3.7 Conceptualisation
3.7.8 Perspectives from sources
With reference to the Standpoint Theory and the works of Freire (1970), this research was interested in uncovering which sources were consulted to construct the online reports on ‘queercide’. This interest was provoked as the answers would set the tone for the narrative of the report as it was presented to the audiences as a frame. The significance of these perspectives was not scrutinised, but merely highlighted as this research explored the ideological trends that could be observed within the parameters of the accessible population and the scope of this research. The two source perspectives refered to are the
‘objective epistemic perspective’ and the ‘subjective epistemic perspective’. The former perspective
109 was adapted from Freire’s (1970) work and refers to the objective epistemic privilege of sources as it contributes to the process of emancipation of oppressed groups. Here Freire (1970) describes how solutions, discourses and activities surrounding issues of oppression have origins and drive from those who occupy power positions and who, by being oppressors, remain complicit to the enforcement of power structures. Philanthropy and sympathy, in this approach, are negligible. Moreover, they have little effect and will fail to be transformative.
For example, if a medical practitioner who treated a lesbian victim of a homophobic attack that later succumbed to her injuries were interviewed for details surrounding the event, he/she would have an objective view of the situation. This doctor is neither a victim nor the perpetrator and can only offer an expert contribution to a portion of the event that occurred. Such ‘participants’, according to Freire (1970), lack the ability to evoke truth as to what the victim experienced, resulting in a context where emancipation could occur. According to the assumptions of the Standpoint Theory (Allen, 2017), only the victim and the people who become victims as a result of the event will be able to contribute to real, lived experiences of the victim, as knowledge is socially constructed and only such victims would be in a unique position to elicit understanding of the event. In this example, transcripts from the victim before she died would have provided the reporter of the event with a subjective epistemic position to view and conceptualise ‘queercide’.
The Queer Theory also supports Freire’s (1970) ideas as it explains how the oppressed have a subjective epistemic privilege – from which the subjective epistemic perspective in this research is adapted – to emancipate themselves. Thus the ‘true’ revolution can only be led by the singular vision of a marginalised group (Hartsock, 1998; Smith, 2005; Sicetsha, 2018). To address the research objectives, it was of significance to investigate the perspective of the consulted sources (in the cases where sources were consulted) to establish which ideological approaches were used by the online reporters on
‘queercide’. This would contribute to addressing the academic lacuna that exists concerning the inclusion of marginalised groups in writing about LGBTIQ issues online.
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4 CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY
“Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.”
- Michel Foucault - (Foucault, 1976: 93)
In the rigorous exploration of online texts on ‘queercide’ to uncover significant aspects in its technical and ideological frames and the return it holds for how online reporters produce works of journalistic value, the literature that was interrogated and the theoretical framework that was employed informed the paradigm and design of the research. Also, for the format and execution of this chapter, Susanne M.
Almgren and Tobias Olsson’s (2016) article Commenting, sharing and tweeting news: Measuring online news participation, functioned as a point of reference for the topic of this research. The latter article was also a progressive contribution to this methodology chapter in terms of format and presentation. The major findings elicited from the literature review prompted renewed interest in the news values of online writing and its ability for ‘continuum thinking’ (Boyle, 2018) to unsettle binary thinking about lesbian experiences in South Africa. The findings also guided this research towards exploring technical descriptions for online reports such as word count. The question was posed whether the existence of non-secularist ideologies in reporting on contentious issues remained as this could lead to moral panic. The contributions of the Framing and Representation Theory are also iterated with particular reference to the work of Shefeule (1999), who describes how journalists present audiences with news through a process of input (from socio-cultural environments), throughput (by assigning descriptions, monikers and composition to their texts), and outputs (by reinforcing, often conservative, beliefs). Other findings from the Literature Review chapter that are foregrounded are those of Jewkes (2015) and Grundlingh (2017) who highlight that the accuracy and headlines of online reports attract reader attention and are either used to create salience or disengage readers through a lack of attention to detail and generic captioning. To contextualise the violence perpetrated against lesbians, the works of Msibi (2011), Theo (2017) and Mthembu (2018) necessitated the inclusion of the Standpoint and Queer perspectives to properly understand this investigation into an LGBTIQ issue (that is, the murder of lesbians), while Milani’s (2015) and Lotter’s (2018) works also facilitated understanding of the term
‘queercide’ which refers to the phenomenon of males targeting and murdering lesbians.
The main assumptions of this study that needed to be investigated were derived from the Framing and Representation Theory which principles the elements of salience and selection that were analysed by means of five frames as proposed by Entman (1991). Moreover, the typography of photographs used in online reports was also interrogated, as proposed by Batziou (2011). For Newsworthiness, as the principle progenitor, the news value (that is, the meaningfulness, conflict and reference to elite persons)
111 as proposed by Galtung and Ruge (1965) of each of the selected online articles was also critically evaluated. These evaluations included contemporary contributions by Jewkes (2004) (sex and conservative ideologies) as well as Collins and James (2011) (violence). In the application of the Queer Theory, which is referred to by De Lauretis (1991) as a disruption to gay and lesbian studies, an exploration of what was being said about the victims, who did the talking, and what was natural and what was naturalised had to be conducted. Here, the works of Foucault (1976) and Butler (1993) assisted in framing the data to elucidate findings that partly addressed the research problem. Finally, the application of the Standpoint Theory, as utilised by Jaggar (2016) to investigate non-secularism in setting the agenda and judgements as a result for LGBTIQ issues, illuminated online reporting on
‘queercide’ from a subjective epistemic vantage point – thus, were lesbians, or those with a vested interest, consulted in the execution of these reports? The discussions in this research are grounded in Freire’s (1965) work on emancipatory conscientisation which, he argues, occurs only through the active engagement of standpoints from the oppressed. The questions that were elicited from the results of the consulted studies as well as the critical analysis of the theories proposed some further key questions regarding the homogenous vision on what the structural components of a quality online report would be, which frames online writers wold use to report on ‘queercide’, and what significance those frames would have for online reporting on LGBTIQ issues.