[Air-L] Conducting qualitative research on Facebook

Dariusz Jemielniak dariusz.jemielniak at fulbrightmail.org
Wed Feb 7 01:37:30 PST 2018 

while agreeing with previous commenters, I would also like to add that
translating from another language often gives an additional layer of
security (it makes it more difficult to track the quotes back to the
original). If you're going to publish in English, as often is the case,
doing fieldwork in a different language adds to the safety.

cheers,

dj

On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 9:52 AM, Sarah Quinton <sequinton at brookes.ac.uk>
wrote:

> Hello Virginia
>
> You should check the QUT Ethics  committee's policies as sensibly suggested
> by Sharon.
>
> You also might want to consider both the context of your research, i.e. the
> sensitivity of the phenomenon you are researching ( is it discussions about
> gardening or is it content about being a carer for someone with long term
> illness)  and also the vulnerability of the Facebook participants  you wish
> to include in the research ( obviously there are limits to what you can
> determine about these people's vulnerability but it is worth thinking
> about,  is the group in any way self identifying as vulnerable or
> identified by others/researchers  as vulnerable?).
>
> You may also wish to consider anonymising the content without fundamentally
> altering the meaning ( again depending on what you need from the data and
> how you will be analysing it) if you are thinking about reproducing it
> anywhere in your research, so that it is more difficult to trace back to
> the poster/originator  through search engines. This is another approach to
> 'protecting' the Facebook participants.
>
>
> I am sure other members of AoIR will have valuable comments too.
>
>
>
> Sarah
>
> On 7 February 2018 at 05:59, Sharon Greenfield <
> s3417013 at student.rmit.edu.au
> > wrote:
>
> > Hello Virginia,
> >
> > I would suggest reading up on Mary L Gray's many pieces on ethics in
> online
> > research.
> > In addition, what does the QUT Ethics Committee recommend?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Sharon
> >
> >
> > On 7 February 2018 at 16:38, Virginia Balfour <
> virginiabalfour at hotmail.com
> > >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hello
> > >
> > > I would value advice on the ethics of collecting data from an Open
> > > Facebook page and the best ways to mitigate them.
> > >
> > > My research is looking at an open Facebook page and it is likely that I
> > > will want to use data from conversations between commenters and
> > statements
> > > made by commenters as part of my research. While most observations will
> > be
> > > generalised and made anonymous, there may be some conversations where
> it
> > is
> > > pertinent to identify the commenters and/or identifiable comments.
> > >
> > > In particular I am interested in whether people think it is necessary
> or
> > > advisable to contact individual commenters to ask if their comments can
> > be
> > > used in the research?
> > >
> > > Are their any risk mitigation strategies that anyone has used in the
> past
> > > that they could recommend?
> > >
> > > regards
> > >
> > > Virginia Balfour
> > >
> > > QUT researcher.
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > >
> > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Dr Sarah  Quinton  FHEA MIDM
> Chair of Oxford Brookes University Research Ethics Committee
> Senior Lecturer in Marketing
> Marketing Department,
> Business School, Room CLC G.14
> Oxford Brookes University
> Headington  Campus
> Oxford. OX3 0BP
> +44 1865 485694
>
> *Skype: sarah.quinton5*
>
> www.sarahquinton.co.uk
> www.twitter.com/quinton_digital
>
> http://uk.linkedin.com/in/sarahquinton
> <http://uk.linkedin.com/in/sarahquinton>
>
> *Please note that  from October  2017 Dr Karen Handley is now the Business
> Faculty Ethics Officer and  she can be emailed at khandley at brookes.ac.uk
> <khandley at brookes.ac.uk> concerning  PhD student or staff research ethics
> issues.*
>
>
> Recent publications:
> *Out Now*: Quinton, S., and Reynolds, R. (2018*),The Ethics of Online
> Research. *Ed Kandy Woodfield, The changing roles of researchers and
> participants in digital and social media research, chap 3, 53-78.
>
>
> Quinton, S., Canhoto, A., Molinillo, S., Pera,  R. & Budhathoki, T.
> (2017). Conceptualising
> a digital orientation: antecedents of supporting SME performance in the
> digital economy, *Journal of Strategic Marketing*,  1-13.
> Quinton, S. and Simkin, L. (2016). The Digital Journey: reflected learning
> and emerging challenges, *International Journal of Management Reviews, *
> (forthcoming) DOI:10.1111/ijmr.1204
>
> *Current research project* - Sharing photographs online and on social media
> by older people: a mitigator of social isolation and loneliness. Funded by
> the Sir Halley Stewart Trust, in partnership with The Open University.
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at 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/
>



-- 
________________________________________________________
<http://nerds.kozminski.edu.pl/>
Dariusz Jemielniak, Ph.D.
Professor of Management
Chair of MINDS (Management in Networked and Digital Societies) Department
Kozminski University
 http://nerds.kozminski.edu.pl  <http://nerds.kozminski.edu.pl/>

associate faculty at Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society,
Harvard University
*Recent articles:*

   - Dariusz Jemielniak, Maciej Wilamowski (2017)  Cultural Diversity of
   Quality of Information on Wikipedias
   <http://crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/cultures%20of%20wikipedias.pdf>
*Journal
   of the Association for Information Science and Technology* 68:  10.
    2460–2470.
   - Dariusz Jemielniak (2016)  Wikimedia Movement Governance: The Limits
   of A-Hierarchical Organization
   <http://www.crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/wikimedia_governance.pdf> *Journal
   of Organizational Change Management *29:  3.  361-378.
   - Dariusz Jemielniak, Eduard Aibar (2016)  Bridging the Gap Between
   Wikipedia and Academia
   <http://www.crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/bridging.pdf> *Journal of the
   Association for Information Science and Technology* 67:  7.  1773-1776.
   - Dariusz Jemielniak (2016)  Breaking the Glass Ceiling on Wikipedia
   <http://www.crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/glass-ceiling.pdf> *Feminist
   Review *113:  1.  103-108.
   - Tadeusz Chełkowski, Peter Gloor, Dariusz Jemielniak (2016)  Inequalities
   in Open Source Software Development: Analysis of Contributor’s Commits in
   Apache Software Foundation Projects
   <http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0152976.PDF>
   , *PLoS ONE* 11:  4.  e0152976.

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