{"title":"Affordances-driven ethics for research on mobile instant messaging: Notes from the Global South","authors":"Nadia Herrada Hidalgo, Marcelo Santos, Sérgio Barbosa","doi":"10.1177/20501579241247994","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Mobile instant messaging (MIM) applications have received increasing attention from social science researchers lately. Despite the high frequency of its use for multiple purposes, research in such environments entails specific ethical challenges, more familiar for researchers from the Global South, where MIMs have become an important part of the media landscape for a decade or so. This article discusses the ethical dilemmas that emerged in two distinct cases where authors were part of the research teams, concluding that current frameworks fall short in the sociotechnical dimension. To address this, we complement the casuistic-heuristic model with an affordances-driven approach, which contemplates the agency of the group members within the interactive processes that take place in digital environments and the possibilities and constraints that platforms' features offer during the research process.","PeriodicalId":46650,"journal":{"name":"Mobile Media & Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Mobile Media & Communication","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579241247994","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Mobile instant messaging (MIM) applications have received increasing attention from social science researchers lately. Despite the high frequency of its use for multiple purposes, research in such environments entails specific ethical challenges, more familiar for researchers from the Global South, where MIMs have become an important part of the media landscape for a decade or so. This article discusses the ethical dilemmas that emerged in two distinct cases where authors were part of the research teams, concluding that current frameworks fall short in the sociotechnical dimension. To address this, we complement the casuistic-heuristic model with an affordances-driven approach, which contemplates the agency of the group members within the interactive processes that take place in digital environments and the possibilities and constraints that platforms' features offer during the research process.
期刊介绍:
Mobile Media & Communication is a peer-reviewed forum for international, interdisciplinary academic research on the dynamic field of mobile media and communication. Mobile Media & Communication draws on a wide and continually renewed range of disciplines, engaging broadly in the concept of mobility itself.