Ethics in criminological research of online communities

Ingrida Kruopštaitė, Maryja Šupa
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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to outline and critically analyse the ethical dilemmas faced by criminologists tasked with online community research. Online communities and online content serve as a valuable sources of criminological knowledge about online crime and deviance as well as formal and informal norm-making and means of social control. From discussion forum texts and blogs to multimedia posts in open and closed social networking groups, from visual and video materials on Instagram, Youtube, or Tiktok to organized crime group data exchanges in publicly inaccessible communication channels, there is great diversity and variety of the contents and forms of online communication enacted by online communities. Correspondingly, research projects are different – some focusing on the content as a linguistic object, others focusing on social relations, social network structure, and its ethnographic characteristics, while many fall in between. In addition, depending on the research goals and sensitivity of the research questions, researchers may opt for active interaction or passive (and sometimes covert) observation. Therefore there is no one-size-fits-all ethical solution for approaching online communities in criminology. Based on an in-depth analysis of methodological literature, the paper suggests that online community research is largely a matter of situational ethics, wherein researchers must make situation-aware ethical decisions about several key issues. In particular, they should aim to choose and provide arguments regarding: 1) expectations of publicity or privacy in publicly accessible information; 2) the need for informed consent or absence of such need; 3) ensuring balance between anonymity and authorship attribution; 4) securing collected data; and 5) correctly assessing risks to the researched individuals and communities, and the researchers themselves.
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网络社区犯罪学研究中的伦理问题
本文的目的是概述和批判性地分析负责在线社区研究的犯罪学家所面临的道德困境。网络社区和网络内容是关于网络犯罪和越轨行为以及正式和非正式规范制定和社会控制手段的犯罪学知识的宝贵来源。从讨论论坛的文本和博客到开放和封闭的社交网络群中的多媒体帖子,从Instagram、Youtube或抖音上的视觉和视频材料,到公共无法访问的通信渠道中的有组织犯罪集团数据交换,在线社区制定的在线通信内容和形式非常多样。相应地,研究项目也有所不同——一些侧重于作为语言对象的内容,另一些侧重于社会关系、社会网络结构及其民族志特征,而许多则介于两者之间。此外,根据研究目标和研究问题的敏感性,研究人员可能会选择主动互动或被动(有时是隐蔽)观察。因此,在犯罪学领域,没有一个一刀切的道德解决方案来接近在线社区。基于对方法论文献的深入分析,本文认为网络社区研究在很大程度上是一个情境伦理问题,研究人员必须就几个关键问题做出情境意识的伦理决策。特别是,它们应致力于选择并提供以下论点:1)对公开信息或隐私的期望;2) 需要知情同意或不需要知情同意;3) 确保匿名和署名之间的平衡;4) 保护收集的数据;以及5)正确评估被研究的个人和社区以及研究人员自身的风险。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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自引率
0.00%
发文量
9
审稿时长
32 weeks
期刊最新文献
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