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

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to highlight important research-related ethical issues and provide researchers with guiding questions for producing ethical research of digital contexts. We also suggest that research ethics can be understood as a bridge between the seemingly distinct subfields across digital media studies. The article discusses three empirical case studies that reflect three main subfields and three research methodologies-ethnography and cultural media studies, critical discourse analysis and digital humanities, and user experience (UX) methods and mobile media studies. These cases critically engage with three main ethical issues related to digital media research: privacy, ownership, and compensation. Based on the ethical dimensions discussed through the three case studies, the article inductively articulates a set of questions pertaining to research data and to the relationship between the researcher and the user/participant of digital media. These can help facilitate more scholarly collaborations and wider conversations between academic silos in the field of digital media studies, and lead an ethical internet research.

Queering Iran, digitally: Implicit activism and LGBTQI+ dating on Telegram

“…Cyberethnography is a qualitative-interpretive approach to studying social interactions and cultures manifested and experienced through internet-based media (Yadlin-Segal et al, 2020). This approach is neither solely focused on the media nor on the agentic subjects using them, and acknowledges that media are inseparable from the other activities, technologies, materialities, and feelings through which they are used, experienced, and operated (Pink et al, 2015).…”

Ethical guidance for conducting health research with online communities: A scoping review of existing guidance

“…The majority of papers (n = 13) concurred that consent was more ambiguous in public online spaces [8,11] and was an ongoing process requiring continual reflection and communication with participants [4,18,19,23,25,27,30,32,33,35,36,[38][39][40]. Eight papers repeated the BPS assertion that not seeking consent for public domain online data could be justified when the scientific and social value outweighed the associated risk [18,19,23,30,33,36,38,40].…”

“…In line with AoIR, seven papers gave attention to the expectations of online communities in relation to research [19,25,30,33,36,39,40]. For example, Burles et al [25] suggested that disrupting online illness support communities could cause members to change or reduce the support they provide to others.…”

“…For example, Burles et al [25] suggested that disrupting online illness support communities could cause members to change or reduce the support they provide to others. Three papers agreed with the BSA that consent should be sought from community moderators [40] using the examples of a private fathering forum [33], an online youth counselling platform [36] and closed Facebook groups [33,39]. However, seven papers acknowledged challenges of verifying age characteristics online [26,28,29,32,[34][35][36] and the ability to give or capture informed consent online [36], and recommended consent processes relative to topic sensitivity [35] developed in consultation with clinical and subject experts [36].…”

A systematic Review of Research on Intersubjectivity in Online Learning: Illuminating Opportunities for Cohesion and Mutual Understanding in the Research Conversation

“…Discussions that occur in public online spaces are easily searchable. Even when participants provide consent, they may not fully connect consent to the analysis and public sharing of all their interactions over time in an online space (Yadlin-Segal et al, 2020). Although relatively few people may be able to identify individuals from these transcripts, instructors and students who were class members may either recall specific conversations or be able to revisit course archives and search for them.…”