There has been widespread concern amongst those working in the American film industry and the unions representing them, regarding the impact of relocating production elsewhere on future employment prospects. Against this background of uncertainty, Keith Randle and Nigel Culkin of the University of Hertfordshire’s Film Industry Research Group were keen to explore film-related employment in the United States and, in particular, to examine the way in which crew entered the industry, found second and subsequent jobs and developed their careers. In particular they were interested to find out what an industry that epitomised freelance work could tell them about the nature of work and management in such an environment. Keith and Nigel chose to adopt a qualitative approach to explore the mechanisms technical crew used to find both their first and subsequent jobs in the film industry. Being located in a UK University they foresaw considerable problems in negotiating access to these people. The film unions could only potentially provide access to the specific group each represented (for example wardrobe, grips, camera, hair, and make-up). Surfing the Internet, the researchers discovered several databases of film crew. These were promoted as being of mutual benefit to both employers and potential employees. For a fee individuals could advertise themselves on a database, which those wishing to employ crew could search. The amount of information available on these databases was considerable. Film crew provided details of their education and training, previous experience and, what seemed especially surprising for a publicly accessible database, extensive contact details including email addresses and telephone numbers. The research team decided to use a database that held details of some 3,800 crew in around 80 film-related occupations in the Los Angeles area as their sampling frame. Selecting a range of occupations in the film industry they sent 180 email messages, inviting randomly selected individuals in Los Angeles to take part in the research project. The response rate was surprisingly high with around 25% of those contacted agreeing to take part in the study. The researchers were able to plot the home addresses of the respondents on a street directory of Los Angeles and gain a visual impression of the spread. This in turn allowed them to choose a central location to which they could invite respondents for interview. They then sent out a blank interview timetable and asked prospective interviewees to choose a convenient slot.
Question:
What do you consider are the ethical issues raised by this research and how should they have been addressed? 15 marks