Abstract
The purpose of this article is to illuminate the conceptualisations and applications of the Belmont Report’s key ethical principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice based on a document analysis of five of the most relevant disciplinary guidelines on internet research in the social sciences. These seminal documents are meant to provide discipline-specific guidance for research design and implementation and are regarded as key references when conducting research online. Our analysis revealed that the principles of respect and beneficence were explicitly conveyed in the documents analysed, offering nuanced interpretations on issues of informed consent, privacy, and benefits and risks as well as providing recommendations for modifying traditional practices to fit the online setting. However, the invocations of the principle of justice were rather implicit and reflect an important shift from the Belmont Report’s protectionist ethical position towards more situational and dialogic approaches. With the rapidly evolving nature of internet technologies, this analysis is projected to contribute to the ongoing developments in research ethics in the social sciences by outlining the tensions and implications of the use of the internet as a methodological tool. We also seek to provide recommendations on how disciplinary associations can proceed to facilitate ethically sensitive internet research.
Highlights
The internet has been converted into what Castells (2001) describes as the fabric of our lives, revolutionizing the way people’s perceptions and interactions with their environment are reflected
The internet’s use in social science research is fraught with ethical and legal challenges, some of which appear to be more complex than what traditional research
We agreed on a set of preliminary codes based on the three main principles of the Belmont Report and implemented a general keyword search on the document guidelines to check for the existence of sections that explicitly refer to these concepts
Summary
The internet has been converted into what Castells (2001) describes as the fabric of our lives, revolutionizing the way people’s perceptions and interactions with their environment are reflected. In the field of social science research, it is viewed by many as a rapidly developing and massively potent methodological tool due to its role in shaping the dynamics, locations, and embodiments of interactions and meaning construction (Jones 2011; Orton-Johnson 2010; Parker et al 2011; Savage and Burrows 2007; Townsend and Wallace 2016; Wilson et al 2012). The internet’s use in social science research is fraught with ethical and legal challenges, some of which appear to be more complex than what traditional research. These developments and the concomitant ethical concerns they raise seem to be recognized by those involved in both academic and market research. Guidelines pertaining to the ethical use of the internet. This article focuses on internet research ethics in the social sciences and aims to illuminate the applications and implications of ethical guidelines for the benefit of individuals who identify their research practice within this discipline
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