How to select participants from LGBTQIA+ and trans communities using social media

Webster, Lexi (2024) How to select participants from LGBTQIA+ and trans communities using social media. In, SAGE Research Methods: Diversifying and Decolonizing Research. (doi:10.4135/9781529690958).

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

In this guide, I discuss some of the ethical and methodological considerations of recruiting LGBTQIA+ research participants via social media. Of course, recruiting research participants from historically marginalized and minoritized communities always requires serious consideration. However, this is perhaps even more true when seeking to recruit participants via today’s increasingly extreme social mediascape, which continues to platform homophobic, transphobic, and queerphobic content. These conditions may well contribute to social media users’ inability or unwillingness to be identifiably LGBTQIA+ in online spaces, giving rise to both ethical and methodological considerations in our research. From researcher positionality to picking the right platform(s), and from carefully crafted language to dealing with rejection, I offer in this guide some practical advice for you to reflect on in the development and design of social media recruitment methods.

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Webster.FirstDraft.RecruitLGBTQIA+ - Accepted Manuscript

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