Ethics are like superpowers – you only realise you have them in emergencies.
In superhero films, it’s only when the protagonist is pushed to their limits and in a real pickle that they come to the realization that they can fly or shoot webs or become big, green and angry.
Ethics are a bit like that, except unlike superpowers, they actually exist in real life. I think we can not really be consciously aware of what morals we hold, until we come to a big life decision or dilemma, when we look to our conscience to find what is the right thing to do.
When it comes to media research, ethics are very important, in order to:
- treat others with respect and fairness
- keep your conscience clear
- avoid getting in big trouble
However, as Weerakkody (2008) states, “people will have different ideas and standards about what is right or wrong”. So in order to rectify this, ethical guidelines are written for organisations, companies and universities on what is generally accepted as right and wrong.
If we don’t follow ethical guidelines, we can end up upsetting and even harming our research subjects and the general public. Perhaps the most extreme examples of research having disastrous effects due to unethical decisions was the Stanford Prison Experiment, in which research subjects acting as prisoners were subjected to psychological abuse (Weerakkody, 2008). This is clearly unethical – the subjects were unwittingly subjected to abuse which led in some cases to serious psychological damage.
The Stanford Prison Experiment. Image source: http://www.prisonexp.org/images/spic1.jpg
In media research, perhaps the most relevant example of questionable ethics is the Facebook emotional contagion experiment, when Facebook made the news feeds of 689,003 people either more positive or negative than usual. Researchers analysed these users’ postings to see if they had been affected by the emotions prominent in their news feed (Kramer et al, 2014).
Academically, it’s interesting.
Ethically, there are issues.
Facebook’s News Feed. Image source: http://www3.pcmag.com/media/images/316002-old-facebook-news-feed.jpg
Firstly, did the interview subjects have informed consent?
Technically, yes – the authors believe “it was consistent with Facebook’s Data Use Policy, to which all users agree prior to…constituting informed consent for this research.” (Kramer et al, 2014). So they probably won’t get in legal trouble. (Vermer, 2014)
But let’s make this personal. It’s possible that you and I were among the 689,003 whose news feeds were manipulated in 2012, but we actually don’t know. But let’s say we were. We had no idea that this experiment was occurring, that Facebook and the researchers were attempting to deliberately manipulate our emotions, or that what we post was being compared to what we were ‘fed’. So, informed consent? Questionable.
Secondly, it’s possible that the experiment had serious consequences on the wellbeing and psychological state of the research subjects. For example, a Facebook user with depression or other mental illness might have been negatively impacted by the manipulated negative feed, and it could have even contributed to, for example, self-harm. It’s a possibility, but we will never know.
Personally, I’m unsure of the whole issue. I understand that it in a sense lacked informed consent and could have potentially harmful effects, but I also understand that knowledge of the experiment might have skewed the experiment’s data.
But the fact that it has generated such a response (ABC, 2014) proves one thing – ethics, like superpowers, are important and powerful things.
References:
Kramer, Adam D. I., Guillory, Jamie E. & Hancock, Jeffrey T. 2014, ‘Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 111, no. 24, pp. 8788-8790
Verma, Inder M. 2014, ‘Editorial expression of concern: experimental evidence of massive scale emotional contagion through social networks’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 111, no. 29, pp. 10779
Weerakkody, Niranjala Damayanthi 2008, ‘Research ethics in media and communication’, in Research methods for media and communications, Oxford University Press Australia and New Zealand, South Melbourne, Vic., pp. 73-91
The Meaning of Media 
