Exploring breast cancer bloggers’ lived experiences of ‘survivorship’ : the ethics of gaining access, analysing discourse and fulfilling academic requirements

Ure, CM

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the ethical challenges arising from a study, carried out for an MSc-level dissertation, which used personal blogs written by women living with and beyond breast cancer. It explores how women blogged about their experiences of breast cancer 'survivorship' through the analysis of blogged discourses used to position 'self' in relation to 'survivorship' and living with and beyond breast cancer. The chapter argues that as consent was already provided by the blog author, further consents from blog commenters were not required, notwithstanding the practical challenges of seeking consent from a wide body of people involved 'by association' in a research project. It accounts for how an inductive approach to addressing issues relating to 'ethics in practice' was used to address challenges arising from an analysis of breast cancer blogs written by women living with and beyond the disease.

Citation

Ure, C. (2018). Exploring breast cancer bloggers’ lived experiences of ‘survivorship’ : the ethics of gaining access, analysing discourse and fulfilling academic requirements. In C. Costa, & J. Condie (Eds.), Doing Research In and On the Digital : research methods across fields of inquiry (66-82). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315561622-5

• Online Publication Date: May 23, 2018
• Publication Date: Jun 7, 2018
• Deposit Date: Dec 8, 2020
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 66-82
• Series Title: Routledge Advances in Research Methods
• Series Number: 25
• Book Title: Doing Research In and On the Digital : research methods across fields of inquiry
• ISBN: 9780367460150-(paperback);-9781138673915-(hardback);-9781315561622-(ebook)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315561622-5
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315561622-5
• Related Public URLs: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315561622; https://www.routledge.com/Doing-Research-In-and-On-the-Digital-Research-Methods-across-Fields-of/Costa-Condie/p/book/9780367460150