ETHICS IN AUDIENCE RESEARCH: By the book or on the hop?

Several disciplines occupy the flourishing domain of audience research, bringing their own methodological preferences for human research, such as psychology, marketing, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and health. As a result, audience research is more ethically complicated than its forebear, reception studies, with its relatively safe discursive extrapolation from the text. As audience research matures as a field, ethical questions emerge: what are the major ethical challenges involved in collecting, analysing and publishing research based on audiences’ experiences? Where are the weaknesses in how audience research is currently conducted and used? What can new researchers stepping into audience research learn about potential hotspots from their more experienced colleagues?