Ethics

General

This work has included measures to meet general principles of research ethics as outlined by Miles and Huberman in respect of project worthiness; competence to deliver; informed consent; benefits, costs and reciprocity; harm and risk; honesty and trust; privacy, confidentiality and anonymity; and integrity and quality (Miles & Huberman 1994). In addition, there are specific issues relating to the social media environment.

‘…researchers of digital media […] are never very far away from interesting, if sometimes fraught, ethical debates concerning anonymity, expectations about uses of data, the nebulous nature of mediated research settings and what counts as public or private.’ (Kinsley 2018)

109 | P a g e Research ethics for social media is a field in development. There is a need to be clear about access, permissions and copyright. This has been the subject of a separate ethics statement cleared by the University of Bedfordshire RIMAP board, attached at the appendices.

To protect the privacy of contributors, throughout the document, the addition of an asterisk after a given name indicates use of a pseudonym. In cases where contributors agreed to be openly identified, their own given names are used.

Participants could choose a location in which they felt comfortable. Care was taken with the wellbeing and safeguarding of participants during interview, especially where recollection of online conflict risked emotional stress, or any type of disability or condition affected ability to participate.

No incentives or expenses were offered to participants, but face-to-face interviewees and focus group members were offered light refreshments, bearing in mind interview length.

Clarifying sampling procedures and ethical considerations vis-à-vis group access on social media has been a significant issue. Facebook has many ‘closed’ groups which nonetheless are in practice open to anyone keeping within a range of behavioural parameters.

Arguably, for journalistic purposes the contents of such pages and the identity of contributors are effectively in the public domain. Nonetheless, academic research ethics might suggest more observance of the ‘closed’ status.

110 | P a g e Langer and Beckmann (2005) suggest that covert ‘netnographic’ approaches are suitable for the study of sensitive research topics, allowing the researcher to gain deeper insights into people’s opinions, motives, and concerns in an unobtrusive and covert way. Considering netnography's position in between discourse analysis, content analysis and ethnography, they make a case for legitimate and ethical covert research, proposing revised guidelines for research ethics around informed consent.

The decision in practice therefore has been to observe some closed groups where the researcher has been admitted and to ensure any examples taken from these are highly generalised and

anonymised. In the developmental stages of the study, and indeed as a ‘sense check’ throughout, participatory membership of several political discussion groups on Facebook was maintained. This was done under the researcher’s own name and fellow group members were free to ‘click’ through and note the researchers self-declared status as a PhD researcher. This status was also mentioned occasionally in discussions. Observations made from this immersive participation have been reported in an abstracted manner, and no fellow participants identified. To avoid closed groups entirely would mean cutting off access to key groups (some of whom prefer to talk in ‘safe’ spaces for example) so this was not considered viable.

A note on covert and semi-covert research: Benefits, limitations and ethics

As part of the ongoing observation informing the study has been of a semi-covert nature, with any findings used or reported ethically, the role of covert and semi-covert observation in the study of social media merits brief discussion here as it is a key concern for researchers. Covert research is often discouraged by research departments which consider it wise to err on the side of caution in respect of the subject’s right to privacy, although most will also accept that such an approach may be necessary in some instances. One such instance might be observations undertaken in public

111 | P a g e places, including online environments, where the researcher declaring her activity to those present would distort behaviour unacceptably. Other instances might involve non-harmful deception, where the researcher does not declare her true aim or does so after completion.

Calvey discusses the management of ethics in fieldwork and suggests that theoretical discourse about ethics can be too divorced from practice and too focused on ‘informed consent’ with covert methodology being viewed negatively. However, he sets out a case for being less risk-averse (Calvey 2008).

The benefits of using a limited amount of covert observation were considered for this study, and to judge whether this was indicated and justifiable, reference was made to The Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) guidance in the Framework for Research Ethics which states:

‘Covert research may be undertaken when it may provide unique forms of evidence or where overt observation might alter the phenomenon being studied.

The broad principle should be that covert research must not be undertaken lightly or routinely. It is only justified if important issues are being addressed and if matters of social significance which cannot be uncovered in other ways are likely to be discovered.’ (ESRC 2015)

However, others argue that with online media, researchers should go beyond legal permissions and put users’ privacy and expectations first in a more nuanced ethical approach. Two projects which used qualitative and quantitative data on social media users’ views on use of their data showed more than 80 per cent surveyed expected a request for consent to use posts, and ninety percent expect anonymity for post use. Researchers thus suggest conducting a risk assessment (Woodfield &

Iphofen 2017).

112 | P a g e There have also been ethical considerations relating to whether groups observed are ‘open’ or

‘closed’ and if the latter, what degree of closure operates in actuality, and in early research, only open groups were observed. However, subsequent reading drew the researcher’s attention to offline ethnographic research where researchers specifically do not reveal their identity and role (such as while posing undercover as a member of a criminal gang). This is both to avoid influencing group behaviour and for self-protection. The researcher has argued that this is a precedent for participating in closed online groups and using anonymised material for reasons of understanding.

Most current researchers focus their research ethics around harm minimisation and making sure that participants are not subject to any negative effects. Which means making sure the data are stored securely and anonymised and only aggregate level results are reported (Bright et al. 2014).

Given that trends in group behaviour have in practice only been used for research development, background information, and trend and theme identification, and that no material has been used which risked identifying participants in any way, it is argued that there is not a significant ethical issue in this instance. It is noted, however, that research ethics around social media is a field very much in development and currently quite contested (Townsend & Wallace 2016).