Listening, Looking, Living: Qualitative Research, the Study of Politics and Understanding the World in Which We Live

   Darin H. Van Tassell   is an associate professor in the Center for International Studies and the 
Department of Political Science at Georgia Southern University, having joined the university in the 
fall 1994. Although he is interested in a variety of topics and subject matters, his major academic 
interests focus upon the study of world politics, international relations theory, and the relationships 
between sports and international aff airs. He has published on topics ranging from the practice of 
U.S. foreign policy, contemporary global economic patterns, and the impact of sports on govern
ments, peoples, and globalization process writ large. He received his MA and PhD in International 
Studies from the University of South Carolina, and was awarded his BA in Political Science from 
Georgia Southern College. He has traveled and lived in Nicaragua, Spain, Costa Rica, China, Taiwan, 
Estonia, Russia, Lithuania, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Israel, the West Bank, Switzerland, Canada, 
Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Greece, Aruba, and Curacao. Van Tassell has been 
honored on numerous occasions for his work with students in the classroom. He was a recipient 
of the 2005–2006 Wells-Warren Professor of the Year at Georgia Southern University. In 2004, he 
was awarded a Governor’s Teaching Fellow for the Summer Symposium of the Governor’s Teaching 
Fellows Program, and he was Georgia Southern’s nominee for the University System of Georgia’s 
Teaching Excellence Award in 2002. In addition, Van Tassell was named Outstanding Student 
Mentor in 2003 by the Georgia Southern Circle of the Omicron Delta Kappa National Honor Society, 
and he was recognized as the University’s Teacher of the Year in 1999 by Alpha Omicron Pi. 
In addition to his work in academia, Van Tassell is an active member of the international 
sports community. He served as the Competition Director for the 2008 Olympic Games held in 
Beijing, China. He also served as the Technical Commissioner for 2009 Baseball World Classic 
in Los Angeles, California and the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, the same position 
he occupied at the 30th Intercontinental Cup in Taiwan in 2006 and at the XXXV World Cup in 
Havana, Cuba in 2003. In 1996 he became the youngest head coach in Olympic history, when 
he served as head coach for the Nicaraguan Olympic Baseball Team at the Olympic Games in 
Atlanta, Georgia, leading the team to the Bronze Medal game against the United States. From 
1994 to 1999, he was the assistant baseball coach at Georgia Southern, where he played for the 
Eagles from 1985 to 1989. In September 2007, he served as the Tournament Director for the 
European Championships and Olympic Qualifi er, held in Barcelona, Spain. He was inducted into 
the Athletic Hall of Fame at his alma mater in 2006.

Patrick J. Novotny   is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Georgia Southern 
University, having joined the university’s faculty in the fall of 1995. While completing extensive 
qualitative fi eldwork across the United States for his doctoral dissertation at the University of 
Wisconsin-Madison, he experienced fi rsthand many of the experiences of qualitative research 
described in this book. Publishing his early work from his qualitative fi eldwork on the environ
mental justice movement and the environmental activism of low-income and working class 
whites, African-Americans, Latinos, and others, Novotny’s work increasingly focused on the study 
of American political life and the dynamics of institutions as shaped by external forces, not only 
in political movements, but also in the realm of the arts, culture, and especially the media. He 
has published and researched on the history and the contemporary dynamics of advertising, 
the commercial media, and the Internet and World Wide Web in campaigning and elections in 
American politics, and his work continues in these areas currently with his completion of a book
length manuscript on the history of the media in American politics, from the newspapers of the 
colonial era to the radio and television broadcasting of the twentieth century, and the digital 
communications and media of the Internet and the World Wide Web today. Novotny’s scholarly 
work also includes his research on the history and dynamics of mid-twentieth century elections 
in Georgia, the early history of commercial television broadcasting in the state, and especially the 
early history of the twentieth century civil rights movement in Georgia, research published in sev
eral works, including essays in  The Georgia Historical Quarterly  and in his 2007 book,  This Georgia 
Rising: Education, Civil Rights, and the Politics of Change in Georgia in the 1940s  (Mercer University 
Press). Among the numerous scholarly projects under way, including this work on qualitative 
research methods and his book manuscript on the history of the media in American politics, are 
projects studying the role of music in American political life and the role of the media in cam
paigns for elective offi  ce in the early twenty-fi rst century. Novotny was recognized for commit
ment to his students in the classroom as the recipient of the 2004–2005 Wells-Warren Professor of 
the Year award.