Get 24⁄7 customer support help when you place a homework help service order with us. We will guide you on how to place your essay help, proofreading and editing your draft – fixing the grammar, spelling, or formatting of your paper easily and cheaply A key issue in considering observational research using social media is whether the proposed project meets the criteria as human subjects research, and if so, what type of review is needed. A human subject is defined by federal regulations as a living individual about whom an investigator obtains data through interaction with the individual or A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.. Social networking services vary in format and the number of features. They can incorporate a range of
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Try out PMC Labs and tell us what you think. Learn More. Social media Websites SMWs are increasingly popular research tools. These sites provide new opportunities for researchers, but raise new challenges for Institutional Review Boards IRBs that review these research protocols.
As of yet, there is little-to-no guidance regarding how an IRB should review the studies involving SMWs. The purpose of this article was to review the common risks inherent in social media research and consider how researchers can consider these risks when writing research protocols.
Concomitant with these research approaches, we gave particular attention to the issues pertinent to SMW research, including privacy, consent, and confidentiality. After considering these challenges, we outlined key considerations for both researchers and reviewers when creating or reviewing SMW IRB protocols. Our goal in this article was to provide a detailed examination of relevant ethics and regulatory issues for both researchers and those who review their protocols.
S ocial media Websites SMWs provide opportunities for user participation in the creation and display of multimedia data. These popular Websites are increasingly emerging as valuable research tools. There are several aspects of SMWs that provided unique advantages to researchers. First, SMWs present innovative opportunities to examine the displayed online behaviors and beliefs in a context that is naturalistic, as it is part of the participants' daily lives.
Second, SMWs allow a researcher research paper on social networking services reach out and conduct studies within the populations that may be hard to reach in traditional research, such as underserved populations. Finally, research paper on social networking services, in many cases, this research may be feasible and low cost, as it can be conducted from the researcher's office using a SMW.
SMWs present many new opportunities for research, but also raise new challenges for the Institutional Review Boards IRBs that review these research protocols.
It remains difficult to determine what risks and privacy expectations are unique to the SMW realm, and what challenges can be addressed by modifications of known and understood risks inherent in research. As of yet, there is little-to-no guidance from federal regulations or institutions, and very little existing literature, on how an IRB should review research protocols involving SMWs.
Given these challenges, the purpose of this article was to review the common risks inherent in social media research and discuss whether these risks represent concerns unique to social media, or modifications to our current understanding of research risks generally. Concomitant with these research approaches, we gave particular attention to issues regarding privacy, consent, and confidentiality.
After considering these challenges, we conclude this article by providing key considerations for researchers and reviewers when creating or reviewing SMW IRB protocols. Our goal in this article was not to dictate the rules and regulations for IRBs, but rather to open discussion and outline relevant issues for both researchers and those who review their protocols. Throughout this article, we have framed our discussion around four SMWs that are currently popular: Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Studies of these SMWs illustrate both similarities and differences in social media research techniques and concomitant potential IRB concerns. Twitter is an SMW in which profile owners i. Twitter studies as of yet have gathered data regarding individual patient experiences in areas such as pain and smoking cessation, as well as population-level data regarding events such as pandemics. Videos may be user-generated or professionally made. Studies to date have included evaluation of health information within the YouTube videos, 5 assessment of YouTube as a medical teaching tool, 6 and use of YouTube to evaluate an individual's behavior or even symptoms.
This site focuses on user's professional identities. Studies to date include basic analyses of the LinkedIn users, comparing them to the Facebook users. Currently, research paper on social networking services, the most popular SNS is Facebook, which allows profile owners to create an online profile, including displayed personal information via text, video, surveys, or photographs, to build an online social network by friending profile owners, and to communicate with other profile owners via messaging.
As with all types of research, there are potential risks to participants in studies involving SMWs. For each of these, we considered relevant risks and framed those risks within the context of traditional research as appropriate. Because the issues regarding privacy concerns in observational research may apply to the other two research approaches, we address the observational research first. A key issue in considering observational research using social media is whether the proposed project meets the criteria as human subjects research, and if so, what type of review is needed.
A human subject is defined by federal regulations as a living individual about whom an investigator obtains data through interaction with the individual or identifiable private information. If the following conditions are met, access to the SMW is public; information is identifiable, but not private; and information gathering requires no interaction with the person who posted it online, and then presumably the proposed project does not constitute the human subjects research.
For example, an observational study of YouTube videos involves publicly posted and available content accessible to any Internet user. In this case, the information is not private, and it does not require any interaction with the subject to access it. Observational research may also meet the criteria for exemption from the IRB review if the study involves observation of public information regarding individual human subjects.
Exempt research includes research involving the observation of public behavior, except when information research paper on social networking services is a recorded in such a manner that subjects can be identified either directly or through the identifiers linked to the subjects, or b research paper on social networking services disclosure of subjects' responses outside the published research that could reasonably place the subjects at risk of criminal or civic liability, or be damaging to the subjects' financial standing, employability, or reputation.
This category of research would likely apply to an investigator observing Websites such as Facebook or LinkedIn, provided that only publicly available profiles were evaluated to make collective observations.
It is important to note that this category does not apply to minors if the investigator participates in the activities being observed. Thus, as long as one does not participate by interacting with participants, such as trying to establish connections between profiles via friending, this would seemingly apply to minors' displayed content on SMWs. Recent changes in the SMW policies and controversies related to particular studies have raised new issues regarding whether observation of the public behavior via SMWs should continue to receive the IRB approval.
Some SMWs allow the users to choose their own privacy settings. On Research paper on social networking services and LinkedIn, for example, profile owners have the choice to protect their displayed information through profile security settings.
Privacy settings can limit access to the profile as a whole, research paper on social networking services, or settings can be customized to limit access to certain profile viewers or to particular sections of the profile.
Similar settings are available on Twitter. Thus, participants can choose whether or not their posted content is publicly available, which may in turn affect whether an IRB views research paper on social networking services observation of this content as an exempt or otherwise permissible research. In the past, some IRBs have considered whether or not the Website itself requires a username and password login to determine if the site is of a public or private nature.
If a username and password were required, the site was not considered public, and thus the consent could be required to view content. Newer SMWs raise concerns about whether that policy can still guide these decisions, because many SMWs require usernames and passwords for only particular purposes or only under certain circumstances. YouTube, for example, requires a username and password to verify one is over the age of research paper on social networking services to post videos and view videos of adult content.
Anyone may view general YouTube research paper on social networking services, with or without a username or password.
One would therefore not expect that the consent would be required to conduct an observational study of general YouTube videos. Other SMWs such as Facebook require a username and password to ensure that only the profile owner posts information to his or her page, and to provide tailored advertisements to users and data to marketing companies.
The availability of the information posted, however, research paper on social networking services, is determined by the profile owner, who can expressly make the information available to the public. Thus, old paradigms of IRB rules related to Internet research may need reconsideration.
A reasonable expectation of privacy for an SMW user is comprised of a combination of the intent of the Website as well as the Website's explicit statement of privacy rules.
Your public information is broadly and instantly disseminated. Similarly, YouTube's statement of intent of being a forum of sharing videos publicly is consistent with their Privacy Policy. As we now return to the Facebook Privacy Policy, the described intention of the site was to share information with people.
Such information may, for example, be accessed by everyone on the Internet including people not logged into Facebookbe indexed by third-party search engines and be imported, exported, distributed and re-distributed by us and others without privacy limitations.
Thus, Facebook informed the user that if the profile security settings are publicly available, the profile owners should not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Separate from the Privacy Policy was a Rights-and-Responsibilities hyperlink. Thus, a contradiction exists between the statements in the Privacy Policy compared to the Rights and Responsibilities sections regarding their intended audience as well as their direction.
Many IRBs seek guidance from court cases involving the invasion of privacy to determine what would constitute a privacy violation in the research context. Under the Fourth Amendment to the U. Constitution, individuals are protected from governmental searches when and where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. This expectation is limited by what society recognizes as reasonable, given the circumstances of the individual at the time of the search.
Courts have held, for example, that an individual generally has a reasonable expectation of privacy within his or her own home, but does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in things the individual knowingly exposes to the public.
A defendant can be liable, for example, when he or she makes public disclosures of private facts about the plaintiff. Courts deciding such cases often apply a reasonable expectation of privacy analysis to the alleged disclosure, typically finding that a fact is private when a research paper on social networking services person in the plaintiff's position would expect the fact to be private.
Federal and state courts have examined Facebook's privacy policy and determined that individuals do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in information they post on their Facebook pages. In Romano v. Steelcasethe plaintiff Romano sued the Steelcase Company for damages, claiming that their actions had caused her permanent injury and suffering.
Steelcase sought information from Romano's current and historical Facebook accounts, including deleted pages, to rebut these claims. The court granted Steelcase's request to access the information on these pages, holding that Romano did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in information that she published on social networking Websites, research paper on social networking services.
The court noted that Facebook privacy policies plainly state that information users' post may be shared with others, and that information sharing is the very nature and purpose of these SNSs, else they would cease to exist. Courts have concluded that a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy in writings that the person posts on a social networking Website and makes available to the public.
Interactive research takes place when a researcher wishes to assess the SMW content that is not publicly available, research paper on social networking services. To access this information, the researcher needs to contact the participant for permission to view the content. On Facebook, this interaction may include a friend request. Some have argued that a friend request may lead to a misrepresentation of the researcher's intentions for the relationship.
Similarly, on Twitter, research paper on social networking services, access to protected Tweets means that the researcher must become a follower of that participant, also potentially implying a closeness of relationship.
Previous studies have determined that Facebook friending implies a loose-tie relationship, often including associates or acquaintances. Thus, both friending and following in and of itself are unlikely to trigger unreasonable expectations for a close or prolonged relationship on the part of participants. If the researcher conducts a study involving minors, it is likely that including friending or following would constitute interaction and participation in the research venue. In this type of study, it is worth considering the categories of research that include waivers of parental consent.
An IRB may approve a consent procedure that does not include parental consent if the project involves no more than minimal risk to the participants; the waiver will not adversely affect the rights and welfare of the subjects; the research could not be practically carried out without the waiver; and the subjects will be provided with additional pertinent information after participation when appropriate.
Two potential concerns exist when conducting informed consent online. A first concern is the lack of face-to-face contact with participants. When approaching participants on SMWs, or collecting data from the online representations of participants, there are often situations in which the researcher has no direct face-to-face contact with the participant. Thus, there may be reduced opportunities for the researcher to observe participant reactions to the consent process.
Concerns regarding the lack of physical interaction during the consent process are more salient when the study collects information that is potentially illegal or stigmatizing, or when the study participant will be from an at-risk population such as minors or people who are cognitively impaired.
This is a valid concern, but not one that is unique to SMWs. Many research studies employ mailed surveys and consent forms, situations that do not provide opportunities to interact with participants, research paper on social networking services.
It is also possible that online recruitment and consent processes may increase the likelihood that a researcher will hear from participants if questions or concerns arise when compared to mailed surveys.
The Effects of using Social Media in Our Daily Life (Research Proposal)
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Get 24⁄7 customer support help when you place a homework help service order with us. We will guide you on how to place your essay help, proofreading and editing your draft – fixing the grammar, spelling, or formatting of your paper easily and cheaply Oct 28, · In a review on social networking sites, Kuss and Griffiths () categorically stated that “social networking and social media use have often been interchangeable in the scientific literature A Systematic Review of Social Networking Research in Organizations Interpersonal interaction applications, for example, online journals, moment emissaries, web recordings, long range informal communication sites like, Facebook, proficient systems administration sites (e.g., LinkedIn), Twitter, and virtual universes (e.g., Second Life) have turned out to be progressively famous over the most
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