Ethics in Social Media Research (Knowledge Exchange Seminar 1)

About

This half-day session will focus exclusively on the ethical issues arising from social media research. We have a limited number of spaces for this event so places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis and preference will be given to participants willing to contribute a case study or example from their own experience to one of the sessions. We will encourage attendees to share personal experiences of ethical issues using social media.

Our Knowledge Exchange Seminars are designed to provide an opportunity for researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to share ideas. Each of the four sessions will be interactive, with lots of opportunity for open discussion. We are asking for network volunteers. You can volunteer to:

Lead a themed session — by preparing a 5 minute introduction on one of the seminar themes, which poses key questions for the group to discuss. You will co-facilitate the following discussion with one of the NSMNSS team and write a summary blog post after the event.

Tell us about your experiences by providing a descriptive case study — a short 2-3 minute description of an ethical issue or concern that you have encountered in your social media research. Please identify which of the suggested themes in the programme you think your example would fit under and we will ask you to share this during the relevant session.

Agenda

Time	Session
12:30	Arrival and lunch — stalls
13:00	Session 1: Understanding our digital identities: What is the ëcaseí in social media research? Do our digital identities and behaviours vary to our offline identities? How does this affect the ethics of social media research?
13:50	Session 2: Different platforms? Different Ethics? What about the ethics of the platform providers? Do researchers have different ethical responsibilities on different platforms?
14:40	Break
15:00	Session 3: Public and Private data ñ Are public profiles available for research? What ethical responsibilities do we have?
15:50	Session 4: Drawing together key messages for ethical guidelines: Exploring existing frameworks, identifying gaps and additions.
16:30	Close and next steps.