Critical care for the early web: ethical digital methods for archived youth data
Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society
ISSN: 1477-996X
Article publication date: 21 April 2022
Issue publication date: 18 July 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a brief overview of the ethical challenges facing researchers engaging with web archival materials and demonstrates a framework and method for conducting research with historical web data created by young people.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper’s methodology is informed by the conceptual framing of data materials in research on the “right to be forgotten” (Crossen-White, 2015; GDPR, 2018; Tsesis, 2014), data afterlives (Agostinho, 2019; Stevenson and Gehl, 2019; Sutherland, 2017), indigenous data sovereignty and governance (Wemigwans, 2018) and feminist ethics of care (Cifor et al., 2019; Cowan, 2020; Franzke et al., 2020; Luka and Millette, 2018). It demonstrates a new method called an archive promenade, which builds on the walkthrough and scroll-back methods (Light et al., 2018; Robards and Lincoln, 2017).
Findings
The archive promenades demonstrate how individual attachments to digital traces vary and are often unpredictable, which necessitates further steps to ensure that privacy and data sovereignty are maintained through research with web archives.
Originality/value
This paper demonstrates how the archive promenade methodological intervention can lead to better practices of care with sensitive web materials and brings together previous work on ethical fabrications (Markham, 2012), speculation (Luka and Millette, 2018) and thick context (Marzullo et al., 2018), to yield new insights for research on the experiences of growing up online.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the eQuality project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Thank you to the reviewers, editors and colleagues who have read and provided feedback and support. I would also like to thank the AoIR 2020 doctoral colloquium and the AoIR 2021 conference, where this work was developed and presented.
Citation
Mackinnon, K. (2022), "Critical care for the early web: ethical digital methods for archived youth data", Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 349-361. https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-12-2021-0125
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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