To properly investigate the research problem, it was necessary to identify which artefact was most valuable in producing significant data. Describing these artefacts is necessary to contextualise their value as they were done through descriptions of the population, target population, population parameters, accessible population, sample, and unit of analysis (Du Plooy-Cilliers et al., 2014).
4.2.1 Population
A cursory overview of murdered lesbians can be found on the weblog inmemoriamlesbian.blogspot.com, where there are over 200 names and stories of lesbians who were attacked and killed. Therefore, the population includes all lesbians who have been killed because of their sexual orientation. As a population parameter, this becomes problematic as there is no South African recording body, and therefore no available statistics, nor proof of motivation for all lesbian murder cases. These online reports appear on online news outlet sites, blogs as well as advocacy- and special interest group sites. This then excludes online journals (such as the African Human Rights Law Journal (AHRLJ) which publishes journal articles, for example “Realisation or oversight of a constitutional mandate? Corrective rape of black African lesbians in South Africa” written by Lea Mwambene (2015). To be included in the study, the online report needed to appear in English (including those translated from Afrikaans and Zulu). It also excludes press releases, online chapters in books, and advertisements placed as well as any other multimedia, interactive or hypertextual elements, as well as any article where the reader has to pay for accessing it. There is no geographic location more specific than the country of South Africa as all selected artefacts appear online. One of the population parameters include temporal parameters, where the online reports were published from the date of the murder (case studies of four victims) up until the date where the suspect(s) first appeared in court. The eight initial case studies generating online reports from the date of killing up until the first appearance of an accused in court, included those of Unathi Bix (shot dead in 2017), Noxolo Xakeka (stabbed to death 2018), Noxolo Klaas (stabbed to death in 2018), Noluvo “Vovo” Swelindawo (kidnapped and shot to death in 2016), Anisha and Joey van Niekerk (kidnapped, tortured and strangled in 2017), Nonkie Smous (raped and murdered in 2017), Lerato Tambai Moloi (stoned to death in 2017), and Eudy Simelane (raped and murdered in 2008). After considering the different, but compatible perspectives to be specific, four crimes from five different victim types as well as different online sources are selected. The questions
119 are: what elements are fixed, and which are moving (syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes (in language), but the idea applies to looking at, for example, one crime (syntagma) from different media (paradigm))?
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic axis shifts of these cases assists in the selection of four case studies which are diverse enough from one another according to the population characteristics (which also considers race, single-or-couple dynamic as well as reference to elite persons). Through this reconsideration, Noxolo Xakeka, Noluvo Swelindawo, Joey and Anisha van Niekerk and Eudy Simelane as case studies were selected. The research was done in a cross-sectional timeline as all four case studies’ online reports were selected and downloaded on the 16th of March 2019 to establish a baseline.
A timeline is constructed for each case study. For example, in the case of Joey and Anisha van Niekerk who disappeared on 10 December 2017 (and killed somewhere between 10 and 16 December 2017), their suspected murderers’ first collective appearance in court occurred on 15 January 2018. Within this time period, 34 online reports appeared in the “News” section of a Google search. Even though the proposed research clearly identifies the names of the victims, it does not pose a problematic ethical conundrum as the names as well as the details of their murder are part of the public domain already.
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120 Figure 2: A timeline of events constructed on the Joey and Anisha van Niekerk ‘queercide’ case
121 4.2.2 Sampling
There were two sets of sampling. Through non-probability sampling, four case studies were selected for their diversity and online reports from each case (from ‘date of killing’ until ‘date the accused appears in court’) are selected. Thereafter, the quantitative data will be collected from these online reports and compared to the same data collected from two “good” online reports to develop a Venn- diagram, which was used to create a similarity-criteria as standardisation to sample four articles from each case study (thus 16 in total). Because the researcher described particular population parameters with dedicated selection criteria in both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the research, non- probability sampling was used with a purposive sampling method, initially in selecting the online reports for quantitative investigation, and through quota sampling to select four online reports for each case study for the qualitative section of the research.
The four case studies selected, include Noxolo Xakeka, where the search results from Google News yielded a corpus of 370 online reports. Xakeka was killed on 1 January 2018 and the suspected killer, Bongile Joni, appeared in court on 2 July 2018. Introducing this timeline to the corpus resulted in 11 online reports. Noluvo “Vovo” Swelindawo, where the search results from Google News yielded a corpus of 273 online reports, was killed on 4 December 2016 by suspected murderer Sigcine Mdani.
Mdani’s trial started on 21 November 2017 (which is the first indication of his court appearance). By introducing this timeline to the corpus, 15 online reports were identified and downloaded. The couple Joey and Anisha van Niekerk were killed between 10 – 16 December 2017 by suspected murderers Aaron Sithole (23), Alex Mudau (36), Moses Rakubu (33), Koos Strydom (53), Vincent Strydom (29), Maruschka Opperman (18), Mercia Witney Van Rooi (21) and Jack Mokotedi (18). A Google News search yield a corpus of 238 online reports. When the collective trial date for the suspected murderers, that is 25 May 2018, was considered, 34 online reports were identified and downloaded. As the fourth and final case study selected, ex-Banyana Banyana soccer player Eudy Simelane, was killed by “four men” on 28 April 2008. A Google News search yielded a corpus of 10 800 online reports. If a time limit set by the date of killing to the date where the suspects of the crime collectively appear in court, which, for the four men suspected of killing Simelane, is 11 February 2009, is introduced, 10 online reports are identified. In total, for the quantitative portion of the research, the accessible population is a total of 70 online reports on ‘queercide’ of four case studies. If the research included all the online reports found on the LGBTIQ issue of ‘queercide’, the number would be exorbitant (11 681 online reports of only the four case studies alone) and would become problematic to code and analyse, but also unnecessary for the purpose of this research as the intention is to explore trends in the ideological frames used to report on ‘queercide’ and not to be inferential. Through the selection of these 70 online reports, the themes proposed in the Background chapter of Gender Based Violence (GBV) and femicide, the killing of lesbians and ‘queercide’, hate crimes and quality online reporting can be critically explored.
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From the 70 online reports selected in the quantitative portion of the research, it is calculated that the common number of online reports that can be divided into the total number of each case study, is four online reports for the qualitative portion of the research. There is no number multiplication where any of the four case study online reports intersect with one another to construct a sample formula. However, a Venn-diagram can be used to identify similar, standardised aspects of the online reports of the four case studies as well as those found in the “good” online reports to create a selection criterion which can be used to select the four online reports per case study. Four online reports for each case study was selected based on the case study with the lowest number of online reports, Eudy Simelane (10), where the results from the Venn-diagram (similarities) will be applied to each unit of analysis and to select at least four of the 10 online reports which meet the criteria. Therefore, four online reports from all the case studies’ online reports which meet the Venn-diagram (similarities) criteria will be selected through simple random sampling.