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Methodology

Elite interviewing

The book Scientific Elite provides valuable indications on elite interviewing. Specifically, the book includes an appendix (“Appendix A: Interviewing an Ultra-Elite”) that explores this topic. The Appendix A was originally published in a slightly different form at The Public Opinion Quarterly. The work of Harriet Zuckerman on elite interviewing is based in the seminal work of Robert K. Merton published in The Focused Interview, an unique and incredible book that every sociologist should know.

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Epistemological vigilance and sampling

Opting in a thoughtless way to attract participants for a study by the contacts we have in the social networks is a very bad sampling strategy that we can pay dearly. So dearly that it may invalidate the reliability and representativeness of the results. To opt for this strategy would be analogous to perform a snowball sampling when, on the contrary, the required strategy would be a random sampling.

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