There are numerous reasons why social media can appear an attractive way to reach potential participants – it may be free or at least relatively inexpensive, it is increasingly ubiquitous across a range of Australian age groups (Sensis, 2017), and can be a powerful way to build an ongoing connection with a cohort of potential participants.
A recent issue of The American Journal of Bioethics focussed on the ethics of using social media as research platforms. An article by Luke Galinas and his colleagues (Galinas et al., 2017) noted the lack of resources and regulatory guidance in the United States on the use of social media as a recruitment tool. They concluded that this was a significant problem since, for all its benefits, use of social media is not without ethical and practical challenges and traps. Fortunately, these are not insurmountable. Galinas’ article explored how biomedical researchers might respond in the United States by attending to the issues of researcher transparency and respect for the privacy of participants; in this blog post, we provide advice for Australian researchers and reviewers in an effort to stimulate further discussion between them.
Excluding some potential participants – The penetration of social media platforms across all age groups of the Australian population over the last ten years has been truly remarkable. There do remain, however, some significant differences on the extent of usage depending on age, geographic location and socio-economic status. Consequently, open recruitment via social media may skew a participant pool towards area where social media use is more prevalent and may inadvertently exclude some groups of people with perspectives, views or voices that might undermine the value of a project’s finding.
Platform differences and exclusion – Not every social media platforms had the same user demographics; someone who uses social media 15 times per day may only be frequenting one platform. There is no single platform that is used by most social media users. Indeed, even platforms such as Facebook seem to be used more by a particular age-range of people within the Global North. Other countries have their own platforms that are heavily used within the region (e.g. China – WeChat (微信; Wēixìn) and Russia – VK social media (Vkontakte) and Odnoklassniki), but hardly ever by people outside that region.
Privacy rules and concerns – Privacy concerns are amongst the more significant reasons why some people do not currently use social media (Sensis, 2017). Indeed, many users do not understand the privacy rules of their preferred platform(s) and remain concerned about privacy. One large survey conducted by Evans et al. (2015) suggested that concern was greater among younger and more frequent users.
Comments from participants and others – Enabling participants to comment on the recruitment social media pages for a project might be an effective way to engage with potential participants. However, there are important reasons for caution about allowing participants to comment on such pages as they might expose themselves to risk. Individuals might divulge whether they are participants or were excluded by the screening tool. In addition, they might distort the data collected from others by prompting particular responses to their own comments.
Pseudonyms and de-identification –The presumptive remedy to many social media challenges is to delete, modify or otherwise obfuscate personal identifiers such as user names. However, some platform rules often specifically preclude such an approach (e.g. Twitter treats any such de-identification as a copyright concern). Furthermore, modifications of comments or descriptions raises at least the possibility the researcher fabricated or falsified data (much as occurred in Alice Goffman’s offline study, see Neyfakh, 2015).
Recruitment materials – Many national human research ethics arrangements, such as Australia’s National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research specify that review bodies must consider and first approve recruitment materials, including the text of posts to go on a social media page. In most cases, this role will be delegated to the Chair (for executive review) or the Ethics Officer (for administrative review). The rigour and substance of this review should be proportionate to the risks and ethical sensitivities of a project. The need and purpose of this review reflects the potential for risks, privacy and other human research ethics matters that can be associated with a project’s recruitment strategy.
The application for research ethics review should cover the above matters and explain why the applicant believes the proposed approach is ethical, appropriate, respectful and justified. Such matters may also need to be discussed in the consent (if not the recruitment) materials. Similarly, research ethics reviewers should expect such a justification to be provided, be open to and accepting of innovation, offer praise where due, and share their thinking where uncomfortable with a proposed approach.
Like most topics in human research ethics, there is no single ‘correct’ approach with regard to recruitment and social media. Ethical research may be best pursued through reflection and collegial discussion.
References
Evans H, Ginnis S and Bartlett J (2015) #SocialEthics: A guide to embedding ethics in social media research.
Gelinas L. et al. (2017) Using Social Media as a Research Recruitment Tool: Ethical Issues and Recommendations. The American Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 17, No. 3. DOI: 10.1080/15265161.2016.1276644
Neyfakh, L. (2015) The Ethics of Ethnography. Slate Magazine. Retrieved 8 November 2017, from http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/06/alice_goffman…
NHMRC (2007) National Statement on ethical conduct in human research. http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/guidelines-publications/e72.
Sensis (2017) Social Media Report 2017. Retrieved from: https://www.sensis.com.au/asset/PDFdirectory/Sensis_Social_Media_Report_2017-Chapter-1.pdf (accessed 7 November 2017)
Other reading
Chamber C (2014, 1 July) Facebook fiasco: was Cornell’s study of ‘emotional contagion’ an ethics breach? The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2014/jul/01/facebook-cornell-study-emotional-contagion-ethics-breach (accessed 8 November 2015)
Leetaru K (2016, 17 June) Are Research Ethics Obsolete in the Era of Big Data? Forbes/Tech
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/06/17/are-research-ethics-obsolete-in-the-era-of-big-data/#1a083ad31cb9
Contributors
Dr Gary Allen | Senior Consultant AHRECS | Gary’s AHRECS bio | gary.allen@ahrecs.com
Prof. Mark Israel | Senior Consultant AHRECS | Mark’s AHRECS bio | mark.israel@ahrecs.com
This post may be cited as:
Allen G. and Israel M. (2017, 20 November 2017) Ethical use of social media as a recruitment tool Research Ethics Monthly. Retrieved from: https://ahrecs.com/human-research-ethics/ethical-use-social-media-recruitment-tool