Ethical Stances in (Internet) Research

Abstract

This chapter explores the ethical destabilisation that the development of the Internet and related new media technologies has provoked, an unsettling of ethical expectations and assumptions that is felt by both researchers and Internet users. Examining researchers’ responses to the challenges of conducting research in online environments, the chapter considers how the idea of an ‘ethical’ Internet researcher has emerged in this work. It then explores moves towards localised and contingent research ethics in recent writing about online and offline research, and considers how these moves relate to the institutionalisation of ethical guidance and regulation of research in academic contexts. The chapter closes with an introduction to the author’s study of two online fan communities – a study that underpins the discus- sion of ethics in the chapters that follow – and a description of the key ethical issues that were faced during the project.