By Joe Whittaker, Elizabeth Pearson, Ashley A. Mattheis, Till Baaken, Sara Zeiger, Farangiz Atamuradova, & Maura Conway
There are two words that will strike fear into the hearts of many researchers of online deviance: “Ethics Committee.” Attend a conference or workshop, it is commonplace to have discussions about bureaucratic nightmares which stifle the ability of researchers to do their job effectively. At the same time, ethical protocols exist for a good reason; to attempt to eliminate the harms that can be caused as a result of research. In our recently published open-access article in New Media & Society, we drew from 39 interviews to attempt to better understand experiences with the ethical review process, particularly in the context of provisions for researcher welfare.
This blog is part of VOX-Pol’s ongoing Online Extremism and Terrorism Researchers’ Security, Safety, and Resilience (REASSURE) project. Our initial Findings From the Field Report highlighted a range of harms that researchers face, such as death threats, harassment, as well as poor mental and physical health as a result of the content with which they are engaging. Given that the premise of ethics committees – often called Institutional Review Boards in the US and Research Ethics Committees in Europe – is to reduce the harms caused by research, one might expect that this process would attempt to mitigate against these harms. However, as we will show below, this is often not the case. Researchers often lamented their experiences with ethics committees and their welfare was often not included as a part of the ethical approval process.
Experiences with Ethics Processes
One of the most striking reflections from our participants was how infrequently they had to go through an ethical review process. Eleven (28%) reported that they did not obtain ethical approval to conduct their work, while a further 7 (18%) said that their online activity was indefinite “hobby research” which also did not require it. Some might justify this because online research such as trawling messaging apps or scraping online platforms does not present an immediate subject. We dispute this and argue that it is problematic to not require researchers to consider the ethical implications of their empirical work (including their own welfare).
Of the participants that did engage with the process, most reported negative experiences, describing it as difficult and unhelpful. Many noted that the individuals who were assigned to evaluate their applications were neither researchers of terrorism and extremism nor did they have experiences researching the online domain, making them – in the minds of many participants – unqualified to properly assess their work. Others pointed to the small amount of time that reviewers dedicated to ethical applications, suggesting that they could not accurately assess the risks. Several participants highlighted the long and tedious bureaucratic process that they believed added little to the value of their research.
Researcher Welfare
Around half of the interviewees who completed an ethical application reported that they were required to reflect on their (or their wider team’s) welfare as part of the process. This included one senior academic with 16-years’ experience who remarked: “No one has ever raised the issue of researcher wellbeing; not once.” Participants believed that ethics committees prioritised the welfare of participants over themselves. To be clear, we do not dispute the principle of “Do no harm” towards participants but argue that it should be extended to researchers. Existing work on this topic has found that discussions around the ethics of online extremism and terrorism research has been all-but-missing. Perhaps the starkest example of the need for such provisions was a participant who reported that during their master’s degree, they conducted an analysis of illegal Islamic State propaganda. Not only was there no formalised ethics process, but their supervisor did not advise them on any matters of welfare. Rather, “It was just: ‘get to it and good luck with it’, basically.”
Institutions Hampering Research
While many of our participants noted that they wished there were greater protocols within the ethics process, others were happy that their institution was taking a hands-off approach. Several interviewees stated that they were concerned that if institutions were cognisant of the potential harms that may arise to researchers that it would result in more barriers to conducting empirical work. Importantly, participants noted that they believed that their ability to conduct research and their welfare was secondary to their institution’s reputation and legal compliance. In essence, they believed that the institution was more interested in protecting itself than its researchers. One senior academic noted:
Rather than taking the attitude of ‘Ok, well, how can we do this?’ and ‘How we could do it is by putting protections in place and supporting people’, they’d rather think: ‘This is too much hassle. You’re putting us at risk. We need to shut this down.
Several studies have identified the problem of “institutional reputation” creeping into ethics, from research into extremism, gender-based violence, and sex work. We concur with Sluka, who argues that this presents a fundamental challenge to academic freedom.
Conclusion: Breaking the “Catch 22”
In essence, we have laid out a “Catch 22” – a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem. Researchers want their institutions to help protect them to do their job but are concerned that the “help” may make their job impossible. We argue that we need not fall into a false dichotomy of: i) little-to-no ethical oversight and extensive harmful risks to researchers or ii) heavy oversight and greater institutional protection but with a lot of research denied ethical approval. We make three suggestions to break this impasse.
Firstly, there is a need for greater dialogue between researchers and ethics committees. Rather than having a single point of contact (the ethics application) in which committees with little knowledge of the field must make a quick decision on a proposal, we believe it would be fruitful for an ongoing dialogue. An example of this could be inviting ethics committees to participate in research seminars in which this type of research is presented. Secondly, we applaud recent work that has developed ethics frameworks for terrorism research and echo the calls for ones specifically related to the online domain. Finally, we believe that there is value in scholars continuing to publish work which reflects on their experiences with ethics committees – particularly those that focus on researcher welfare. There have been a handful of studies which have done this in recent years and they offer scholars important know-how of the ethical process, as well as material to cite in their applications to show that proposed work is in line with ethical norms.
Joe Whittaker is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Sociology, and Social Policy at Swansea University and Junior Director at the Vox Pol Institute
Elizabeth Pearson is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London and Programme Lead for the MSc Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies course.
Dr Ashley A Mattheis is a Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture at the University of Manchester in the UK.
Till Baaken is Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism at the Enhancing Security Cooperation In and With Asia and the Indo-Pacific project (ESIWA+) in Germany.
Sara Zeiger is an independent researcher in the USA.
Farangiz Atamuradova is a Program Officer in the Research and Analysis Department at Hedayah in the United Arab Emirates.
Maura Conway is Paddy Moriarty Professor of Government and International Studies in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University and Professor of Cyber Threats in CYTREC at Swansea University, UK.
IMAGE CREDIT: PEXELS
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