The challenge: Finding the right sources, finding new sources, finding good sources. Here’s how to find those informants.
- Semiotic Map
- Power Dynamics
- Key Informant (or consultant/interlocutor)
Semiotic Map
A semiotic map (AKA semiotic square or cultural map) is a simple framework that aids in understanding how a culture views a concept or category. It helps to frame and organize thinking on a topic. In this case, it can be used to frame potential sources on a story topic.
Journalists tend to work in polarities, interviewing one side then the other. A semiotic square can be of particular use for finding new voices on a topic because it plots oppositions and then identifies the spaces in between.
How it works
Drawing a semiotic map is simple:
- Start with your story topic.
- List some elements in the topic or space you are exploring.
- Now list their oppositions (or tensions).
- Choose two elements with strong tensions to start your semiotic square. Write these in the top corners.
- Plot corresponding contradictions on a diagonal.
- Pause and give thought to the quadrants in between. Try labelling these or thinking of who would be able to speak to these spaces. Here is where you’ll find sources that fill gaps in traditional diametrical coverage.
Example
- Story topic: gender
- Elements of gender: masculine (source: man), feminine (source: woman)
- Contradiction to masculine: non-masculine (source: an effeminate man)
- Contradiction to feminine: non-feminine (source: a “tomboy”)
- Semiotic square shows four spaces in between, here are the sources that could represent those spaces and fill gaps in reporting:
- A “macho” man (space between non-masculine and masculine)
- A person who identifies as “androgenous”; a person who identifies as “bisexual” (space between masculine and feminine)
- A self-described “vamp” (space between non-feminine and feminine)
- A person who identifies as “asexual” (space between non-masculine and non-feminine)
Try it for yourself: Download the worksheet here. Using ChatGPT? Try this prompt:
I’m creating a semiotic square about [topic]. I’ll be exploring [x, y, z]. List one tensions. Then, tell me their corresponding contradictions to the two elements in that tension. Try labelling the quadrants in between and tell me who I could interview that would be able to speak to these spaces.
Power Dynamics
An important role of journalism is of course to hold power to account. Yet, the power dynamics at play in many situations are not always obvious. Being capable of identifying power dynamics gives the journalist important insight into whom they should be interviewing.
How it works
Ethnographers have several methods for identifying power dynamics. Here are a few questions ethnographers ask:
- Who is the mover, the follower, the opposer, and the bystander?1
- What are people afraid of?
- What’s at stake?
- Who wins? Who loses?
Keep in mind:
Authority = accountability. When you have authority you also have accountability. However; the same is not true for expertise. Expertise does not equate to accountability (authority vs. expertise). So if an “authority” is declining your interview requests (for fear of accountability); try reaching out to an “expert.”
Lastly, when looking at power it may eventually bring you out of scope of your article; but, if you can unlock that and engage in this level of questioning/research, then you may find the missing piece of the puzzle.
Key Informant
Ethnographers often meet with a key informant many times during their field research. This person helps ethnographers gain trust in a community (more on gaining trust here) and acts as a “base camp” of sources. From this conlutant, you can get warm intros to more sources and, after completing other interviews, ask for clarification on topics or ask for suggestions for where you can dig deeper.
A key informant for a journalist may be someone who will speak “on background” and should be someone with whom you have cultivated a relationship. They may start as someone you interviewed before (perhaps for another story) and should be embedded in the community you’re reporting about.
How it works
Once you locate a key informant (try using the methods listed above); they become a resource for other sources. The key to making the most of a key informant is to return to them, as many times as your deadline will allow. Do a few interviews and then run some of your answers by them. What do they think is missing? What p.o.v. would clarify what you’re hearing? What p.o.v. might still be omitted? Who else could speak on questions coming out of your interviews?
When choosing a key informant, you of course want someone who has been in that culture’s scene a long time; but ethnographers are also cautious to find someone who is still in the scene; because leaving it and then reflecting on it often changes a point of view. For example, it could be a cultural scene they have rejected (e.x.: Reporting on homelessness, consider the different points of view between someone who is experiencing homelessness; someone who lives in a shelter; a social worker who helps people at risk of homelessness; and someone who was once homeless)3.
The anthropologist George Marcus talked about “para-ethnography”2, noting how a lot of people have roles and describe the social world in ways similar to how ethnographers do their job (they are the para-ethnographers). It seems like those people and roles exist for journalists in a community too: people who approach their community life like para-journalists. Finding those people could be valuable to journalists. This is similar to the ethnographic tradition of locating a “key informant” who can help guide you. These sources become not just news “sources”; but co-producers—a more valuable role, and one that helps to foster community trust (more on gaining and maintaining trust here).
Further Reading
- Kantor’s Four Players.
- Holmes, Douglas R. and George E. Marcus 2008. “Collaboration Today and the Re-Imagination of the Classic Scene of Fieldwork Encounter.” Collaborative Anthropologies.
- “Sometimes leaving a cultural scene involves a major change in perspective. An informant not currently involved may greatly distort that former culture,” says James Spradley in his book The Ethnographic Interview (see p49 for his examples).