Frameworks
About the frameworks
Feminist research methodologies are often concerned with face-to-face, in-depth ethnographic, embedded, participatory methods and their inherent relationality, emotion, and power dynamics. In social media research settings, it can be difficult to fulfill this same level of care as building trust, solidarity, and fostering collaboration from behind a screen is not always viable. With this in mind, how can feminist social media researchers uphold their values and the responsibilities they have to research participants?
As we conducted our research, it became increasingly clear that one framework with one set of practices would not be sufficient in covering the various feminist social media research methodologies. In lieu of developing one main framework for how to do feminist social media research, we developed multiple frameworks in an attempt to account for the ways in which research methodologies need to change with the context of each specific project. On this page, we offer a series of suggestions for how to:
- conceptualize social media research as planetary-intimate
- engage with the concepts of data feminism in the context of social media research
- take an approach to social media research that engages feminist ethical research principles
Ideally, these guiding principles will provide social media researchers with a set of suggestions that may help them conduct their research with an awareness of subjectivity, embodiment, context, and plurality.
A feminist-geographical conceptualization of social media platforms
Feminist perspectives provide important impetus for more socially just research on and with social media platforms. However, a specific geographical conceptualization of social media platforms is still lacking. As such, we argue for a feminist-geographical understanding of social media platforms and research as intertwined across planetary-intimate scales. In other words, one way we can conceptualize social media - from a feminist perspective - is as simultaneously planetary (e.g. raw material extraction, energy consumption, and resource exploitation uphold the operation of social media systems) and intimate (e.g. researchers have embodied experiences which impact their well-being during social media research). At the heart of planetary-intimate social media research are questions of power and the more-than-human context involved in the creation and functioning of social media platforms. We assert that social media platforms should not be viewed as discrete, objective, and disembodied in research, but rather as situated, embodied systems entangled across planetary-intimate scales. Click to read the research guiding our planetary-intimate approach!
What do we mean when we say "planetary-intimate scales"?
As explained by Nora Helen Komposch, the planetary-intimate highlights "the profound interdependence between planetary processes on the one hand, such as rising sea levels, declining air quality, transnational migration, or the proliferation of bioplastic in microcells, and, on the other, the intimate, everyday experiences of individuals” (Komposch, 2024, p. 32).
A Dialectical Relationship
Our approach acknowledges the impacts of social media platforms across planetary-intimate scales by understanding social media platforms as simultaneously embedded in global, unequal power structures and the everyday actions and lives of many. To put it another way, events which occur at a planetary level have impacts on things which occur at the intimate level, and vice-versa.
To give an example, as people interact on social media as a part of their daily routine, their data will be distributed and stored through data infrastructures, such as data centres, in the material world. These data centres, which span several hectares, have significant environmental and social impacts. It is in this way that everyday actions taken in a specific geographical context span to a planetary scale. Meanwhile, said environmental and social consequences go on to impact more people's daily lives - often the daily lives of those most marginalized. As such, a positive feedback loop is created where the planetary and intimate scales constantly shape one another.
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The planetary-intimate dimensions, processes, and connections realizing social media platforms
As illustrated, we distinguish between several bodies, processes and intimately entangled, planetary dimensions that realize social media platforms, users, coders, platform owners, content moderators, data centre workers, software, hardware, data centres and politics. While we do not claim it to be complete, our figure shows the coming together of embodied, situated lives of, for example, different users, who are intimately connected with each other and content moderators, with planetary inputs and outputs such as globally circulating software, based on opaque and unjust algorithms and reproduced through biased platform policies.
Practicing a planetary-intimate conceptualization of social media platforms
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Above, we detail some recommendations as to how scholars can practice social media research more ethically while considering social media as existing across planetary-intimate scales. Along with our recommendations, we include concrete examples of what these suggestions may look like in practice.
Data feminism and social media research
Using the seven principles of data feminism, we developed a set of guidelines for conducting feminist social media research. Data feminism offers unique considerations for how to bring power, emotions, complexity and labour politics more explicitly into our work. While enacting the principles of data feminism in our social media research will not always be a straightforward process, we see this as an opportunity for methodological innovation - rather than seeing this as a challenge to overcome.
What is data feminism?
Coined by Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein, data feminism is a method of thinking about data that is shaped by:
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direct experience
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a commitment to action
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intersectional feminist thought
The main goals of data feminism are to:
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understand how common practices in data science can (re)inforce existing inequalities
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use data science to challenge and change unequal/inequitable distributions of power
(D'Ignazio & Klein, 2020).
To learn more about data feminism, check out D'Ignazio and Klein's book!
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Our publication on this topic, "Data Feminism for Social Media Research in Critical Geography" is currently under review. When it is made available, you'll be able to click to read it!
Addressing a gap
in methodologies: Feminist social media research ethics
Check out our most recent publication
"Practicing feminist approaches to social media research" includes more details about how we developed the following tables. This publication is currently forthcoming and will be made available soon! Check back in to read our publication!
Should social media users be considered "research participants", requiring their informed consent before their content is used?
Should researchers consider public social media posts as "free for the taking" even when posts contain private or intimate details?
Due to the emergent, and fast changing nature of social media, research ethics boards are not yet equipped to make important social media research decisions such as the questions posed above. Subsequently, many of these decisions are left up to individual researchers. To further complicate matters, prior to our research, many existing social media research guidelines did not explicitly center the priorities of feminist research methodologies. We saw this as an opportunity to strengthen professional practices by developing a clear set of ethical guidelines for social media research based in a feminist ethics of care. In the two following tables, we identify the principles of (feminist) research ethics while keeping in mind how difficult they can be to apply when it comes to social media research (table 1). We then offer a series of suggestions as to how researchers could apply these principles in their social media work (table 2).
Common ethical challenges feminist researchers encounter while conducting social media research
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The above table summarizes the three principles of research ethics, as well as the additional six principles of feminist research ethics. The second column describes these principles while the fourth offers considerations for how they may or may not apply to social media research. In an ideal situation, researchers are able to enact all nine of these principles in their social media work, but as discussed above, this can be challenging in practice.
Suggestions for working through ethical dilemmas in social media research
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In this table, we revisit the guiding (feminist) ethical principles from the previous table and identify specific research practices that we or other scholars have used to enact each of the principles with social media research. These practices are useful to all social media researchers who aim for their work to contribute to transformational change. The practices we identify are diverse, and in some cases even contradictory (e.g. anonymize data/credit participants; identify yourself/stay hidden). This is because what is considered ethical research on and with social media changes with context. Our point is not to provide a prescriptive or exhaustive list of practices, but rather a starting point that we hope researchers will use to think through their own work.
Conclusions
We have provided a series of methodological frameworks and ethical guidelines for scholars doing social media research. Having access to more concrete ethical guidelines not only contributes to academic integrity and helps researchers uphold their social responsibilities, but could also positively impacts researchers’ well-being. Throughout our research, some of our findings indicated that without guidance, researchers could struggle with deciding how to handle ethical considerations specific to social media, contributing to internal conflicts and anxieties (see Kipp et al., 2026b). Thus, by sharing our work, we hope researchers may feel less alone in their struggles and may also find the guidance they need to ensure the work they are doing aligns with their moral principles.
Additionally, for the members of the public whose social media content is used in research, we hope our work will contribute to their privacy, their right to informed consent, and proper recognition of their digital labour. As has been noted by other scholars, the things people post on social media can be sensitive in nature and are often used by researchers without users’ full understanding or permission (Drenten & Gurrieri, 2025; Pangrazio & Selwyn, 2018). By providing researchers with suggestions for upholding feminist ethics in social media research, scholars will have a better idea of how they can properly credit and protect the work of online research participants, even if this is not yet required by research ethics boards.
References
Carlson, B. (2021). Data silence in the settler archive. In S. Perera & J. Pugliese (Eds.), Mapping Deathscapes: Digital Geographies of Racial and Border Violence. Taylor & Francis Group
Drenten, J., & Gurrieri, L. (2025). Conducting qualitative social media research through a feminist ethic of care. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 28(3), 337-407. https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-07-2024-0149
D'Ignazio, C., & Klein, L. F. (2020). Data Feminism. MIT Press.
Hawkins, R., Kipp, A., Beninger, C., & Militz, E. (2026). Practicing feminist approaches to social media research [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph.
Haywood, C. (2022).Developing a Black Feminist Research Ethic: A Methodological Approach to Research in Digital Spaces. In V. Del Hierro & C. VanKooten (Eds.), Methods and Methodologies for Research in Digital Writing and Rhetoric: Centering Positionality in Computers and Writing Scholarship, Volume 2 (pp. 29-44). WAC Clearinghouse.
Jimenez, E., Pulido, C., Calero, C., Moraga, M. A., García, F., & Gordillo, A. (2024). Analyzing Instagram's Energy Consumption: Tips for an Eco-Friendly Use. Iadis International Journal on www/Internet, 22(1), 89-105. https://doi.org/10.33965/ijwi_2024220107
Kipp, A., Hawkins, R., & Militz, E. (2026a). Data feminism for social media research in critical geography
[Manuscript submitted for publication]. Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph.
Kipp, A., Militz, E., Hawkins, R., Thompson, S., Monnier-Reyna, M., Karsgaard, C., Duguay, S., Liu, C., Nelson, I.L., & Simpson, S. A. (2026b). A blurring of worlds: A collective biography of how doing social media research feels [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph.
Komposch, N. L. (2024). Bodies, Borders, Berry Fields: The Planetary-Intimate in Agricultural Labor Migration [Doctoral dissertation, University of Bern]. Bern Open Repository and Information System (BORIS) Portal.
Militz, E., Benzinger, M., & Hawkins, R. (2026). Towards planetary-intimate social media research. Digital Geography and Society 10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2025.100154
Pangrazio, L., & Selwyn, N. (2018). ‘It’s not like it’s life or death or whatever’: Young people’s understandings of social media data. Social Media + Society, 4(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118787808
Toffoletti, K., Olive, R., Thorpe, H., & Pavlidis, A. (2020). Doing feminist physical cultural research in digital spaces: reflections, learnings and ways forward. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise, and Health, 13(1), 11-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2020.1836513