The incongruity between traditional research standards and the realities of “big data” raises novel ethical questions for political science researchers. Data’s status as a commodity largely held by private companies only further confuses matters. Drawing on Max Weber, this article attempts to shift the current ethical discussion away from the individualistic concern for privacy toward the more collective framework of democratic values.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.