Ethical Dilemmas Within Online Literacy Research

Abstract

As literacy researchers trace how people make meaning across multiple contexts and online environments, ethical complexities arise that require researchers to be culturally attuned, flexible, innovative, and reflexive. This article draws on a transliteracies perspective to argue that ethical issues related to accessibility, positionality, relationality, and temporality must drive literacy research in online spaces. It highlights international research situated in online environments to explore some of the ethical challenges, dilemmas, and opportunities that literacy researchers face as they conceptualize, conduct, and disseminate scholarship in a digital age. It seeks to move the literacy field forward by sharing guiding questions and provocations to inform digitally situated lines of inquiry and by offering recommendations for literacy researchers who seek to conduct ethical research in online spaces.