Expression in the Virtual Public: Social Justice Considerations in Harvesting Youth Online Discussions for Research Purposes

Abstract

Information posted by youth in online social media contexts is regularly accessed, downloaded, integrated, and analyzed by academic researchers. The practice raises significant social justice considerations for researchers including issues of representation and equitable distribution of risks and benefits. Use of this type of data for research purposes helps to ensure representation in research of the voices of (sometimes marginalized) youth who participate in these online contexts, at times discussing issues that are also under-represented. At the same time, youth whose data are harvested are subject (often without notice or consent) to the risks associated with this research, while receiving little if any direct benefit from the work. These risks include the potential loss of online social community as well as threats to participant rights and wellbeing. This paper explores the tension between the social justice benefit of representation and considerations that would suggest caution, the latter including inequitable distribution of research-related costs and benefits, and the traditional ethics concerns of participant autonomy and privacy in the context of youth participation in online discussions. In the final section, we propose guidelines and considerations for the conduct of online social media research to assist researchers to balance and respect representational and participant rights or wellbeing considerations, especially with youth.

Critical care for the early web: ethical digital methods for archived youth data

“…The question becomes how and when you will, as a researcher, bring them into the fold. All of this serves to determine whether an extractive or helicopter, relationship with research communities is being unknowingly JICES 20,3 established (Burkell and Regan, 2021). It also asks how the research subjects will benefit from this project (Gieseking, 2020;Cowan and Rault, 2020;Luka and Millette, 2018).…”

“…The exposure of secrets is a violent act and is often enacted against young queer women, trans and nonbinary people. Young people navigate complex terrains of disclosure across social media sites through their interpretations of the networked public (Boyd and Marwick, 2011;Burkell and Regan, 2021). They negotiate their own privacy requirements based on the contexts within which they are participating, and therefore, their decisions about disclosure are context-specific.…”

Ethical Imperatives for Working With Diverse Populations in Digital Research

“…The risk for reidentification [ 47 , 48 ] is particularly high for individuals who are members of a hyperminority (ie, small ethnic subpopulations) or are members of multiple minority classes (ie, intersectionally marginalized). Certain kinds of individual behaviors such as widespread internet usage without privacy-preserving safeguards can also increase the risk of reidentification through commercially available databases, including for noncitizens, women, and youth [ 49 ].…”