Methodological and ethical challenges in researching the social network TikTok
Keywords:
methodology, digital ethnography, TikTok, research ethics, algorithmAbstract
This paper examines the methodological and ethical challenges in anthropological research on social media, with a focus on TikTok network. It addresses issues of data collection, analysis, and interpretation on this platform, as well as the influence of algorithms on user experience and community formation. Additionally, the paper highlights ethical dilemmas related to the use of publicly available data and the boundaries of autoethnography in research. The analysis draws on concepts such as platform affordances, algorithmic imagination, and multimodal discourse analysis. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of critical approaches to algorithmic imagination and the development of ethical guidelines for social media research, considering the problems of: fluidity and instability of data, algorithmic dominance on the platform, the necessity of an (at least partial) autoethnographic approach, existing inequalities in access to analysis software, and the dominance of Anglo-American sources.
References
Abidin, Crystal and Gabriele De Seta. 2020. Private Messages from the Field: Confessions on Digital Ethnography and Its Discomforts. Journal of Digital Social Research 2 (1): 1-19.
Abidin, Crystal. 2021. Mapping Internet Celebrity on TikTok: Exploring Attention Economies and Visibility Labours. Cultural Science Journal 12 (1): 77-103.
Abidin, Crystal. 2023. From “Networked Publics” to “Refracted Publics”: A Companion Framework for Researching “Below the Radar” Studies. Social Media+Society 7 (1): 1-13.
Albertazzi, Daniele, and Donatella Bonansinga. 2023. Beyond Anger: The Populist Radical Right on TikTok. Journal of Contemporary European Studies 32 (3): 673-689.
Avdeeff, Melissa K. 2021. TikTok, Twitter, and Platform-Specific Technocultural Discourse in Response to Taylor Swift’s LGBTQ+ Allyship in ‘You Need to Calm Down’. Contemporary Music Review 40 (1): 78-98.
Banić Grubišić, Ana. 2023. Internet mimovi između folklora i popularne kulture. Beograd: Filozofski fakultet, Odeljenje za etnologiju i antropologiju i Dosije studio.
Bhandari, Aparajita, and Sara Bimo. 2022. Why’s Everyone on TikTok Now? The Algorithmized Self and the Future of Self-Making on Social Media. Social Media + Society 8 (1): 1-11.
Cervi, Laura, and Tom Divon. 2023. Playful Activism: Memetic Performances of Palestinian Resistance in TikTok #Challenges. Social Media and Society 9 (1): 1-11.
Civila, Sabina, and Daniela Jaramillo-Dent. 2022. #Mixedcouples on TikTok: Performative Hybridization and Identity in the Face of Discrimination. Social Media + Society 8 (3): 1-14.
Davis, Jenny L. 2020. How Artifacts Afford. The Power and Politics of Everyday Things. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Duffy, Brooke Erin, Thomas Poell and David B. Nieborg. 2019. Platform Practices in the Cultural Industries: Creativity, Labor, and Citizenship. Social Media + Society 5 (4): 1-8.
Eriksson Krutrök, Moa. 2021. Algorithmic Closeness in Mourning: Vernaculars of the Hashtag #grief on TikTok. Social Media + Society 7 (3): 1-14.
Hautea, Samantha, Perry Parks, Bruno Takahashi and Jing Zeng. 2021. Showing They Care (Or Don’t): Affective Publics and Ambivalent Climate Activism on TikTok. Social Media + Society 7 (2): 1-14.
Klug, Daniel, Yiluo Qin, Morgan Evans and Geoff Kaufman. 2021. Trick and Please. A Mixed-Method Study On User Assumptions About the TikTok Algorithm. In 13th ACM Web Science Conference, 84-92. New York: ACM.
Kozinets, Robert V. 2022. „Netnography Today: A Call to Evolve, Embrace, Energize, and Electrify“. In Netnography Unlimited. Understanding Technoculture Using Qualitative Social Media Research, ed. Robert V. Kozinets and Rossella Gambetti, 3-23. New York: Routledge.
Lee, Jeehyun Jenny, and Jin Lee. 2023. #StopAsianHate on TikTok: Asian/American Women’s Space-Making for Spearheading Counter-Narratives and Forming an Ad Hoc Asian Community. Social Media + Society 9 (1): 1-11.
Liang, Meng. 2022. The End of Social Media? How Data Attraction Model in the Algorithmic Media Reshapes the Attention Economy. Media, Culture & Society 44 (6): 1110-1131.
Maddox, Jessica, and Fiona Gill. 2023. Assembling ‘Sides’ of TikTok: Examining Community, Culture, and Interface through a BookTok Case Study. Social Media and Society 9 (4): 1-12.
Miller, Chris. 2022. How Modern Witches Enchant TikTok: Intersections of Digital, Consumer, and Material Culture(s) on #WitchTok. Religions 13 (2): 1-22.
Petrović, Jelisaveta. 2019. Sociološki pristup izučavanju Interneta – ka zasnivanju digitalne sociologije u Srbiji. Sociologija 61 (4): 478-496.
Sadler, Olivia. 2022. Defiant Amplification or Decontextualized Commercialization? Protest Music, TikTok, and Social Movements. Social Media + Society 8 (2): 1-10.
Southerton, Clare. 2021. Lip-Syncing and Saving Lives: Healthcare Workers on TikTok. International Journal of Communication 15: 3248- 3268.
van Dijck, José. 2013. The Culture of Connectivity. A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zeng, Jing, and Kaye D. Bondy Valdovinos. 2022. From Content Moderation to Visibility Moderation: A Case Study of Platform Governance on TikTok. Policy & Internet 14 (1): 79-95.
Zeng, Jing and Abidin, Crystal. 2021. ’#OkBoomer, Time to Meet the Zoomers’: Studying the Memefication of Intergenerational Politics on TikTok. Information, Communication & Society 24 (16): 1-24.
Zulli, Diana, and David James Zulli. 2020. Extending the Internet Meme: Conceptualizing Technological Mimesis and Imitation Publics on the TikTok Platform. New Media & Society 24 (8): 1-19.
