Week 6: Ethics PDF

**Week 6: ethics ** - Ethics are the backbone of social research - Ensuring that studies are conducted responsibly and participants are protected - Both the reading and lecture emphasize core ethical principles like respect for person, concern for welfare, and justice - These pri...

**Week 6: ethics ** - Ethics are the backbone of social research - Ensuring that studies are conducted responsibly and participants are protected - Both the reading and lecture emphasize core ethical principles like respect for person, concern for welfare, and justice - These principles guide researchers in respecting participant autonomy, balancing risks and benefits, and ensuring equity in research burden and benefits - Central to these principles is the concept of **informed consent** - **Participants must voluntarily agree to participate with a full understanding of the study's nature, risks, and benefits.** - Researchers must handle data securely to protect privacy and confidentiality, using measures like pseudonyms and ensuring sensitive information remains secure - The lecture expands on these principles in the contexts of **internet research,** highlighting challenges unique to online environments - For instance, while a lot of data can be scraped or analyzed - Questions arise about whether such use is ethical - Studies show participants often don\'t read terms of service or understand how their data is used - Raising concerns about whether informed consent is genuinely obtained - The **association of internet researchers (AoIR)** guidelines address these complexities, urging researchers to consider platform expectations, minimize data collection, and comply with legal and ethical standards - Direct quotes from online content, even if they are public, are identifiable and require informed consent wherever possible.  - **Ethical dilemmas**, such as those involving deception, are discussed in both the chapter and lecture - While the milgram obedience study, the stanford prison experiment, and the tuskegee syphilis study are infamous examples of unethical research - They underscore why institutional oversight like Research ethics boards (REBs) is vital - REBs evaluate studies to ensure participant welfare - Balancing risks and benefits - And often impose stricter scrutiny for **qualitative research** where boundaries between the research and participant can blur - Beyond academia, ethics are equally important in fields like market research, journalism, and user experience design - Even in unregulated environments, the mantra remains: **just because you can, doesn\'t mean you should.** - Balancing knowledge acquisition with ethical considerations is a universal priority - Ensuring research contributes to understanding without compromising participants dignity or well-being