Intrusiveness and the Public-private Divide in Netnography: A Situated, Structured Approach for Ethical Research in the Context of Closed, Group-based, or Hidden Social Media Behaviour

Abstract

The nature of online social behaviour is largely changing, from communications taking place on open platforms to interactions occurring in hidden, group-based spaces or closed fora. Boccia Artieri (2017) has called this the new geography of unsearchable small conversations. This transformation challenges our current understanding and application of research ethics in qualitative digital sociology because, on one hand, we can no longer lean upon the approaches used by social data science to handle big and open data and, on the other, we cannot exclusively rely on established practices in qualitative sociology. Academic inquiry into these closed messaging threads and fora, however, remains of great societal importance, not least because of the rise of hate and extreme content in such spaces. With researchers now facing increased barriers when accessing social media (such as having to register an account, the inability to enter a group or chat without being invited, and so on), a rethinking of some of the long-standing cornerstones of ethical research is required for the digital age. The paper makes a methodological contribution to this field by delivering an assessment tool based on the methodology of the project Online Hateful Youth Sociality, which explores the use of memes to share hate on social media. The tool bridges the perspectives of digital sociology, criminology, and digital humanities with ethnographic real-world research to address the ethical issues of disclosure and intrusiveness, harm, the public or private nature of online spaces, and informed consent in the context of researching behaviour in small and hard-to-reach online groups. The assessment tool is presented in the form of an ethical decision flowchart that advocates for an approach that is not only situated but also structured. Ethical considerations are thus applied to the relevant issues depending on specific contexts but with clear, “step-by-step” assessment guidance.