Sampling protocol

It was planned to recruit participants through personal referrals, word-of- mouth, snowball sampling, or by advertising in local media such as newspapers, magazines, or on social media websites. A number of strategies were specified in the proposal as I was initially concerned there might be difficulty in recruiting participants, especially in the proposed ethnographic ‘part two’ of the study. However, the evolution of the study design (described above) seemed to assist greatly in making participation seem very desirable.

Ultimately, the primary recruitment tool was an advertisement (see Appendix 2) which was posted on the social networking site, Facebook. Particular care was taken in the design of this advertisement, as I wished to avoid indirectly influencing participants’ conceptions about what I meant by ‘romance’. Green was chosen for the background colour as a gender-neutral colour that would not jar with the text of the advertisement. The image selected was a silhouette, to ensure that no particular racial group would be suggested. The image is obviously heterosexual, which reflected the desired sample frame. The couple in the image make reference to romance (in that they are forming a heart shape with their arms), but in a way which does not suggest a particular conception of what romance should ‘look like’. This was consciously done in order to try to avoid priming participants about what I was ‘looking for’ them to do on the romantic events they would plan. This was reinforced in the text of the advert. The text outlined the criteria for participation and gave an idea of what would be required from participants. As participation required a substantial investment from participants (in terms of time, effort, and initial financial outlay), as much

86 information was provided at the outset as possible to ensure participants were prepared for what participation would entail.

This advertisement was piloted by emailing it to postgraduates in psychology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg. The goal of piloting the advertisement was to ensure that the advert did not evoke/prime particular versions of romance, and the responses from the pilot study confirmed that the design of the advert itself did not

position romance in any particular way. However, while the pilot members said their impression was that many forms of romance could be seen as valid in the study, some predicted that a dinner would be the most likely form that the research event might take. This feedback was duly noted and the advert was used as piloted.

I shared this advertisement on my personal Facebook page, and asked my Facebook contacts to share the advert to their walls, which extended exposure to the advert to friends-of-friends and therefore beyond my immediate social contacts. Potential participants were instructed not to respond on Facebook but rather to email me directly in order to protect their confidentiality. Since the initial circle of people with whom the advert was shared were my known associates, this dissemination method did not reach a random sample of the population. However, one of the initial respondents reported to me that the advert had been downloaded from Facebook and circulated via email as well, thus

extending the reach of the advertisement beyond my immediate social network. This may have helped in a small way towards decreasing the bias inherent in this mode of

recruitment.

Couples 1, 2 and 3 were recruited through this advertisement. Couple 4 was recruited through a personal referral by a mutual connection. There was also some use of snowball sampling, in that Couple 2 referred Couple 5 for participation. Snowball sampling uses existing participants to connect further possible participants with the researcher (cf. Miles & Huberman, 1994). This method of recruitment meant that none of my direct or first level contacts were recruited for the study – all participants were separated from myself by at least one degree of separation.

87 Regardless of the channel of recruitment, the next steps in the process were the same. Participants contacted me using an email address created for the study. I

confirmed with them at that point that they met the requirements for the study in terms of relationship status, age and employment status. Participants were then sent more

information about the study, using an adapted version of the consent form (see Appendix 3) and were invited to ask for any additional clarifying information. If they were happy with this information, participants were invited to meet with me to go through this information in person. During this meeting, the consent form (including the procedure, what would be required from them and their rights as participants; see Appendix 4) was discussed with participants in full detail, and they were given the opportunity to ask questions. To reduce the possibility of dropout, in the contact meeting the time costs were carefully and

thoroughly explained to participants so they were fully informed before committing. There were no issues with drop out once participants had met with and consented to take part in the study. The participants then signed the consent form, and set up a time and date for participation in the study.

Initially nineteen couples responded to the advertisement and requested further information. All of these couples met the stipulated requirements. Of these nineteen couples, one couple was mixed race (white man, Indian woman) and the rest of the respondents were racially homogenous (fifteen white South African couples and four Indian South African couples). No coloured or black South African couples responded to the initial advert. Only five couples responded to the information sent to them and arranged to meet with the researcher to give formal written consent to participate. One of these couples was the mixed race couple, the other four were white South African couples.

Silverman’s (2013) strategy of sampling to saturation was followed. The sampling strategy aimed to recruit between three to eight couples, undertaking analysis during data collection and stopping recruitment once data saturation had been achieved (Silverman, 2013). Once all five couples had been interviewed it was found that no new themes or discourses seemed to be coming up in the interviews and so it was decided that the five couples (ten participants in total) were sufficient for the purposes of this study.

88 The study design (described below) involved multiple interviews across several contexts, both individually and in couples. Therefore, while in this study the sample size may ‘only’ be 5 couples/10 individuals, there were 25 interviews with over 22 hours of interview data, which yielded a large volume of data for analysis. The depth and breadth of interviews with this small group of participants, including in their own homes as they prepared for a date, makes the method closer to a discursive ethnography than a standard cross-sectional interview study. This is further supported through the length of time in which participants were involved in the study, namely one initial meeting, two individual interviews each (four in total) and one couple interview. Participants thus interacted with me over the course of several weeks as we arranged and participated in these meetings. In total, data was collected over the course of May to December 2013.

Furthermore, discourse analysis focuses on the use to which data is put, rather than the attitudes or experiences of individuals, it is sampling discourses and

practices rather than individuals. Therefore, a small sample size can yield a sufficiently large number of “linguistic patterns” to provide convincing answers to the research questions (Potter & Wetherell, 1987, p. 161).

While originally it had been hoped to recruit a racially diverse sample, to reflect the racial diversity of South Africa, it was found that mostly white participants volunteered to take part in the study (nine of ten participants). This most likely is due to the use of the researcher’s social networks to recruit participants, which inevitably introduces bias into the sample and makes it non-generalizable. While this severely limits the

extrapolations that can be made from this study, on reflection it was decided that a more homogenous sample means one can say more about one particular group, thus increasing the depth of the analysis (as opposed to the breadth). However, this is recognised as a limitation of the study and it is recommended that future research should investigate the gendered identity productions of other South African race groups.

89 3.3.2.1. Limitations of the sampling protocol

As this is a qualitative study and sampling was purposive rather than random, results are not be generalizable in the quantitative sense. However, through the methods described above and by analysing discourses drawn on by the participants, it can be argued that this study has been able to access broader discursive repertoires, which increases the transferability of the analysis beyond its relatively small sample size. Another limitation of the study is that it includes only heterosexual men and women. Including a comparative sample of homosexual men and/or women would have increased the depth of the analysis, however, in order to keep the proposed study manageable – and in line with the aim of exploring the role of romance in heteronormative gender identity – it was decided to limit the sample to heterosexuals.

Additionally, the nature of the sampling method also creates limitations in terms of applicability to race and class. This study is not representative of broader South Africans, but rather only to middle class, white South Africans. Future studies should investigate being-romantic in other contexts.