This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/M001628/1] and was carried out at The University of Aberdeen.
Contents
1. Introduction p3
1.3 Background p3
1.2 Aims of this document p3
1.3 Social media, research and ethics p4
2. Key areas of concern within social media research p5
2.1 Private vs. public? p5
2.2 Informed consent p6
2.3 Anonymity p6
2.4 Risk of harm p7
3. Framework for ethical research with social media p8
3.1 Terms, conditions and legalities p9
3.2 Privacy and risk p10
3.3 Reuse and republication p12
4. Concluding comments p15
5. Further reading and resources p15
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
In recent years the number of people engaging with social media has exploded. Social media platforms are now utilised as key locations for networking, socialising and importantly, for reflecting on all aspects of everyday life. Such online spaces therefore hold vast quantities of naturally-occurring data on any number of topics, from consumer behaviours, to attitudes towards pro-environmental policies, to political views and preferences. This provides researchers with a huge opportunity to gather data that would otherwise have taken much time and resource to obtain. Yet this opportunity is accompanied by responsibility to ensure that how we obtain and reuse such data is done to the highest possible ethical standards. Traditional ethics frameworks can inform researchers to some extent in this, but social media data brings new contextual challenges which the more traditional approaches are not equipped to deal with. This calls for a new consideration of best practice in this domain…
