This book maps complex ethical dilemmas in social justice research practices in media and communication. Contributors critically analyse power dynamics that arise when building equitable research relations with media activists, social movements, and cultural producers, considering issues of access, control, affective labour, reciprocal critiques, and movement pedagogies. Authors probe the ethical challenges faced when horizontal relations inadvertently create conflicts leading to oppressive communication; when affective demands generate non-reciprocal relations of care; and when participant anonymity has to be balanced with self-expression and voice. Chapters explore engagements with digital technologies in developing research relations, covering new research practices from horizontal collectives to dialogical auto-ethnography; from community scholarship and pedagogies to decolonising research. The book asks researchers to consider the complexities of ethical practices today in socially engaged global research within the neoliberal university.

Autorentext

Sandra Jeppesen is Associate Professor in Media, Film, and Communications at Lakehead University, Canada, where she held the Lakehead University Research Chair in Transformative Media and Social Movements from 2016 to 2019.

Paola Sartoretto is Assistant Professor at Jönköping University, Sweden. She has published on communicative processes within social movements, community media development, and activist knowledge production practices.   

Inhalt

1. Introduction: Mapping Questions of Power and Ethics in Media Activist Research Practices.- 2. Research Ethics: Critical Reflections on Horizontal Media Activism Research Practices.- 3. Dealing with Ethical Dilemmas in Activist Research on Social Movement Media.- 4. Challenges for Social movement Research in the Context of Inequality: The MST in Brazil.- 5. Denaturalizing Research Practices: (Re)signifying subject positions through decolonial theories.- 6. Disrupting Settler Colonialism and Oppression in Media and Policy-Making: A view from the Community Media Advocacy Centre.- 7. Wearing Multiple Reflexive Hats: The ethical complexities of media-oriented Community Engaged Learning.- 8. The Ethics of Reciprocal Communication.- 9. Researcher Ethics: Between Axiological Reasoning and Scientific Discussion.- 10. Difficult Choices: Application of Feminist Ethics of Care in Action Research.- 11. The Ethics of Media Research with Refugees.- 12. Challenges of Ongoing Conflict Research: Dialogic autoethnography in studies of post-2014 Ukraine.