Exploring technology-facilitated GBV in online dating experiences among South African youths: Reflexivity on the research methods

Introduction

Conducting this [FIRN] research on technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) in online dating experiences among South African youths has been a deeply introspective process, forcing me to engage critically with questions of power relations, representation and methodological choices. As I navigated the complexities of studying the intersection of technology, intimacy and gender-based violence, I became increasingly aware of my positionality, as well as that of my research team members, as academic researchers and students, the ethical dilemmas inherent in the study and the broader implications of my methodological choices. This reflexive piece is a culmination of my reflexivity thus far as the principal investigator of this project, undertaken in association with research team members consisting of academics in the fields of psychology, sociology, criminology, public health and IT. The team also consists of fieldworkers and research assistants drawn from the project’s selected universities and their campuses.

The motivation behind this study

My interest in this topic was fuelled by three major concerns:

1. The high prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV) in South Africa – a national crisis that has led to repeated government interventions, including the annual 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign.[1]
2. The rapid rise of online dating – a sector projected to generate at least $12.28 million within South Africa’s economy in 2024 .[2]
3. The significant presence of youth on online dating platforms – particularly youth within university spaces, where both experimentation in relationships and power imbalances often create an environment ripe for potential abuse.[3]

Despite these realities, research exploring TFGBV within the South African context has been limited, particularly in relation to how online dating platforms, and by extension social media platforms, contribute to vulnerabilities and risks within intimacies. This gap in the literature raised several critical questions for me.

• Could frameworks from the global North be applied to understand the dynamics of TFGBV in South Africa?
• How can the unique history of South Africa with respect to racial, gender and sexual diversities shape the way youths experience TFGBV in online dating spaces?[4]
• What does the transition between online and offline violence look like, and how does it manifest in university settings?
• Most importantly, how can policies be shaped to protect vulnerable users and bring perpetrators to justice?

These reflections became the foundation of my research questions and informed my methodological choices.

As I navigated the complexities of studying the intersection of technology, intimacy and gender-based violence, I became increasingly aware of my positionality, as well as that of my research team members, as academic researchers and students, the ethical dilemmas inherent in the study and the broader implications of my methodological choices.

Navigating research methodology: A reflexive stance

Given the complexity of this study, my research team and I adopted a mixed-methods approach, utilising both quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews across four purposively selected universities in South Africa and eight purposively selected campuses within them. These are: The Independent Institute of Education[5] (IIE MSA Campus), Wits University (main campus), University of KwaZulu-Natal (Howard College Campus, Westville Campus and Edgewood Campus) as well as North-West University (Mafikeng, Vanderbijlpark and Potchefstroom Campuses). The quantitative method was adopted to understand the level of prevalence and resulting experiences while the qualitative method was adopted to gain a deeper understanding of how South African youths perceive TFGBV as could be perpetrated through online dating apps and other social media platforms. Within the selected universities, our campus selection was guided by factors that reflected the study’s core variables, including racial, gender and sexual diversity, as well as GBV prevalence, urban versus semi-urban locations and institutional ownership (private vs. public).

As I engaged with the research process, I became increasingly aware of my positionality and that of my research team as academic researchers on the one hand and student representatives on the other. For the academic team members, all of whom have a background in university teaching and administration, our primary interaction with students had always been in formal academic settings. However, this study required academic team members to step outside our core roles as faculty and engage with students as research participants sharing their personal experiences of online intimacy, vulnerabilities and even trauma. To approach this, a lot of the intimate questions were included in the quantitative survey (questions that interrogated feelings, traumas, experiences) while the qualitative discussions included questions which probed awareness, communal responses, suggestions for support, addressing justice for survivors, holding perpetrators accountable as well as addressing government and social media platform responsibilities. For the qualitative aspect of this research, the recruitment of participants for focus group discussions (FGDs) was pushed by student fieldworkers who explained our research aims to prospective participants. These combined strategies proved to be very effective during the FGD sessions as the student participants were very much at ease, open and frank about their perspectives, opinions and experiences. 

In the initial stages of this research, I had to reflect on my emic (insider) and etic (outsider) positionality within the research:

• As an academic, I held a position of power in relation to our participants, which could potentially influence how they responded to our inquiries.
• As a Black African researcher who identifies as a heterosexual female, I needed to ensure that our study adequately captured the experiences of South Africa’s diverse racial and LGBTQ+ communities in ways that were sensitive, inclusive and representative of their identities.[6]

I believe it was this awareness that forced me to reconsider my approach, making a conscious effort to bridge the gap between researcher and participant by co-creating knowledge with them through our student representatives. This reflexivity led to the adoption of campus fieldworkers and research assistants, a strategy which will be explained in further detail in the next section.

This study required academic team members to step outside our core roles as faculty and engage with students as research participants sharing their personal experiences of online intimacy, vulnerabilities and even trauma. 

Challenges and ethical dilemmas in data collection

In designing the quantitative survey, we hoped to gain initial insights into how young South Africans navigate intimacy in online spaces. However, a critical moment of reflexivity emerged when I analysed participant engagement with the survey. While there was a high number of initial clicks, many respondents dropped out before completing the questionnaire. This raised several important questions.

• Were participants uncomfortable with the questions?
• Did the survey format feel impersonal or intrusive?
• Was the topic too sensitive to engage with in such a structured format?

To better understand these challenges, my academic team and I initiated an incentive whereby call credits were given to participants who completed the survey. However, this initiative was quickly abandoned as the participation pattern indicated an almost 80% Black heterosexual female participant engagement, most of whom indicated little involvement with online dating. While this could have been a representation of the South African university population index, there was a need to encourage other voices and dimensions of online intimacy engagements. This led to more reflections on how more diverse participation could ethically be encouraged and the possibility of expanding the scope of the research. The answer came in two forms.

The first was from one of our student survey participants who volunteered to go through the campus with her phone using a generated QR code linked to the survey. She offered to explain to her colleagues the importance of the project and thus bridge the gap between the research and the researched. While I appreciated her conviction on the importance of the research and her gesture to volunteer her time for its progress, I did not think it was ethically right for her to do so without some sort of compensation and co-ownership. This led to incorporating her into the project and extending an invitation to other students in the selected university campuses to be a part of the research as fieldworkers.

Our campus fieldworkers are highly commended for their efforts in not only creating an awareness of the research amongst their colleagues but also in being respondents in the quantitative as well as qualitative aspects of the data collection process. They will be encouraged in the coming weeks to make blog contributions on their experiences as campus representatives for this research, write-ups which will be hosted on the project’s official website. Depending on the quality, the content produced will be used in forthcoming academic presentations of the research and the students’ contributions will be acknowledged. We hope this strategy will not only encourage a research mentoring process for the selected students but will also result in a co-creation of knowledge.

The second solution came from an in-depth discussion with the Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN) team. As a result of this discussion, we decided to expand our research to include other social media platforms more commonly used by students. Focussing solely on online dating apps limited our research, for it meant that we could not capture other possible forms of TFGBV perpetrated through more accessible social media platforms. With this expansion included, the survey began to show a new pattern of online intimacy engagement, which would otherwise have been omitted.

When this new aspect was introduced into the questionnaire, we engaged the selected students who served as fieldworkers for the different campuses to test the survey and provide direct feedback on its structure, content and accessibility. Their insights revealed key areas where the questionnaire format could be further improved (in relation to word selection to better represent their social media engagements and intimacy realties) to enhance participant engagement and comfort. In addition, we sought to purposively select student fieldworkers who represented the diversities we needed in our data collection. This, however, proved more challenging as we realised that although the racial walls of Apartheid fell more than 30 years ago in South Africa (in 1994), urban spaces for education such as those within the university setting still witness issues related to race, gender, social class and even language.[7] Despite our efforts, we could not get on board White or Indian fieldworkers. I felt this was a limitation as I realise that it is easier for students who looked like our prospective participants to approach their peers and encourage them to participate. With such synergies, the likelihood of participant acceptance would be higher.

Focussing solely on online dating apps limited our research, for it meant that we could not capture other possible forms of TFGBV perpetrated through more accessible social media platforms.

The insights gained from the reflexivity of our quantitative research experience are factors I took into consideration when preparing for the qualitative phase of this project. We engaged with our research assistants, who are also students from our selected campuses, to discuss our research design. Discussions about the aims of the study were also held with our student fieldworkers, who assisted in the recruitment of participants for the campus FGD. 

Within our FGD sessions, we anticipated possible barriers like lack of trust and emotional distress amongst our FGD participants. As a team, we realised that discussing TFGBV may evoke stressful memories for participants, and this may require our team to adopt a trauma-informed research approach. To mitigate this anticipated challenge, we felt the need to create safe spaces that balanced empathy with objectivity, ensuring that participants felt supported and empowered, rather than merely subjects of study and data extraction. The FGD sessions thus focused on letting the participants know that their voices were valuable in developing effective strategies for creating awareness, protecting possible victims, providing safe space communities for survivors and developing activism to bring perpetrators to justice. During the FGD sessions it became apparent that many of the participants had never heard of the term “technology-facilitated gender-based violence”. Many were aware of GBV but believed this was a form of violence that could only occur physically. During the FGD sessions, many participants realised that they or people they knew were victims of TFGBV, though they had not previously thought the experience was a violation. As researchers, these sessions were very insightful as we learned from our participants, while the participants not only learned from one another but were also excited to be a voice working towards a solution for TFGBV amongst South African youths. 

Adopting these power-sharing approaches to our research made me reflect deeper on the limitations and dynamics of digital communication in research methodology. Conducting surveys online offered convenience and anonymity, but it also created a sense of detachment that sometimes hindered deep emotional disclosure. Detachment in the sense that little human contact was had all the way from receiving the link to filling out the survey and submitting it. It is an interaction between the respondent and technology. This made me ask: does digital communication desensitise one to the reality of TFGBV, just as online dating sometimes detaches intimacy from real-world consequences? What could be the implication of this within research like this which aims for a more decolonized knowledge co-production outlook?

Reflections on the decolonisation of research

One of the most significant epistemological tensions I grappled with was the reliance on global North literature to frame this study. Research such as those conducted by María José Díaz-Aguado et al. (2022), Norcie et al. (2013), Smith (2023), Fereidooni (2022), and Huang et al. (2022) provided insights into characteristics that result into victims and perpetrators of TFGBV through online dating platforms and other social media interactions[8] However, their theories and case studies were based on Western contexts and, at most, Latin American realties, raising the following question: can these frameworks truly capture the nuances of TFGBV in a post-apartheid South African society, where race, sexuality, gender and social class still shape access to power and justice? Seeking answers to this question may entail consulting other outlets of knowledge such as university research outputs like theses or blogs from websites that focus on TFGBV within the Global South.

Through this research process, I have come to appreciate that methodology is not just about choosing research tools – it is also about critical self-awareness, ethical responsibility and the active involvement of those we study.

Drawing from the work of Mpoe Johannah Keikelame and Leslie Swartz, I considered the idea of "research with" rather than "research on" participants, ensuring that South African youths are active contributors to our research rather than just its subjects.[9] This led to my decision to:

1. Engage students as research assistants and fieldworkers, allowing them to contribute their perspectives on the study’s design.
2. Develop platforms (a research website and YouTube channel) for participant interaction, encouraging ongoing discussions beyond the data collection phase.[10]
3. Prioritise a qualitative approach that allows participants to share their own narratives, rather than simply fitting them into pre-existing Western categories of TFGBV.

Concluding thoughts: The researcher, the researched and the future

Through this research process, I have come to appreciate that methodology is not just about choosing research tools – it is also about critical self-awareness, ethical responsibility and the active involvement of those we study.

The study of technology-facilitated gender-based violence in online dating, and by extension the social media space, is more than just an academic exercise. It reflects broader societal issues: power, vulnerability and the evolving nature of digital intimacy. As a researcher, I recognise that my role is not just to document these experiences but to contribute to meaningful interventions that can create safer online spaces for South African youth.

Moving forward, I hope that this research inspires further studies into TFGBV, online safety and digital justice, particularly from African perspectives. By centring local voices and lived experiences, we can begin to shape more inclusive, decolonised methodologies that truly capture the realities of those we seek to understand.