Running head: Online Empathy: Communicating via Facebook to Bereaved College Students

Online Empathy: Communicating via Facebook to Bereaved College Students Amanda Poole Queens University of Charlotte

Running head: Online Empathy: Communicating via Facebook to Bereaved College Students

For this assignment, I chose to analyze an article from TheJournal of New Communications Research. This article highlights the perceptions bereaved college students hold of communication via Facebook during the grieving process. I chose this article because Facebook is used by millions of college students worldwide, and being a college student, I can relate too many of the motives as to why students use Facebook in there grieving process. Through the authors findings we discover that students appreciated knowing they were in peoples thoughts and prayers, and that the ease of digital transmission makes people more likely to express sympathy. Furthermore, bereaved college students are extremely vulnerable to issues of self-esteem and self-efficacy, often feeling a loss of control to external stimuli(Wandel, 2009). Ethics is described as distinguishing right from wrong and proper from improper (Wimmer & Dominick, 2011). Ethical considerations in conducting research should not be taken lightly, and nearly all research done could affect subjects in some way or form (Wimmer & Dominick, 2011). I found this article to be ethically unfair because the study that was conducted only contained five individuals per focus group over a three-month period of time, which inevitably ended up with the study only having an analysis of 37 individuals. I also found this article to be unfair to respondents because the article violated their protection of privacy. Protection of privacy gives the respondents the promise of anonymity and/or confidentiality. Anonymity is a guarantee that a given respondent cannot be linked to a response, and confidentiality is a guarantee that an individuals name will not be associated with a response (Wimmer & Dominick, 2011). In several occasions the article references participants names,

Running head: Online Empathy: Communicating via Facebook to Bereaved College Students

location, age, and personal stories. Since this study was conducted in a private setting by counselors, confidentiality or anonymity should have been used in this article.This article also incorporated direct quotes of students much like this one, My mother and father are divorced, so Im used to this big division going on and not everybody speaking to each other. It always makes things stressful. But on Facebook, they all chimed in, and there wasnt this sense of frustration like there usually is. I think the pros of social media and bereavement outweighsany cons (Wandel, 2009, p. 48). I feel that the principle of autonomy was breached in this study becausethe respondentscomment was exploitedsince the article directly referenced the students name and school right before the quote. Many of the other quotes in this article also reference students names and other personal information. Beneficence is an ethical principle stating that a researcher should share the positive benefits of a research project with all involved (Wimmer & Dominick, 2011). In this study it is impossible to know if the principle of beneficence was used or not since it was not stated so within the article. However, in the one segment of the article a participant reported one positive benefit of the study by saying,It felt great to be allowed to talk about this. It was the first time I could talk openly without worrying if I was making someone else uncomfortable (Wandel, 2009, p. 51). Another important ethical issue is the principle of utilitarianism; this is a system that weighs the potential benefits of a decision against potential harm (Wimmer & Dominick, 2011). According to the bill of rights for students as research participants, students should expect to receive benefits that out way the cost or risk involved (Wimmer & Dominick, 2011). In this case, the author had to decide if the research was worth conducting even if it could possibly

Running head: Online Empathy: Communicating via Facebook to Bereaved College Students

cause personal harm to the bereaved participants. Researchers who deal with human subjects must ensure that all precautions are taken to avoid any potential harm to participants (Wimmer & Dominick, 2011). As we can tell, her decision was to do the research, but was that the best ethical decision? From what we know, the article the research did not cause harm to any of the participants, this relates to the nonmaleficence principle in which a researcher should do no harm (Wimmer & Dominick, 2011). Nearly every research study done could affect a subject in some way, either psychologically or physically (Wimmer & Dominick, 2011). To conclude the analysis of the research ethics in this article, I would say that a majority of the research done failed to demonstrate proper ethical guidelines. The concept and content of the article was in depth and resourceful, but the exploitation of the participants stories and the lack of confidentiality lessened the credibility of this article. Furthermore, the fact that Facebook is used by over 300,000 million users, the author found that research on this topic must continue.

Running head: Online Empathy: Communicating via Facebook to Bereaved College Students

References Wandel, T. L. (2009). Online Empathy: Communicating via Facebook to Bereaved College Students. Journal Of New Communications Research, 4(2), 42-53. Wimmer, R.D. & Dominick J.R. (2011). Mass Media Research: An introduction (9th edition). Boston: Wadsworth Publishing.