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Online participant absent research: quality, emotions and ethics Aimee Grant GrantA2@Cardiff.ac.uk

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Overview Emotions and ethics in qualitative research Increasing interest in Big Data The use of big online sources for qualitative research Methods: case studies, data collection, analysis Issues Ethics Emotions Quality Conclusions

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Emotion and ethics in research Emotion and ethical issues impact on research quality Both considered at length in participant present research Amanda Coffey: the Ethnographic Self Beginning to be considered in participant absent research Jonathan Scourfield documentary analysis of suicide case files Need to apply these lessons to online research

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Big Data Definition Not yet a single definition Lots of data Online ? Unable to analyse without use of computers Use: health research Google searches to track flu and ebola Twitter understanding tobacco/ e-cig company activity Increasing interest COSMOS - http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/cosmos/ http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/cosmos/ ESRC Big Data and Society journal (Sage)

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Using Big Data qualitatively Facebook understanding the use of Facebook breastmilk banks Twitter analysis of advice provided by quit smoking accounts Urban dictionary discourse analysis of entries including chav mum Comments from online news articles response to murder in USA Not clear where principles of documentary analysis should end and qualitative big data should begin

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Focus for today: breastfeeding in public and waterpipe smoking

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Data selection, collection and analysis Breastfeeding: Case of Wioletta Social media Twitter Facebook Newspaper comments Mail Online BBC Guardian Waterpipe smoking Tweets from a one week period relating to 8 # Analysis Semiotic Thematic Discourse (Mail Online comments only)

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Issues: ethics Should we ask for permission to collect this data? How should we use the data? What about identifiable data (user names, photographs) What about illegal activity Communications Act 2003 UK Press Complaints commission BSA principles

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Issues: emotions Analysis of Twitter relatively unproblematic Shisha uncontentious Breastfeeding many uncontentious posts Minority of posts with offensive views Mail online comments Incredibly offensive comments were quite normal Sexist language Suggestion of sexual violence against breastfeeding women Coffey Reflexivity essential Should not aim for a neutral stance Is there any real risk to the researcher? Regular debriefing Colleagues Field notes Regular breaks

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Issues: quality What is good participant absent online qualitative research? Appropriateness of data to answer your research question Understand limitations of data source, data collection tool Analysis: Conforms to ethical principles (eg: BSA) But researcher also needs to feel ethically comfortable The conservative course may be the most suitable Need for reflexivity Should not pretend that we are being neutral in analysis especially eg: discourse analysis

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Conclusion Research using Big Data is likely to remain popular for sometime Useful for government, but also can be used for sociology Essential to consider appropriateness of research design Ethics and emotions should not be ignored but many other issues are also relevant, and further debate is required

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Questions? GrantA2@Cardiff.ac.uk Aimee Grant