Ethical guidelines for Instagram
Dear members, I'm writing you asking for ethical advice to conduct ethnography on Instagram. I'll really appreciate if you could let me know if there are any ethical guidelines or publications on how to conduct online research with people undergoing severe mental conditions, and if there is anything specific for Instagram. The only ones I know are the guidelines of the British Psychological Association. In the same way, if any of you are working online on sensitive topics, any advice is welcomed. Thanks a lot in advance. Best wishes, María -- María González Aguado Research Fellow- Department of Sociology University of Leicester University Road Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
I trust you've looked at http://aoir.org/ethics/ -- Mark D. Johns, Ph.D. Professor of Communication Studies Program Director, Spring 2016, Malta & the Mediterranean Program Luther College, Decorah, Iowa USA ----------------------------------------------- "Get the facts first. You can distort them later." ---Mark Twain On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 7:50 PM, María González Aguado <mariagaguado@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear members,
I'm writing you asking for ethical advice to conduct ethnography on Instagram. I'll really appreciate if you could let me know if there are any ethical guidelines or publications on how to conduct online research with people undergoing severe mental conditions, and if there is anything specific for Instagram. The only ones I know are the guidelines of the British Psychological Association. In the same way, if any of you are working online on sensitive topics, any advice is welcomed.
Thanks a lot in advance. Best wishes, María
-- María González Aguado Research Fellow- Department of Sociology University of Leicester University Road Leicester LE1 7RH, UK _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
I'd be really interested to hear what everyone has to suggest as well. On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 2:06 PM, Mark D. Johns <mjohns@luther.edu> wrote:
I trust you've looked at http://aoir.org/ethics/ -- Mark D. Johns, Ph.D. Professor of Communication Studies Program Director, Spring 2016, Malta & the Mediterranean Program Luther College, Decorah, Iowa USA ----------------------------------------------- "Get the facts first. You can distort them later." ---Mark Twain
On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 7:50 PM, María González Aguado <mariagaguado@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear members,
I'm writing you asking for ethical advice to conduct ethnography on Instagram. I'll really appreciate if you could let me know if there are any ethical guidelines or publications on how to conduct online research with people undergoing severe mental conditions, and if there is anything specific for Instagram. The only ones I know are the guidelines of the British Psychological Association. In the same way, if any of you are working online on sensitive topics, any advice is welcomed.
Thanks a lot in advance. Best wishes, María
-- María González Aguado Research Fellow- Department of Sociology University of Leicester University Road Leicester LE1 7RH, UK _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- J. Meryl Krieger Ph.D., Folklore & Ethnomusicology Career Advisor, Office of Entrepreneurship and Career Development, Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University Bloomington Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis http://www.linkedin.com/in/merylkrieger http://indiana.academia.edu/merylkrieger
Hi Maria, This is just a quick response and I hope others also add to this conversation. There are many guidelines about studying sensitive topics or vulnerable populations written in past decades. These are still extremely relevant to any ethnographic or qualitative study of your topic, even if you're researching through instagram. So these classic texts about social research ethics would be useful to review. Specifically, you might start with: Undertaking Sensitive Research: issues and strategies for meeting the safety needs of all participants. Article by heather McCosker, Alan Barnard, and Rod Gerber http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/983/2142 Doing Research on Sensitive Topics. Book by Raymond Lee https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/doing-research-on-sensitive-topics/book2040... Ethics for anthropological research and practice. Book: http://www.waveland.com/browse.php?t=144 ASA code of ethics has definitions of vulnerability http://www.asanet.org/about/ethics.cfm Most associations associated with an academic discipline will have codes of ethics, or discussions of best practices. These differ by discipline, region, or country. So one way to consider how you might take a proactive and responsible approach is to start learning about what would constitute ethical practice.... I'd start by browsing through google, and look at the different approaches for social research ethics in psychology, sociology, education, and anthropology. Then, I'd take a look at your institution's guidelines. I don't mean to be pedantic, but I don't know how much you know about how ethics guidelines are developed or where they're located. Mark Johns' advice to see the AOIR ethics guide = a good start, too. Finally, I would recommend the work of Katrin Tiidenberg, which is focused specifically on instagram, ethics, and potentially vulnerable populations. hope that helps. cheers, annette ***************************************************** Annette N. Markham, Ph.D. Professor MSO, School of Communication & Culture, Aarhus University Affiliate Professor, School of Communication, Loyola University, Chicago amarkham@gmail.com http://markham.internetinquiry.org/ Twitter: annettemarkham On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 7:50 PM, María González Aguado < mariagaguado@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear members,
I'm writing you asking for ethical advice to conduct ethnography on Instagram. I'll really appreciate if you could let me know if there are any ethical guidelines or publications on how to conduct online research with people undergoing severe mental conditions, and if there is anything specific for Instagram. The only ones I know are the guidelines of the British Psychological Association. In the same way, if any of you are working online on sensitive topics, any advice is welcomed.
Thanks a lot in advance. Best wishes, María
-- María González Aguado Research Fellow- Department of Sociology University of Leicester University Road Leicester LE1 7RH, UK _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Hi Maria, (It looks I sent the following email to you privately without cc'd to AIR-L. Allow me to resend it to share the info with the rest of the community) Your project sounds fascinating! Please keep us posted. I've been researching the topic of self-injury on visual social media, and conducted visual content analysis of self-injury imagery on Flickr and Tumblr. I have also conducted online interviews with people who self-injure about their motivations for posting imagery online. I am just preparing for a talk at the Canadian Associations of Research Ethics Board next week, and just put together guidelines for Internet researchers: Markham A. N., & Buchanan, E. A. (2012). Ethical decision-making and internet research (version 2.0). Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee. Chicago: Association of Internet Researchers. (available online) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Human Research Protections. (2013). Considerations and Recommendations Concerning Internet Research and Human Subjects Research Regulations, with Revisions. (available online) McKee, H & Porter, J (2009). The ethics of internet research: A rhetorical, case-based process. Peter Lang. Fossheim, H & Ingried, H. (2015) (Eds.). Internet Research Ethics. (open access book, available online) If your research involves clinical population, there are many guidelines available. Here's one recent paper about people with self-injurious behaviour and there's a section about online research: Lloyd-Richardson, E. E., Lewis, S. P., Whitlock, J. L., Rodham, K., & Schatten, H. T. (2015). Research with adolescents who engage in non-suicidal self-injury: ethical considerations and challenges. Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health, 9(1), 1-14. Given that Instagram research is likely to involve visual materials, I'd also recommend: Wiles, R., Prosser, J., Bagnoli, A., Clark, A., Davies, K., Holland, S., & Renold, E. (2008). Visual ethics: Ethical issues in visual research. http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/421/1/MethodsReviewPaperNCRM-011.pdf Also, for research that involves synchronous interactions with participant (e.g. via text/video chat, interaction via avatars), our lab recommend researchers to provide a list that contains reliable online resources, crisis line info and evidence-based self-interventions, and if they're not clinically trained, to have mental health professionals on board. Hope it helps! Yukari Yukari Seko, Ph.D. SSHRC Postdoctoral Researcher Self-Injury and eMental Health Lab Department of Psychology University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario,Canada N1G 2W1 yukari.seko@gmail.com www.simhealthlab.com On 2016/05/19, at 13:50, María González Aguado wrote:
Dear members,
I'm writing you asking for ethical advice to conduct ethnography on Instagram. I'll really appreciate if you could let me know if there are any ethical guidelines or publications on how to conduct online research with people undergoing severe mental conditions, and if there is anything specific for Instagram. The only ones I know are the guidelines of the British Psychological Association. In the same way, if any of you are working online on sensitive topics, any advice is welcomed.
Thanks a lot in advance. Best wishes, María
-- María González Aguado Research Fellow- Department of Sociology University of Leicester University Road Leicester LE1 7RH, UK _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
On 2016/05/19, at 13:50, María González Aguado wrote:
Dear members,
I'm writing you asking for ethical advice to conduct ethnography on Instagram. I'll really appreciate if you could let me know if there are any ethical guidelines or publications on how to conduct online research with people undergoing severe mental conditions, and if there is anything specific for Instagram. The only ones I know are the guidelines of the British Psychological Association. In the same way, if any of you are working online on sensitive topics, any advice is welcomed.
Thanks a lot in advance. Best wishes, María
-- María González Aguado Research Fellow- Department of Sociology University of Leicester University Road Leicester LE1 7RH, UK _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
participants (5)
-
Annette Markham -
Mark D. Johns -
María González Aguado -
Meryl Krieger -
Yukari Seko