Does the Web challenge our traditional ethical arrangements?

1
Does the Web challenge our traditional ethical
arrangements?The trials and tribulations of
undertaking online observational research
Lisa Sugiura ls3e10_at_soton.ac.uk Research
Methods Festival Session, Thursday July 9th,
2014 Research Ethics in Context Qualitative
Methods and Ethical Challenges
2
Agenda

• Ethnography on the Web
• Lurking
• Informed consent and public or private spaces
• An ethical quandary in practice

3
Ethnography conducted online

• Traditional definition Hammersley and Atkinson,
  1983 1
• Virtual ethnography (Hine, 2000)
• Netnography (Kozinets, 2002)
• Is observational research involving no
  participant interaction meaningful ethnographic
  study?

4
Lurking

• Hine (2000) known presence but no observable
  trace
• An unequal power relationship (Heath et al
  1999, cited in Grinyer 2007).

5
Challenges for ethics committees

• Eliciting informed consent, negotiating access
  agreements, assessing the boundaries between the
  public and the private, and ensuring the security
  of data transmissions are all problematic in
  Internet research (BSA 2002 5 ).

6
Informed consent in online research

• Forums, blogs, social media
• Blurring of public and private
• Privacy Beer and Burrows (2007), Boyd and
  Marwick (2011), AoIR (2012)
• Contextual integrity (Nissenbaum, 2010)

7
My research - web forums as digital interactions

• Data obtained from discussions on web forums
• Researchers Access to diverse / potentially
  unreachable groups
• Members Provides incentive and information
• Public or private?

8
Public / private disclosures

• i have been taking for 3 weeks now and lost 1
  stone and am feeling a lot more confident and
  happy in myself......however.......i went to re
  order the tablets online from where i purchased
  them b4 as i have ran out only to be told that
  they are no longer available in the Eu. I am very
  unhappy about this and have tried lots of uk
  websites to try and buy them but are having no
  luck.
• Do you mind me asking where you order them from?
  Because theyve just banned them in the EU and I
  cant get hold of any anywhere! I really need
  some.
• Better news is I know where you can get them for
  cheaper but I cant advertise it on here so
  pm/email me if interested.

9
Ethical issues

• Lurking
• Informed consent
• Overt vs. Covert
• Law distinct from morality

stepdadding.com
10
What next?

• Non-participant observation rather than
  ethnography

11
References

• Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) (2012)
  Ethics Guide http//aoir.org/documents/ethics-guid
  e/
• BSA (2002) Statement of Ethical Practice for the
  British Sociological Association.
  http//www.britsoc.co.uk/media/27107/StatementofEt
  hicalPractice.pdf
• Beer, D., Burrows, R. (2007). Sociology and, of
  and in Web 2.0 Some initial considerations.
  Sociological Research Online, 12(5), 17.
• Boyd, D., Marwick, A. (2011). Social Privacy in
  Networked Publics Teens Attitudes, Practices,
  and Strategies.
• Grinyer, A. (2007) 'The ethics of Internet usage
  in health and personal narratives research',
  Social Research Update 49, University of Surrey.
• Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (1983 1995)
  Ethnography Principles in Practice, London
  Routledge.
• Hine C. (2000) Virtual Ethnography. London Sage.
• Kozinets, R. V. (2002), The Field Behind the
  Screen Using Netnography for Marketing Research
  in Online Communities, Journal of Marketing
  Research, 39 (February), 61-72.
• Nissenbaum, J. (1994). Helen Nissenbaum.
  Computing and Accountability, Communications of
  the ACM (January 1994), 72-80.

12
Thank you

• Any questions?
• Lisa Sugiura
• ls3e10_at_soton.ac.uk
• Twitter _at_lisa_sugiura
• https//soton.academia.edu/LisaSugiura
• Supervisors Prof. Catherine Pope Dr. Craig
  Webber