International seminar „Ethical Dilemmas of Internet (Researchers)“
Centre for the Information Society of the University of Tartu is happy to welcome everyone on 17th October (14.00-18.00) to take part of an International seminar „Ethical Dilemmas of Internet (Researchers)“. The seminar will take place on the main building of the university, room 128.
We are honoured to host a seminar during which we have a chance to listen to the presentations by the members of the ethics working group of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) who will lead the initiative to draft a new set of guidelines for the internet researchers „Internet Research Ethics 3.0“.
In their presentations the scholars will share stories about their own experiences and dilemmas they have had during their empirical research, and will give advice on how to foresee, cope and handle such difficult ethical dilemmas. Furthermore, the presentations will also focus on the future of internet research ethics and various new dilemmas researchers face due to new technological developments and methodological turn.
Seminar will be in English and free of charge.
Online-registration to the seminar.
Confirmed speakers:
Dr. Crystal Abidin (Jönköping University/Curtin University) is one of the most well-known internet researchers studying Influencers, a multimedia form of vocational microcelebrity on social media. She has also written about virality of young children on social media, young people’s expression of grief on the internet, and practices of young coupling in East Asia, and identity-making among mixed race persons in Singapore and Australia. In her newest study she will explore the Influencer industry in Swedish fashion houses. Read more. Title of the presentation: "Fame game, Name shame, Tame dame: Confessions from researching internet celebrities”.
Dr. Nancy Baym (Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research) is a co-founder and is Past-President of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR). Her role in helping to establish the field of interdisciplinary internet research is difficult to overestimate, for instance, Nancy Baym Annual Book Award seeks to recognize the best work in the field of Internet Studies. She wrote the first Ph.D. dissertation on online community in 1994 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her main research projects explore how people understand and use various communication technologies in their everyday relationships. She is the author of numerous research articles and several books, including Personal Connections in the Digital Age (Polity Press, 2010/2015). See more.
Prof. Annette Markham (Aarhus University/Loyola University) is a long-standing member of the board of AoIR and a main contributor when drafting the recommendations for researchers about ethical decision-making in internet research. Her main research interests deal with internet research ethics and qualitative research methods. She has Publisher numerous articles and contributed to and co-authored many edited collections, e.g. “Life Online: Researching real experience in virtual space”(1998 Alta Mira), “Internet Inquiry: Conversations about method” (2009, Sage, co-authored with Nancy Baym). See more.
Dr. Katrin Tiidenberg (Aarhus University/Tallinn University) is a sociologist whose research interests are focused on online identity creation, self-realization and creative sharing practices. She is one of the first internet researchers who started to explore selfie-practices in detail and has published extensively about visual self-expression in different online communities. She is a longtime member of AoIR and an active contributor to the ethical working group of AoIR. See more. Presentation on the topic: "Studying selfies with care".
Dr. Michael Zimmer’s (University of Wisconsin Milwaukee) research interests deal with privacy and internet research ethics. He has published numerous academic articles and opinion pieces on the topic and has provided expert advice and consultation to companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft. Together with Katharina Kinder-Kurlanda he is one of the editors of the collection „Internet Research Ethics for the Social Age: New Challenges, Cases, and Contexts” published by Peter Lang. The book launch of the collection will be held during AoIR2017. His latest research project PERVADE (Pervasive Data Ethics for Computational Research) studies how diverse stakeholders – big data researchers, platforms, regulators, and user communities – understand their ethical obligations and choices related to computational research that relies on big, pervasive data sets about people. See more. Title of the presentation: "Addressing Conceptual Gaps in Big Data Research Ethics"
Presentations will be followed by panel discussion „Internet Research Ethics 3.0“ which is focuses on the future dilemmas of internet researchers. Panel will be moderated by social media lecturer Dr. Maria Murumaa-Mengel, from the Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu.
Additional information: Andra Siibak, Head of the Centre for the Information Society, Professor of Media Studies, andra.siibak@ut.ee
