Samuel G, Ahmed W, Kara H, Jessop C, Quinton S, Sanger S
1 Lancaster University, UK.
2 King's College London, UK.
J Empir Res Hum Res Ethics. 2018 Oct;13(4):452-454. doi: 10.1177/1556264618793773. Epub 2018 Aug 24.
This article reports on a U.K. workshop on social media research ethics held in May 2018. There were 10 expert speakers and an audience of researchers, research ethics committee members, and research institution representatives. Participants reviewed the current state of social media ethics, discussing well-rehearsed questions such as what needs consent in social media research, and how the public/private divide differs between virtual and real-life environments. The lack of answers to such questions was noted, along with the difficulties posed for ethical governance structures in general and the work of research ethics committees in particular. Discussions of these issues enabled the creation of two recommendations. The first is for research ethics committees and journal editors to add the category of 'data subject research' to the existing categories of 'text research' and 'human subject research'. This would reflect the fact that social media research does not fall into either of the existing categories and so needs a category of its own. The second is that ethical issues should be considered at all stages of social media research, up to and including aftercare. This acknowledges that social media research throws up a large number of ethical issues throughout the process which, under current arrangements for ethical research governance, risks remaining unaddressed.
本文报道了2018年5月在英国举办的一场关于社交媒体研究伦理的研讨会。会上有10位专家发言，听众包括研究人员、研究伦理委员会成员和研究机构代表。与会者审视了社交媒体伦理的现状，讨论了一些反复探讨过的问题，比如在社交媒体研究中哪些内容需要征得同意，以及虚拟环境和现实生活环境中公私界限的差异。会议指出了这些问题缺乏答案的情况，以及这给总体伦理治理结构，尤其是研究伦理委员会的工作带来的困难。对这些问题的讨论促成了两条建议。第一条建议是，研究伦理委员会和期刊编辑应在现有的“文本研究”和“人类受试者研究”类别中增加“数据主体研究”类别。这将反映出社交媒体研究不属于现有的任何一个类别，因此需要有其自身的类别。第二条建议是，在社交媒体研究的所有阶段，直至包括后续跟进阶段，都应考虑伦理问题。这认识到社交媒体研究在整个过程中会引发大量伦理问题，按照当前的伦理研究治理安排，这些问题有可能得不到解决。
