy (2011,
p. 8), Taylor shows the benefits of the method of friendship to gather more accurate and detailed data.
She concludes that:
Regular and intimate contact [with informants] not only results in more opportunities to gather data, but it also
increases one?s level of perception in relation to body language and non-verbal communication; sensitive or covert
topics; detecting false-truths; emotive behavior; the degrees of affect that something may have upon someone [?];
logics of taste and rationality; an informant?s self-image and their performative attempts at displaying this; and
their intended meaning which may sometimes be obscured by incongruous or abstruse language, but is able to
be referentially decoded through the researcher?s intimate understanding of past events and/or their knowledge
of the informant?s personal history. (2011, p. 11)
By negotiating alterity with her informants, Taylor found herself in the position of critically examining the embellished ?truths?. Thus, she argues that informants had fewer possibilities to impress her
in their discourses about the Queer scene. Coffey concurs when she argues that, ?? friendship can
help to clarify the inherent tensions of the fieldwork experience and sharpen our abilities for critical
reflection? (1999, p. 47). Despite what she sees as a risk of ?bias?, Taylor shows how the methodology of
430
?R. NOWAK AND J. HAYNES
friendship helped her gather a better sense of any process of continuity or disruption that occurred
within the Queer scene.
Other studies have drawn upon principles of insider knowledge while succeeding in maintaining
a critical distance towards the informants. One compelling instance is Siokou and Moore?s (2008)
scrutiny of the rave scene in Melbourne (Australia) in which they aim to understand the structural
changes in the scene from the perspectives of long-term participants. As a raver, Siokou has attended
?? 10 rave/dance parties and 26 clubs? within the 16 months of her fieldwork enquiry, and she has
spent ?substantial amounts of time at post-event ?recovery? parties and in private residences? (Siokou &
Moore, 2008, p. 51). Despite Siokou?s important involvement in the scene, Siokou and Moore develop
a critical and reflexive perspective on claims of ?authentic belonging? to a scene that the ravers make.
Taking the example of one of Siokou?s ?research friends? (i.e. friend-informants) Chloe, Siokou and
Moore write: ?[her] authentic identity is based on participation in an idealised and now defunct golden
era, which is inaccessible to ?young kids?? (2008, p. 56).
Similarly, Overell (2010, 2011) associates a long and personal involvement in the Melbourne grindcore/death metal music scene with a critical perspective on its display of masculinity and brutal
affective belonging. About belonging to the scene, she writes: ?[h]aving been a member of the scene
since 2003, in ?fan? capacity, I drew on personal contacts and employed a ?snowball? methodology to
broaden the sample? (2010, p. 81). Her close ties to the scene however do not represent a risk of bias
as she maintains a critical perspective on the performative masculinity,
? through its brutal sensibility, Melbourne grindcore becomes a masculine scene. This consideration of
Melbourne grindcore is neat. Indeed, in terms of representation, brutal masculinity blasts from every t-shirt,
lyric and line of on-stage patter. (Overell, 2011, p. 205).
The common trend running through the above examples of Overell (2010, 2011), Siokou and Moore
(2008) and Taylor (2011), relates to how they all collect deep insights from their friend-informants while maintaining an ethical and critical perspective. Indeed, it is also important to note that
researchers, as Browne (2003) suggests, do not necessarily have the same views and opinions or even
common lifestyles as friend-informants. Sameness and difference as binaries that define power relations in research should always be subject to ongoing analytical scrutiny and as we reiterated above,
these relations are not straightforward. However, while it is problematic to assume that shared social
characteristics provide privileged access to knowledge in research, it may be the case that at different
points during the research, friendship and/or shared characteristics provide advantage and become
more central to the dynamics, access and quality of the research space.
All the accounts discussed in this section use the methodology of friendship on the basis of a strong
personal involvement in a cultural scene. We intend to go further by exploring the potential benefits
of the methodology of friendship by also discussing its implementation in semi-structured interviews,
which is the focus of the next section.
4. The possibility of friendship within semi-structured interviews
Semi-structured interviews typically touch on the ?how? of peoples? lives (see Fontana & Frey, 2005), or
the ?shape? of facts ? in contrast with the ?material? of facts that is the object of quantitative methods (see
De Certeau, 1990 [1980]). It is a methodological tool that has been used within sociological contexts
since the early 1900s although it has been constituted within broad shifting philosophical phases that
have shaped its epistemological meaning and value, i.e. ?from positivist rigour, through interpretive
reflexivity, to multiplicity and politicization? (Edwards & Holland, 2013, p. 12). It attempts to gather
discourses on the various ways in which informants conduct their lives, process their thoughts and
interact with their environments and their peers. This method sheds light upon data that would otherwise be overlooked, such as ?people?s subjective experiences and attitudes? (Per?kyl?, 2005, p. 869).
However, the principles defining semi-structured interviews are not a recipe that researchers can
repeatedly apply while expecting similar outcomes. Semi-structured interviews require the constant
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY?
431
negotiation of alterity between the researcher and their informants, as well as the management of the
moments within which the method unfolds.
The dynamics of researcher?informant relations within semi-structured interviews are subjective
in that, not only are researchers a necessary part of the research field and interview encounter, in
qualitative research more broadly the subjective nature of the data gathered is taken for granted. The
challenge faced by the qualitative researcher is then to develop a self-reflexive and critical approach
of their own presence in the fieldwork, in order to make sure that this presence is not disruptive, nor
problematic. Qualitative research is ?contextually contingent? (Wheatley, 1994) on the relationship
developed between the researcher and their informants, because ?? the sensibilities of interviewing
are altered with the changing social phenomena that constitute the ?interview?? (Kong et al., 2002,
p. 240). Mason concurs when she writes: ?[m]ost qualitative research operates from the perspective
that knowledge is situated and contextual, and therefore the job of the interview is to ensure that
the relevant contexts are brought into focus so that situated knowledge can be produced? (2002, p.
62). Thus, interviews must be constructed as a complex assemblage ? by definition, they consist of a
phenomenological encounter between a researcher and their informants. Scheurich suggests that ?the
conventional, positivist view of interviewing vastly underestimates the complexity, uniqueness, and
indeterminateness of each one-to-one human interaction? (1995, p. 241). The empirical encounters are
defined by a set of signs that each participant reads and interprets accordingly, and which determines
the course of the conversation.
Despite the potential disruptions occurring during semi-structured interviews however, there are
different approaches to maximise the probability of fruitful empirical encounters and over the last
decade or so, many accounts have focused on the topic of semi-structured interviews. Similar to Oakley
(1981), Fontana and Frey (2005) argue that the neutrality that once used to define semi-structured
interviews is now to be questioned. They advocate for the development of ?empathetic interviews?,
which entails ?taking a stance, contrary to the scientific image of interviewing, which is based on the
concept of neutrality? (Fontana & Frey, 2005, p. 696). They suggest that empathy improves the level
of understanding between the researcher and their informants. However, compared to interviews
with non-friend informants where it takes time to develop trust, established friendship can facilitate
flexibility, trust, stronger commitment to research and more authentic dialogue within interviews
as there is greater willingness to respond in ways that are ?similar to everyday interactions? (Browne,
2003, p. 137). Moreover, rather than conceiving of qualitative semi-structured interviews through a
?hit and run? framework (see Browne, 2003; Skeggs, 1999), where the qualitative research encounter
is a one-sided relationship enabling the researcher to gather data for their enquiry, interviews with
friends can result not only in more profound and individual testimonies of daily experience, they
also produce mutually beneficial outcomes, subject of course to rigorous ethical and methodological
procedural accountability and reflexivity.
In this article, we wish to go further. We draw on and extend the principles from accounts discussed
by Browne (2003) and Taylor (2011) to conceptualise the implementation of the methodology of
friendship within semi-structured interviews. In developing a pro-active approach to the uncertainty
of semi-structured interviews, the researcher is not simply reactive to the conditions and unfolding of
the encounters with their informants, but they derive benefit from the situated nature of knowledge
by fostering a favourable environment for the gathering of information. Within the moment of the
interview, researchers have to draw on their prior knowledge and use it for the sake of data gathering.
While there are always assumptions made about participants? prior knowledge in research, which
shapes how the conversation develops and the manner through which the communication is conducted
(Nowicka & Ryan, 2015), friendship-led communication in semi-structured interviews offers scope
for exploring prevailing knowledge pathways with less risk of disruption or tension because of trust,
flexibility and the potential for a more authentic dialogue because, as suggested by Browne (2003, p.
137) above, there is more preparedness to respond in ways that are ?similar to everyday interactions?.
Hence, rather than viewing their subjectivity as constituting a potential risk of bias in the conversation, it should be v