Internet research and digital media methods

The most dominant form of digital social media, Facebook, has more than two billion monthly users (Facebook.com 2018). At the time of writing, Facebook is consumed by several scandals that have their roots in the themes and issues covered in this book, such as research ethics, informed consent, and how social data is used. The 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal began when whistleblower Christopher Wylie revealed how 50 million Facebook profiles were harvested for cultural and ‘information warfare’ (Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison 2018). In the weeks that followed the exposé, the company lost over $100 billion in value (Morse, 2018) and the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, was called before various US Senate hearings to explain the breach of trust. This scenario points both to the significance and fragility of social media digital traces, and how all social researchers with an interest in internet research methods must be sensitive to the complexities associated with this area of inquiry.