Multimedia Data Integrity

As in any interview situation it is regarded good practice to establish a reciprocal relationship between the researcher and those researched (Reinharz 1983). Part of the trust building exercise includes transparency and ownership of data. The principle that respondents should verify interview transcripts and be empowered to change the contents of what was said should be upheld where such practice does not interfere with the researcher’s epistemological position . Such processes ensure high validity and reliability in the data collected and foster trust in those researched. Conversely however, similar ethical practices are complicated when applied to multi-media. While copyright law fails to acknowledge the rights of participants within multi-media recordings the social science community sees such media as most ethically challenging. Establishing a reciprocal relationship and empowering participants is more difficult in still photographs and recordings that are less easily manipulated. The exemplar below shows how concealing elements of photographs and editing chunks out of video recordings is significantly different from tweaking interview transcripts to reflect the true meanings of participants.

Exemplar 7

Attempting to anonymise multi-media recordings creates several methodological quagmires for data reuse. Blurring faces and editing video to conceal the identities of research participants reduces the potential for the data to be reused. For example, the photograph set below shows how blurring the child's face to anonymise his identity reduces the capacity for researchers to interpret what is going on in the setting.

Arguably the child's expression of awe and fascination is lost in the blurred image. Facial expression, eye direction and physical characteristics may be key research foci for a range of researchers across disciplines. The various edits of the following video in the EHE (the two video examples can be accessed via the right-hand menu under 'Related video') also show how meaning is lost when researchers attempt to remove sensitive or identifying characteristics in video footage. In the first video example information that the respondent wished removed has been blanked by a graphic. In the second video example the same material is simply cut. In order to preserve meaning the originator of the study may be selective in blanking or cutting parts of video in order to facilitate interpretation in the initial research. However ascertaining what materials and meanings are important for subsequent research is not possible. Therefore simply editing video to ensure the protection of participants, while also being conscious of your own needs for interpretation, without being able to consider subsequent analysis reduces the capacity for the reuse of your data.

In order to retain maximum reuse potential when archived, photographs and video should be left intact in their raw formats. While ethically dubious such actions can me mitigated if several precautions are taken when generating data. Taking on board Pink’s (2001) collaborative method respondents should play an active role in the production of photographic and video data, including input into the composition of photographs and direction of filming. The review of data by respondents is key to protecting their rights and affords them with the power to advise on changes or request the data be erased and the interview, photo shoot or filming be redone. Only when a satisfactory coherent and unedited data product has been co-produced can the researcher be sure that the rights of participants have been safeguarded for the purposes of archiving and reuse/repurposing.

In situations where data recordings cannot be redone (for example, in unexpected situations in the field) and the respondent requests an edit the researcher must use their judgement and balance the rights of the participant with the potential for data reuse. It making these decisions it is beneficial to refer to the ESDS End User Licence Agreement which affords participants with further protections and has contractual force in law. In particular the licence, which must be agreed with the reuser before access, requires the preservation of confidentiality and anonymity if the data is not available in the public domain. Depositors of multi-media data can remain confident that while the raw archived recordings have not been subject to anonymisation procedures, any new data representation must be fully anonymised.

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