Collecting & Analysing My Data

So, over the past few weeks I've interviewed a variety of DJs and several different career levels (Novice, Mid-Level, Experienced & Retired/Non Active).

The questions I asked were set around helping me gain an understanding of the following from a range of perspectives;

• How DJs learnt the craft of DJing.
• How they expand their music knowledge and keep updated on trends.
• What they think about new technology like streaming.
• Do they discuss and network with other DJs and how do they do this?
• Are these DJs more experienced or a variety?
• What equipment are these using modern technology like controllers or older systems like CDJs?
• Is there anything in the industry that is annoying to them?

On interviewing them I recorded there responses in writing categorising them with a letter i.e. N1 for Novice number 1 to up keep with data protection.

Once I had conducted all the interviews I had to analyse it so each time a key term was brought up i.e I learnt using social media I would write it on a sticky note and place it on the wall then if another person mentioned a similar thing I would stack it above. But if a new idea was mentioned it would get it's own stack.

The idea being that each question would eventually present me with a visual understanding of what the majority were saying in the relation the the questions and it would look like a bar chart style object.

Like this...

This has been useful as it has helped me to understand key topics for example social media sites like Youtube are a big contribution to how people learnt/are learning the craft of DJing and social media also is key in communities of practise and this is the main way people told me they network with other practitioners.

I also found that in these communities it was a common trend that practitioners discussed a variety of topics and these discussions took place with with a mixture of practitioners at different levels of ability.

On the technology side of things I found that the main trend showed me even more experienced practitioners now had chosen to use newer technology i.e controllers but the majority didn't trust streaming services in the industry due to fear of internet reliability issues.

and lastly to keep up to date with any music trends etc it was a close call between the use of DJ subscription services and using the Top 40 for reference.

I feel this is a useful foundation of data to have for my enquiry as I can now see technology does play a key role in terms of both induction (learning the craft by watching videos online) and discussions within communities (social media) but also in terms of the physical equipment DJs now choose to use. Armed with this data I know feel more confident going into my inquiry.