Ethics in Gender Online Research: A Facebook Case Study

Abstract

This article explores the role of researchers in online environments, namely Facebook, and their ethical responsibilities towards fieldwork in a broad sense, their interlocutors, colleagues, themselves, and their families. The aim is to highlight the relationship between methodology, ethical considerations, and political circumstances in the realm of jihadi audiovisualities. By addressing actual methodological and ethical limitations experienced while conducting research offline and on Facebook, I will further the practical understanding of radicalization processes and entanglement with jihadi media. The study has its own ethic and theoretical limitations since it is anchored in an empirical case study that represents a novelty in terms of methods and results. The sum of the application of these methods and creative solutions may inspire new scientific approaches for digital ethnography, digital ethics, and gender studies and may, in particular, help to conceptualize jihadi audiovisuality as a field of research.