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affiliation, or presumed affiliation, of interviewers played an important role inresearch related to government control of violence in television programmes.In those cases where the respondents, who were parents, thought that theinterviewer represented some government body, they were more inclined togive extreme responses to questions. See also Hyman’s (1954: 185 et seq.)discussion of the influence of sponsorship on responses.Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za(ii)Image of the researcherIn an important study Jack Douglas (1976) discusses the problems surroundingconflict in research. According to him a tacit assumption in research hasalways been that the participants naturally wish to co-operate with theresearcher, and that they would obviously provide valid and reliableinformation. Douglas, however, maintains that the assumptions of theinvestigative paradigm are much more realistic. The investigative paradigm isbased upon the assumption that profound conflicts of interest, values, feelingsand actions pervade social life (1976: 55). On the same page he also states thatconflict is the reality of life; suspicion is the guiding principle. If this were tobe regarded as excessively pessimistic, Douglas reminds us that in everydaylife members of the public are regularly confronted with a variety of suspectstrangers who require information from them. Spies, counterspies, police,detectives, prosecutors, judges, psychiatrists, tax collectors, probation officers,... investigative journalists and all others involved in the vast array ofinvestigative occupations in modern society and the most obvious practitionersof the investigative paradigm (1976: 56).In a variety of studies conducted by Douglas, including some in massagesalons and on nudist beaches, he found that suspicion and mistrust were therule rather than the exception. One manifestation of mistrust was in avoidanceor evasive responses. Rather than being the exception, 1 suspect suchevasiveness is the common situation in field research: People rarely tell thewhole truth as they see it about the most important things, but they aregenerally being evasive or misleading rather than lying. A field researchermust understand this and the reasons for it; Primarily a fear of exposure, ofbeing caught in a lie, and an unwillingness to appear less than absolutely‘moral’ to an academic stranger (1976: 65-66).The image of the researcher with participants is frequently that of a stranger, anoutsider, or an intruder. In the research conducted by Douglas these issueswere probably given greater prominence as a result of the sensitive nature ofthe research that he was conducting. It appears fairly obvious that girls inmassage salons would regard the researcher as a suspect — the possibilitycannot be excluded that he is a policeman.82