Richard Fidler's interview with Ira Glass has a somewhat unique set up as it is one radio interviewer interviewing another radio interviewer - this provided an ease to the entire conversation and helped establish the 'flow' from the start. A sense of shared experience, expectation and background information meant there was a natural connection between Fidler and Glass, interviewer and interviewee.
In order to link in the audience - those listening to this interview, Fidler provided chronological context to many of the questions he asks. He uses phrases such as 'cast your mind back if you can', 'if you remember' - this sets up the radio audience to know Glass is about to recollect something and prompts Fidler to actively remember. Fidler often provided a summary of specific events that he wanted Glass to talk about. This was a helpful technique and aided the flow of the interview as Fidler was not relying on Glass to remember details about when, where, who, what but instead set the questions up so Glass focused more on analysisng and evaluating experiences - providing for a richer conversation with more depth.
There were times when there were moments of silence, which seemed perhaps too long for the radio. But I think Fidler purposely held back at these times as in general Glass kept speaking and adding more to his answers. This again provided depth and richness as Glass was able to answer the questions in a meandering sort of way rather than a clipped way. In contrast to this, when Fidler provided the summaries - which seemed to be pre-planned questions - this put Fidler back in control of the interview and he steered it in a certain direction.
The 'flow' felt very natural throughout this interview - but I think the secret of the 'flow' was an expert interviewer making it seem like you were listening to two friends chat rather than carefully constructed and thought-out interview. A daunting task as we start out on our interview / research journey!!
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