Three approaches between ethics and methods in communication research

a look from teaching and supervision experiences

Abstract

Research methods and ethics are seldom put together in communication teaching, as they are often seen as separate dimensions of academic inquiry. Methods are usually seen as technical procedures to gather data and analyze it, as much as ethics are often regarded as a given set of norms that govern research practices. This paper suggests that there is a deeper relationship between research methods and ethics, as both as transversal to all investigation steps as they deal with the researcher’s subjectivity, crossed by specific social conditions. Grounded on the analysis of everyday research procedures, it argues that ethics and methods are particularly intermixed in three ways: (1) the understanding of research as the encounter with a radical otherness; (2) the moment of facing writings, concepts and theories and (3) the belonging to an academic community.