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Foreman-Wernet and Dervin
Lois Foreman-Wernet and Brenda Dervin have
long been using qualitative methods to study how
people experience various form culture events
(2013, 71). Using the Sense-Making Methodology
that Dervin has developed over 40 years of research
in the field of Communication Studies, the authors
seek to ‘break through surface-level responses’ and
‘delve more deeply into the interpretive process’
of arts audiences (2013, 79). In this, their project
resembles the work of Radbourne et al.
L Foreman-Wernet and B Dervin, 2013, ‘In the
Context of Their Lives: How Audience Members
Make Sense of Performing Arts Experiences’,
in The Audience Experience: A critical analysis
of audiences in the performing arts, edited by
J Radbourne, H Glow and K Johanson, Bristol,
UK and Chicago, USA: Intellect, 67-82.
According to Foreman-Wernet and Dervin, the responses that audience members
usually give are limited to ‘pictures of stereotypic and habitual behaviour’ that fail
to reveal ‘the narratives, hopes and dreams, challenges and struggles that make
up the core of human experiencing and are so central to human appreciation of
art’ (2013, 71). Dervin’s Sense-Making Methodology (SMM) assumes that it is
inherent in the human condition that we are forced to move through a world that
is chaotic and open to multiple, changing and conflicting interpretations. Within
this world ‘humans are always mandated to “make sense”—that is take the next
step cognitively, emotionally, physically, spiritually—in the absence of complete
instruction’ (2013, 70). ‘Sense-making’ in Dervin’s usage is thus not limited to
cognitive interpretation; it includes a the full range of responses that make up
human experience, which connects Foreman-Wernet and Dervin’s work with the
notions of intrinsic impact and cultural value.
Whether it is used in the context of arts experiences or in other communicative
encounters, SMM always draws upon the same set of open-ended questions to
coax out candid responses from research participants in self-interviews, such as:
• What conclusions, thoughts, insights did you come to
• What confusions, questions did you experience
• What emotions, feelings did you have
• How did this relate to your past experience (2013, 71)
In order to evaluate the qualitative responses that are elicited through this
method, the researchers have identified ‘a number of themes of patterned
responses to individual encounters with the arts,’ based on their analysis of interviews
collected over the course of 20 years of research (2013, 71). In the 2013
study, these themes—elsewhere referred to as ‘categor[ies] of impact’ (2011, 29)—
Measuring Individual Impact: Post-Event Surveying 78
UNDERSTANDING the value and impacts of cultural experiences