U. Frames used,
4.6 Research ethics
Embedding this study in ethical practices was important as the fundamental blueprint of how the research was to be performed was paramount in giving direction to how the research would proceed in order to collect data and present findings that would not only be accurate in addressing the research problem but would also withstand academic scrutiny. Therefore, the findings ultimately have to adhere to the highest scientific standards. The more technical and specific ethical proclamations are included in a separate Trustworthiness, Validity and Reliability section where the discourse addresses those obstacles that might have influenced the research. Suffice it to say that a full ethical protocol certificate (reference no. HSS/0368/019D) was attached by the UKZN Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee to the approved research proposal, which addressed the fundamental methodology of
148 the research as so far described in this thesis. The research laboured to uphold all ethical guidelines proposed by the University and adhered rigorously to the Code of Conduct of this institution.
The research process followed the standard ethical procedures as prescribed in the research code of the University (UKZN Research Policy V: Research Ethics) (UKZN, 2007). The policy provides guidelines for the pursuit of truth and knowledge and insists on research that is honest, uses methods that are safe and responsible, and delivers information that is fair and equal to all participants (if relevant). The policy also describes the duty of the researcher to conduct him/herself with honesty and integrity by declaring conflicts of interest, not falsifying data, not committing plagiarism, not fabricating any aspects of the research findings, not misusing funds, or avoiding any other practice that might undermine the integrity of the research and may bring the University into disrepute.
The idea of beneficence in research ethics is one necessitating discussion as it relates to the research.
Beneficence, according to Michael Aiello (2015), stresses that the researcher must have the welfare of the research participant as a goal of the research study. In other words, it should benefit rather than harm the individual. Each of the case studies made mention of both the victim(s) and the accused. Often, the online reports and the data they provided also included the names of family members, friends and investigating officers, which revealed personal information about them that could be used for devious intentions. However, this information was already public record and thus part of the public domain.
However, no additional information other than what was presented in the online reports was used in this research.
It was envisaged that the research outcomes would benefit the LGBTIQ community, especially lesbians, journalists, and other authorities that might gain useful information from the findings.
An issue that needed to be considered was that the size of the population was too voluminous to ensure an accurate mechanistic procedure for the selection, coding and tabulation of the data, and thus a very specific subset of parameters had to be developed to funnel the large number of online reports to an accessible population that would elicit significant data to address the objectives of the research. Another limitation was that the thesis was conducted cross-sectionally, where a longitudinal investigation might have been better to ensure the generalisability of the findings to a wider population. Such an investigation would also have replaced trends by more confirmable patterns in terms of how online reporters deal with LGBTIQ issues. This issue was dealt with by specifying the limitations of the study to contextualise how the findings might be applied to the research problem in order to answer those research questions. The repository nature of the Internet in storing data addressed this limitation to an extent, as I was able to include all online reports that had been produced (written) at different time junctures at one point and the study was therefore not disadvantaged by engaging in a lengthy inquiry.
149 The methodology of the research provides important insights into how the research was conducted in the way that it gathers data and subsequently processed that data. These elements are discussed in the conceptual design section where the critical relativist paradigm anchors the relevant design aspects, such as mixed methodology, explorative, inductive reasoning, and cross-sectional time dimension of the research. These aspects are described along with the aspects surrounding the social artefact, namely online reports on ‘queercide’ of four case studies. An in-depth description of the pilot study to address erroneous elements of the data collection instrument (that is, the qualitative coding sheet) as well as the ethical philosophy regarding the methods used in the research conclude the chapter, which is a fundamental part of collecting the actual data. A coding sheet is used to collect relevant data because the online reports do not necessarily present a discourse more indicative of social media, therefore this is a more reliable choice of instrument to collect the necessary data to address the research questions.
150 5 CHAPTER FIVE: DATA COLLECTION, DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
“…being a woman is not a natural fact. The difference in status [of a woman] or [the] exploitation and oppression which women are subjected to is a pretext around which the feminine condition is built,
but it is not what determines this condition. It is immemorial.”
- Simone de Beauvoir – (ThinkingAloud7189, 2015)
The aim of the research was to explore how online reporters reported on the LGBTIQ issue of
‘queercide’ and which technical elements as well as ideological frameworks they used that had the potential to influence how audiences, particularly online audiences, could be impacted to perceive phenomena (Altheide, 1997). In this process the research also attempted to determine whether these reports provided insights into critical, reputable, quality online journalism. In the Methodology chapter, the research approach was explained, and it was stated that it would be based on secondary sources of information in the form of online reports on four case studies of ‘queercide’. The research explained how these reports had been selected and how the data, by using a separate quantitative and qualitative thematic coding sheet, had been retrieved, analysed and used to address the research objectives and achieve the aim of the study. In this chapter, the coded data will be presented in sections of scale.
First, quantitative data were captured in table format for each case study to reflect the data retrieved from 70 online reports as well as the two ‘good’ online reports, as described by Jaffer (2017) and Somdyala (2019). To standardise the data presented in these tables, percentages were calculated and tabulated for each case study. The same was done for the ‘good’ online reports as the data were also calculated as percentages that could be compared with those generated for the ‘queercide’ reports. These tables, representing the various quantitative frames, were used to develop a line graph to show trends in how online reports on ‘queercide’ differed from those that were considered ‘good’ in order to gauge in what ways these reports were similar and different. The similarities between the online reports on
‘queercide’ and the ‘good’ online reports were used as selection criteria to identify four reports from each case study for the quantitative component of the research.
For the second component of the research, qualitative data were generated. The process of creating a table and Pie-chart of these data for each case study was repeated in order to standardise the data. Again, the percentages of each theme and case study were tabulated and a bar graph was created to show the existence or absence of particular trends. These trends were deemed significant in the exploration of the ideological frames used to report on LGBTIQ issues. As each section in this chapter links with the next,
151 a brief summary is provided to highlight the key findings of that section and to explain its relevance for the subsequent segment.
The data collection processes are discussed separately from the data analysis processes and, for clarity, these discussions are then collated to illuminate the connectivity of the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the research. The tables and figures are presented sequentially to expose the gaps in knowledge of how online reporters, technically and ideologically, reported on ‘queercide’ and how these findings would be significant for online journalistic practice. This chapter bridges these gaps by presenting the data in a clear and visible manner, while discussing the findings with reference to the literature that had been explored and to arrive at succinct and reliable outcomes.