Emotional scholar-fandoms: negotiating researcher identity in a study with reality show participants

Abstract

This article analyses the research practice of interviewing media participants by critically reflecting on the process of interviewing former reality show contestants. I argue that interviewing was not a straightforward process but rather a deeply emotional one. The interview process complicated my scholar-fan identity, my feelings about the research process and my reality TV fandom. It was only through a process of self-reflexive analysis and research practice that I could successfully negotiate these two identities. In the following article, I show how I came to adopt this self-reflexive position, and reflect on how this position could better inform future research in celebrity studies. In addition, this paper contributes to the rich body of scholarship on interview research methodologies by emphasizing the key role that interviewing has to play in shaping the relationships between celebrities, fans and academics.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments and suggestions, and her dissertation writing group for their support when she first started working through these issues. Most importantly, she extends her deepest gratitude to the women who participated in the study and inspired this piece. This work would not have been possible without them.

Notes

1. Pseudonyms used throughout.

2. Similarly, in Kathleen Rowe’s reflection on interviewing comedian Roseanne Barr, she remarks that she was expecting to meet ‘the wise-cracking, smart-mouthed jokester’ portrayed in television and reported on in the media (1995, 58). Instead, she was forced to step back and question her own internal biases about who Roseanne was based on her pre-existing knowledge of the celebrity.