Using Sensitive Visual Data: Interdisciplinary Approaches for Developing New Ethically Informed Methodologies

In today’s digitized society, some phenomena need to be addressed in research in order to build knowledge and understanding that can be used to maintain integrity and safety for individuals. In this paper, we address the problematic issue of smartphone bystanders in accident scenes. Photographs and videos of victims in difficult circumstances, often with no possibilities to claim their own integrity, are widely posted on social media – and the phenomenon seems to be spread in many cultures. Photographs and videos become communicative ”data” in content analysis of social media platforms, but what do researchers need to be aware of in analyzing and reporting research findings in this particular area? What can researchers from different disciplines within social sciences learn from each other? The new type of digital data is challenging existing ethical guidelines and codes and we believe that interdisciplinary approaches are useful when it comes to exploring and developing new ethically informed methodologies in order to safeguard researchers working with sensitive visual data drawn from social media and the Internet in areas of social complexity.