Conference Time: 15th Sept 2025, 03:52:17pm America, Sao Paulo
Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Data Donation in Communication Research: Ethical, Practical, and Methodological Frontiers
Time:
Friday, 17/Oct/2025:
4:00pm - 5:30pm
Location:Room 11B - PPGCULT - GroundFloor
Presentations
Roundtable Proposal: Data Donation in Communication Research: Ethical, Practical, and Methodological Frontiers
Anja Bechmann1, Daniel Angus2, Tim Groot Kormelink3, Jakob Ohme4, Jiaru Tang2
1Aarhus University, Denmark; 2Queensland University of Technology, Australia; 3Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands; 4Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, Germany
Data donation is emerging as a vital method for communication research, allowing individuals to voluntarily share their digital platform data with researchers. As API access becomes increasingly fragmented and restricted, data donation offers a promising alternative for studying digital behaviours, platform operations, and media consumption patterns. However, its adoption raises crucial ethical, practical, and methodological questions that require interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration.
This roundtable brings together leading researchers who are actively developing and deploying data donation methodologies in specific fields of Internet research, such as information consumption, news exposure, platform influence, music cultures, and election studies. The discussion will explore the ethical imperatives of privacy, consent, and transparency, as well as practical challenges in recruitment, data handling, data quality, and long-term research sustainability. Participants will initiate the discussion by sharing insights from cutting-edge projects, including investigations into YouTube’s societal impact, the effect of user data deletion on research quality, examination of TikTok's recommendation systems, public engagement initiatives using data donation tools, and the integration of diaries with digital trace data to explore societal issue engagement.
By fostering an open discussion, this session aims to develop best practices that ensure ethical responsibility, participant trust, and the long-term viability of data donation as a research method.
Organisers and confirmed participants include scholars from a range of institutions who have pioneered data donation studies in Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and Australia. The roundtable format will encourage interactive discussion, inviting contributions from attendees to collectively shape the future of data donation research. This session is relevant to researchers interested in digital methods, ethical data practices, and the evolving landscape of platform research.
