Facebook’s Emotional Contagion Experiment as a Challenge to Research Ethics

6533b837fe1ef96bd12a1e17

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Facebook’s Emotional Contagion Experiment as a Challenge to Research Ethics

Jukka Jouhki Maija Penttinen Niina Sormanen Turo Uskali Epp Lauk

subject

Privatsphäre Facebook research ethics user data Emotional contagion ddc:070 Sociology & anthropology lcsh:Communication. Mass media Forschungsarten der Sozialforschung 0508 media and communications big data Soziale Medien Informed consent yksityisyys Utilitarianism Data Protection Act 1998 Sociology ta518 emotionality Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie science ethics Communication 05 social sciences informed consent methodology Methodologie 06 humanities and the arts Public relations Wissenschaftsethik lcsh:P87-96 Deontological ethics Research Design tutkimusetiikka ddc:300 manipulaatio (psykologia)ddc:301 Sociology of Science Sociology of Technology Research on Science and Technology Wissenschaftssoziologie Wissenschaftsforschung Technikforschung Techniksoziologie Social psychology Big data; emotional contagion; informed consent; manipulation; research ethics; user data Cyberpsychology social media sosiaalinen media 050801 communication & media studies emotional contagion 0603 philosophy ethics and religion privacy Big data Interactive electronic Media tietoon perustuva suostumus Emotionalität Social media Datengewinnung Social sciences sociology anthropology interaktive elektronische Medien News media journalism publishing data protection Research ethics Forschung research ComputingMilieux_THECOMPUTINGPROFESSION business.industry metodologia Datenschutz data capture Soziologie Anthropologie manipulation Publizistische Medien Journalismus Verlagswesen 060301 applied ethics business

description

This article analyzes the ethical discussion focusing on the Facebook emotional contagion experiment published by the <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em> in 2014. The massive-scale experiment manipulated the News Feeds of a large amount of Facebook users and was successful in proving that emotional contagion happens also in online environments. However, the experiment caused ethical concerns within and outside academia mainly for two intertwined reasons, the first revolving around the idea of research as manipulation, and the second focusing on the problematic definition of informed consent. The article concurs with recent research that the era of social media and big data research are posing a significant challenge to research ethics, the practice and views of which are grounded in the pre social media era, and reflect the classical ethical stances of utilitarianism and deontology.

year	journal	country	edition	language
2016-10-10	Media and Communication

10.17645/mac.v4i4.579 https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v4i4.579