Special issue: The Interplay of Methodology and Research Ethics in Communication and Media Research

Good research practice should both meet methodological as well as ethical criteria (franzke et al., 2020; Schlütz & Möhring, 2018). Research ethics involves reflecting on one's decisions and weighing the interests and rights of all persons involved in empirical research (Schlütz & Möhring, 2016). Such ethical reflection may well result in better research design, whether at a particular stage of the research or in the project as a whole (Ess, 2019). Against the back-ground of the current social and technological changes, such as digitalization, globalization, and individualization, research ethics is increasingly becoming important in communication and media research. Digital data and digital methods shape the research practice of current communication and media research fundamentally (Hepp et al., 2021). Digital methods offer researchers new technical opportunities to collect, analyze, and process large amounts of digi-tal data, such as user comments, search engine enquiries, or interactions on social media plat-forms (Rogers, 2019). Thus, tapping into new research fields, such as big data or computation-al communication science, and the development of corresponding methods raises new ethical questions (Hollingshead et al., 2021; Larsson, 2016), for example, regarding informational self-determination and data protection (Buchanan & Zimmer, 2021).

However, even with established methods and designs, such as standardized surveys, semi-structured interviews, ethnography, participant observation, or experimental studies, methodo-logical and ethical criteria can come into conflict (Iphofen, 2020; Matthes et al., 2015; Podschuweit, 2021; von Unger, 2018). For example, research designs must balance questions of validity (e.g., deception vs. elaborated informed consent), reliability (e.g., return rate de-pending on the amount of compensation for participating in a study), and ethical conduct. These predicaments occur at every stage of the research process – from the choice of topic and objectives to study design, sampling and recruitment, methods of data collection and analysis, and questions of publication (Schlütz & Möhring, 2018).

This special issue focuses on these challenges by addressing theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives on the interplay of methodology and research ethics in communication and media research. Proposals can present empirical data drawn from a wide range of scien-tific methods (e.g., qualitative and/or quantitative approaches) or be systematic/scoping re-views of extant literature. We are also seeking for original articles that provide theoretical re-flections and/or reflections on research experiences that can serve as useful examples and ref-erences for the academic community.

Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

- Organization of scientific studies: The ethical reflection of empirical studies is often ac-companied by administrative challenges. These involve the consultation and review by in-stitutional review boards, third-party funders, journal editors, and internal university ad-ministrative offices (such as the legal office or the data protection officer) and may deal with, for example, the organizational framework, the professional and legal expertise of the reviewers, or alternative review procedures.

- Research on problematic or sensitive topics: Ethical questions are particularly virulent in research on problematic or sensitive topics, such as health-related issues, certain lifestyles, hate speech, or right-wing extremism. These often address aspects of data protection and the anonymity of the study participants, but also the harms to the researchers and research assistants.

- Research with vulnerable groups: Studies that work with vulnerable groups such as children and adolescents, refugees, migrants, job seekers, or members of (online) support groups face specific research ethical challenges. These include access to the field, informed consent (e.g., proxy consent), and possible (re)traumatization or reproduction of stereo-types.

- Deception in experimental studies: In experimental studies, it may be necessary to de-ceive participants at the beginning of the study. Depending on the study design and topic, this may pose ethical challenges regarding the selected stimulus, the debriefing, or the weighing of harms and benefits.

- Research on (social) media content: Various procedures are available to analyze textual, visual, or audiovisual media content that can be conducted manually, computer-aided, or automated. These may be accompanied by legal, technical, and ethical issues, e.g., regard-ing privacy, data protection, or potential strains resulting from analyzing incriminating (so-cial) media content.

- Combination of data sets: Technical innovations make it easier to combine data sets using computational methods. This opens both opportunities and risks, e.g., regarding the use of secondary data, the replication of studies, the use of research results and tools by third parties, or the de-anonymization of data.

- Open Science and scientific data management: Transparent and open science practices promote the fairness, sustainability, and replicability of communication and media re-search. Documenting, securing, and archiving materials, data, and code is often accompa-nied by questions of research ethics, e.g., regarding third party access, data protection, or possible misuse of data.

Submission requirements

1. Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words of length (excluding references). Abstracts can be submitted in German or in English and should be sent to the special issue guest editors (a.zillich@filmuniversitaet.de) until June 30, 2023. An additional file should include title, four to six keywords, name of author(s), institutional affiliation, and contact details for each author. Authors will be notified of proposal acceptance/rejection by end of July, 2023.

2. If the proposal is accepted, author(s) will be asked to submit the full article, in German or English, by November 30, 2023. Submitting a manuscript will be taken to imply that the manuscript has not been published elsewhere or in another language and has not been and will not be submitted to another journal simultaneously. The manuscript must be sent in an open format (i.e. docx file) and as a PDF to the editorial office of Publizistik. Manuscripts must not exceed 70.000 characters (including spaces, references, and figures/tables). Please make sure that your manuscript adheres to the submission guidelines that can be found on the Publizistik website: https://www.springer.com/journal/11616/submission-guidelines

3. Contributions will be submitted to a double-blind peer review process. All submitted man-uscripts will be reviewed by one external peer reviewer, one editor, and one special issue guest editor. Authors will be notified of the reviews and the decision (accept/revise/reject) by End of February, 2024. The special issue will be published as issue 4 of Publizistik in December 2024. If you have any questions, please contact the special issue editors at a.zillich@filmuniversitaet.de and d.schluetz@filmuniversitaet.de

Timing for this special issue

June 30, 2023: Deadline for the submission of abstracts (500 words)

End of July 2023: Feedback on abstract – Invitation to submit a full paper

November 30, 2023: Submission deadline for full papers

End of February 2024: Reviews and decision (accept/revise/reject)

May 15, 2024: Submission deadline for revised versions

August 15, 2024: Final versions ready

December 2024: Publication special issue

References

Buchanan, E. A., & Zimmer, M. (2021). Internet research ethics. The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-internet-research/ Ess, C. M. (2019). Internet research ethics and social media. In R. Iphofen (Ed.), Handbook of research ethics and scientific integrity (pp. 283–303). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76040-7_12-1

franzke, a. s., Bechmann, A., Zimmer, M., Ess, C. M. and the Association of Internet Researchers (2020). Inter-net research: Ethical guidelines 3.0. https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf

Hepp, A., Loosen, W., & Hasebrink, U. (2021). Jenseits des Computational Turn: Methodenentwicklung und Forschungssoftware in der Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft, Medien & Kommunikationswis-senschaft, 69(1), 3-24. https://doi.org/10.5771/1615-634X-2021-1-3-1

Iphofen, R. (2020). Ethical issues in research methods. In R. Iphofen (Hrsg.), Handbook of research ethics and scientific integrity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76040-7_54-1

Larsson, A. O. (2016). Studying big data – Ethical and methodological considerations. In H. Fossheim, &. H. Ingried (Eds.), Internet research ethics (pp. 141–156). NOASP. https://doi.org/10.17585/noasp.3.1

Hollingshead, W. Quan-Haase, A., & Chen, W. (2021). Ethics and privacy in computational social science: A call for pedagogy. In U. Engel, A. Quan-Haase, S. Liu, & L. E. Lyberg (Eds.), Handbook of computational social science (pp. 171–185). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003024583-13.

Matthes, J., Marquart, F., Naderer, B., Arendt, F., Schmuck, D., & Adam, K. (2015). Questionable research prac-tices in experimental communication research: A systematic analysis from 1980 to 2013. Communication Methods and Measures, 9(4), 193–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/19312458.2015.1096334

Podschuweit, N. (2021). How ethical challenges of covert observations can be met in practice. Research Ethics, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470161211008218 Rogers, M. (2019). Doing Digital Methods. Sage.

Schlütz, D., & Möhring, W. (2016). Kommunikationswissenschaftliche Forschungsethik – Sonntagsworte, Selbstzweck, Notwendigkeit? Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, 64(4): 483–496. https://doi.org/10.5771/1615-634X-2016-4-48

Schlütz, D., & Möhring, W. (2018). Between the devil and the deep blue sea: Negotiating ethics and method in communication research practice. Studies in Communication and Media, 7(1), 31–58. https://doi.org/10.5771/2192-4007-2018-1-31

von Unger, H. (2018). Forschungsethik, digitale Archivierung und biographische Interviews. In H. Lutz, M. Schiebel, & E. Tuider (Eds.), Handbuch Biographieforschung (pp. 681–693). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-18171-0_57