14. Research Ethics in Context

Abstract

A few years back we embarked on an expedition into the rapidly transforming landscape of data research, the narratives of big data and the practices emerging with novel data resources, tools and new directions of social and cultural inquiry. This book represents our own experiences and impressions of this journey. We were out there on unfamiliar and at times even uncharted territory. Often we depended on the help of more learned colleagues who generously shared their knowledge, gave us directions or helped with problems. Many of them became authors for this book and we would like to thank them for trusting us with collecting their contributions and presenting them in a joint volume. The editors wish to thank the Utrecht Data School staff Thomas Boeschoten, Irene Westra, Iris Muis, Daniela van Geenen and Gerwin van Schie for their input and for providing an intellectually stimulating work environment. With the Utrecht Data School we have created a place where ambitious and enthusiastic students can meet to join us in this exploration. We are grateful for having the rare opportunity of conducting research together with students from whom we can learn so much and whose insatiable curiosity is an inspiration as well as a constant reminder of why we became teachers in the first place. Our gratitude extends also to the Institute of Cultural Inquiry and the open access fund at Utrecht University for enabling us to make this book open access. A special thanks to William Uricchio, Fernando van der Vlist and Eef Masson for their helpful comments and advice at various stages of the editing process. Finally, we are particularly grateful to Nicolás López Coombs for helping us with the editing and the formatting of the book, but most importantly for keeping an eye on our timeline. Mirko Tobias Schäfer & Karin van Es Anywhere but in their office, 2016 This book is an important contribution towards meeting the challenges of the platform-driven, data-fuelled world in which we have all come to live.

“I Always Vet Things”: Navigating Privacy and the Presentation of Self on Health Discussion Boards Among Individuals with Long-Term Conditions

“…These guidelines were updated in 2012 to acknowledge the evolving field of Internet ethics. As the guidelines themselves acknowledge, rather than representing a strict code of behavior, they merely serve to “emphasize processes for decision making and questions that can be applied to ever-changing technological contexts” [11]. The recommendations cover a number of topics that are beyond the scope of this paper, but of key relevance to the present research is that they highlight the nebulous notion of privacy.…”

The ethics of studying digital contexts: Reflections from three empirical case studies

“…With constant changes in internet media—for example, growing opportunities of data availability and searchability—scholars continuously grapple with questions regarding the ethics of studying online‐related data (Markham & Buchanan, ). In this section we present a succinct literature review related to three metatopics that we identified as central to each of the empirical cases later presented in the article.…”

“…Privacy has many temporal and case‐specific aspects, which render the process of clearly defining what is private and what is public in one's research a contextual one. Markham and Buchanan (), for example, define their work as focused on “privacy concepts” (p. 202), in plural, rather than singular, stressing the multifaceted nature of the term, requiring different manifestations in different cases.…”

“…Just as “it seems unlikely that any single guideline for internet research ethics can resolve conflicts between the disciplines” (White, , p. 255), it is safe to say that researchers of different schools of thought might hold different understandings of the relationship between private and public. Thus, whether privacy is a right, an interest, a value, or a state of existence, the mere need to acknowledge and continuously discuss it is in of itself a common issue among the subfields of digital media studies (Markham & Buchanan, ).…”

“…This point should be further contextualized: Markham and Buchanan () approach the topics of disclosure and consent, arguing that “it is not always feasible or desirable to comply with the consent requirement” (p. 191). We wish to add to this assertion that ethnographic internet research is one of those cases in which some measure of consent must be gained at some point.…”