We all know that the interview is a standard way for academic researchers to gather data, especially in the social sciences. This approach is used by psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, educators (mostly for testing purposes), historians, and by that quaint group of linguists who hold that naturally occurring language is a pretty good source for us to learn about the way people talk. Even police departments interview suspects, although hardly for academic purposes. In this age of handbooks on virtually every topic you can think of, Sage has published still one more, a tome called The Handbook of Interview Research (okay, I admit it, I have a chapter in it). And, of course, we also watch interviews all the time on television and read them in magazines and newspapers. But who would have guessed that the little old, researchy, harmless interview would ever make it as a prime-time television program?
Never fear, a brand new program called OCI, which stands for On Campus Interview, is said to begin airing soon on your local television station. It's alleged to be one of those reality-based shows in which sexy looking (hey, this is television) representatives of law firms jet around the country interviewing prospective law school grads for positions in top law firms, allegedly trying to find out whether they'll be a good fit for those companies. Gives us a chance to see a variety of law school types, from nerds to slick super-salespersons, if you're interested in that sort of thing. I haven't seen the program, of course, but it sounds a little like a Donald Trump take-off, doesn't it?
Okay, so the article is a put-on. But in the current television climate, it's possible that a show like this COULD happen, coudn't it?
Posted by Roger Shuy at September 19, 2007 06:10 PM