[Air-L] Ethical challenges in qualitative research using Facebook

[Emily Wolfinger]

Hi AoIR Community,


I am a PhD Candidate and I have run into some ethical issues in my research, which I am looking for some guidance on.


I am exploring Facebook user perceptions of sole mother poverty and welfare in Australia, focusing on a period of welfare debate in which sole parent pension amendments were introduced (May 2012-January 2013).  I'm undertaking a discourse analysis of a subset of comments across four categories of public pages and groups- media, political parties and ministers, welfare/charity organisations and sole mother networks- that were published in response to the amendments.


Although Facebook Data Policy considers this information public, Internet research ethics guidelines and other academic papers point to a number of ethical issues around publishing the comments of users without obtaining their consent.  As I am doing a post-structural discourse analysis this is unavoidable unless I consider paraphrasing or similar techniques that aim to protect the identity of users, however this strategy raises questions of scientific rigor and does not seem to be one that is widely used or indeed fool proof.  There are also issues around contacting users for consent, for example users could be underage or belong to other vulnerable groups.


I am left with two options if I take a worst case scenario approach to these dilemmas - either tweak my research question (for example to look at the posts of public figures and organisations such as media outlets) or consider alternative research methods which do not present the ethical challenges of discourse analysis or other methods of close analysis, but allow me to answer my research question (What were the Facebook user perceptions of sole mother poverty and welfare in Australia between May 2012 and January 2013?).


Any suggestions for readings, tips or advice regarding ways forward including methods would be most appreciated.


Many thanks in advance,

Emily