Dealing with Your Publics in an Ethical Way

Eight Ethics in Research

When conducting research with your publics or people involved in your research, it is vital to keep in mind the eight ethics in research. These will maintain your reputation with your stakeholders and provide successful participation in your research. These ethics are important because they assure that researchers are, “conducting research to ensure a high ethical standard” (Research Guides).

The first of these is dignity. You should respect everyone that is involved in your study and respect their dignity, just the same. This “also means that we recognize that each person has the right and capacity to make her or his own decisions” (FHI 360).

Next, you should respect the privacy of your participants and stakeholders. In order to do this, it is important to recognize the principles of anonymity and confidentiality.

Anonymity and Confidentiality: What’s the Difference?

Anonymity is defined as “the researcher term indicating that the participant’s identity will not be known to anybody, including the researcher, and thus cannot be linked to a particular response” (Smith). This keeps your participants safe and maintains the privacy of their opinions, information and anything else personal or regarding the study. Confidentiality is defined as “the researcher term indicating that the identity of a participant in a research project, though to be known to the researcher, will not be disclosed or linked to a particular response” (Smith). This is more likely than anonymity. Anonymity can be challenging for research in the field of public relations. Different types of research studies have different ways of collecting data and not all of these allow anonymity.

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The third ethic is volunteer participation. When conducting a research study, it is important to have participants that have volunteered themselves to participate. The choice to not participate should be fully presented to the participants prior to starting the study. This also includes a participant leaving or ending the study at any point.

Along with volunteer participation, there must be consent from the participants. They should be fully informed of what is expected from them and what they should expect from the researcher. This provides safety for all participants and an adequate understanding of what the study entails.

Next is purpose. All participants should be informed of the purpose of your study. This gives participants a chance to learn more about what they have volunteered to participate in.

Sponsor identity is the next ethic. You must inform participants of who the research sponsor is. You want your participants to know who they are giving their information and opinions to. This can be the name of the organization or the organization benefiting from the researcher. Along with this, you must identify the researcher’s identity. Who you are and what you're doing should be disclosed to your participants.

Finally, results. Your participants should be informed of the results of the study that they participated in. It is important to share what the researcher has learned from the participant’s willingness to give their opinions and thoughts on a matter.

References

Carstens-Peters, G. (2017, February 5). Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on unsplash. Beautiful Free Images & Pictures. Retrieved February 5, 2023, from https://unsplash.com/photos/npxXWgQ33ZQ

Photography, C. (2018, March 23). Photo by CYTONN photography on unsplash. Beautiful Free Images & Pictures. Retrieved February 5, 2023, from https://unsplash.com/photos/n95VMLxqM2I

Smith, R. D. (2021). Appendix A. In Strategic planning for public relations (pp. 473-477). essay, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

FHI 360. (n.d.). Retrieved February 6, 2023, from https://www.fhi360.org/sites/default/files/webpages/RETC-

CR/en/RH/Training/trainmat/ethicscurr/RETCCREn/index.html

Research guides: Research methods: Ethics in research. Ethics in Research - Research Methods - Research Guides at City University of Hong Kong. (n.d.). Retrieved February 5, 2023, from https://libguides.library.cityu.edu.hk/researchmethods/ethics