Ethical Approval: None Sought. How Discourse Analysts Report Ethical Issues around Publicly Available Online Data

Autor/inn/en	Stommel, Wyke; de Rijk, Lynn
Titel	Ethical Approval: None Sought. How Discourse Analysts Report Ethical Issues around Publicly Available Online Data
Quelle	In: Research Ethics, 17 (2021) 3, S.275-297 (23 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Stommel, Wyke)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1747-0161
DOI	10.1177/1747016120988767
Schlagwörter	Internet; Online Searching; Research Methodology; Ethics; Decision Making; Authors; Social Media; Electronic Journals; Information Dissemination; Discourse Analysis; Periodicals; Data Use; Research Committees; Journal Articles; Informed Consent; Users (Information); Expectation; Intention; Legal Problems; Information Sources + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Online-Recherche; Research method; Forschungsmethode; Ethik; Decision-making; Entscheidungsfindung; Author; Autor; Autorin; Soziale Medien; E-Journal; Informationsverbreitung; Diskursanalyse; Periodical; Journal; Zeitschrift; Fachzeitschrift; Periodikum; Journal article; Zeitschriftenaufsatz; Benutzerprofil; Nutzer; Expectancy; Erwartung; Information source; Informationsquelle
Abstract	Although ethical guidelines for doing Internet research are available, most prominently those of the Association of Internet Researchers (www.aoir.org), ethical decision-making for research on publicly available, naturally-occurring data remains a major challenge. As researchers might also turn to others to inform their decisions, this article reviews recent research papers on publicly available, online data. Research involving forums such as Facebook pages, Twitter, YouTube, news comments, blogs, etc. is examined to see how authors report ethical considerations and how they quote these data. We included 132 articles published in discourse analysis-oriented journals between January 2017 and February 2020. Roughly one third of the articles (85 out of 132) did not discuss ethical issues, mostly claiming the data were publicly available. Quotations nevertheless tended to be anonymized, although retrievability of posts was generally not taken into account. In those articles in which ethical concerns were reported, related decisions appeared to vary substantially. In most cases it was argued that informed consent was not required. Similarly, approval from research ethics committees was mostly regarded unnecessary. Other ethical issues like consideration of users' expectations and intentions, freedom of choice, possible harm, sensitive topics, and vulnerable groups were rarely discussed in the articles. We argue for increased attention to ethical issues and legal aspects in discourse analytic articles involving online data beyond mentioning general concerns. Instead, we argue for more involvement of users/participants in ethical decision-making, for consideration of retrievability of posts and for a role for journal editors. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01