The Ethics of Screen Scholarship

Image-based researchers have previously noted the failure of institutional ethics guidelines and frameworks to adequately address the issues and methodologies used in visual research, citing a need for more creative and flexible approaches. Screen scholars work with traditional (non-visual) data sources, human subjects, visual data, and colleagues. This produces a range of ethical issues which are not addressed by institutional frameworks, based as they are on individualism and utilitarian ideals. Drawing on the ideas of Johann Neem and Savannah Dodd, this chapter suggests the need to shift our research practices towards a more collective, reflective and empathic mode of working.