Ethical issues in WhatsApp research: notes on political communication studies in Brazil

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss procedures, guidelines, and risks that research in the field of social sciences assumes when it is dedicated to the observation of human behavior inWhatsApp groups. In this way, we adopted different data collection and analysis strategies about academic production about the instant messenger. In the first section, wepresent a mapping of WhatsApp research and an analysis of knowledge areas that have produced studies on the application. Then, we approach how the application has beenframed, in Brazilian literature, specially on political communication. Finally, we systematized the debate on ethics in social research on WhatsApp based on four central points,namely: a) data collection strategies; b) privacy and access to sensitive participant data; c) Informed Consent Forms (ICFs); d) position of researchers at the research locus.