Analizzare la comunicazione nei social network tra ricerca accademica e amministrativa. Riflessioni sull’etica della ricerca

[Autom. eng. transl.] The contrast between critical theory and administrative research is extremely current in the context of social media communication research. More and more commercial subjects, in fact, commission research aimed at increasing the understanding of the communicative dynamics activated in social media, also in order to develop their business potential. At the same time, the nature of online communication between users and brands appears extremely delicate to the extent that it presents itself as a bond of trust fueled by daily interaction. The tensions put in place by this research explode when it is academic research. Starting from a series of empirical researches carried out in this context by the writer, the paper aims to investigate limits and potentialities between academic and administrative research through a series of crucial junctions: scientific research; social and cognitive relevance; power dynamics. The proposal we want to support is that the tool through which a balance can be created between all these dimensions is the adoption of an ethical approach to research where ethics is not limited to being the application of rules or protocols, however indispensable, but it becomes a self-reflexive custom in which the researcher constantly evaluates his role, the object and the method of investigation. Ethics, therefore, as a practice of accountability and an authentic push to know a portion of reality. Ethics, finally, as an impulse to establish a regime of "permanent criticism" that keeps the potential of social media open and proposes to establish a reflective process also in its client.