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

Media and Communication

Turo Uskali²  Niina Sormanen²  Maija Penttinen¹  Epp Lauk²  Jukka Jouhki¹ 

[1] Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland;Department of Communication, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

关键词: Big data;    emotional contagion;    Facebook;    informed consent;    manipulation;    methodology;    privacy;    research ethics;    social media;    user data;   

DOI  :  

学科分类：电子、光学、磁材料

来源: Cogitatio Press

【 摘 要 】

This article analyzes the ethical discussion focusing on the Facebook emotional contagion experiment published by theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesin 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.

【 授权许可】

Unknown