Studying online interpersonal communication using online forums : epistemological, ethical, and methodological perspectives

With conversational platforms like online forums offering researchers insight- ful deposits of human traces, considering the opportunities and limits of studying online interpersonal communication is crucial for social scientists. Building on lessons learned from a personal research journey, this paper presents the ration- ale behind using natural online data, ethical considerations and practical advice to choose a context of data collection, generate and analyze a proper database. The contribution homes in on epistemological, ethical, and methodological per- spectives to provide scholars with guidance on some strategies to select, read, and scrutinize online interactional data in an ethically informed and methodologically sound fashion. [Publisher's text]