Co-authorization, not co-authorship: The adventures of transcript in the digital age

Abstract

The author puts to use the challenge of social knowledge`s digitalization in order to discover gaps and unrefected areas in qualitative research techniques and theories. The focus is on feedback of the interviewee to interview transcripts before this data is put into an open electronic archive. The article reconsiders the idea of an interview transcript as a stable text in the domain of the researcher`s unshared power. Techniques of transcript processing are problematized in relation to the era of digital collaboration. The concept of “co-authorization” is introduced to describe the rights and responsibilities regarding the text, which are shared and digitally distributed between researcher and informant during the preparation of an electronic publication. Co-authorization is considered as both an apparatus and an effect of digital transformation of research activity in social sciences.