Capturing a Moment: The Practices and Ethics of Social Media Archiving

Capturing a Moment: The Practices and Ethics of Social Media Archiving

Web Archiving

In this Master’s Paper, Breed discusses archiving social media data through a study where thirty-eight archivists respond to a survey regarding their “institutional practices, their opinions of the ethical responsibilities of archives toward social media users, and the questions they still have about social media archiving.” The paper also covers the prevalence of this new form of archiving, ethics, available tools, real world examples, and the study. As social media archiving is still new in concept, the study aims to be the first of many into further research of social media ethics regarding archiving. It also intends to point out what ethical tools are lacking in this field according to archivists.
I found this paper to be incredibly valuable to the archive. It was published relatively recently and discusses the ethics of an up and coming form of archiving: social media. Not only does it utilize a study where archivists are asked to weigh in, but it also talks about what is in place as social media archiving stands now. I think this paper should be included because it is thorough, detailed, and full of information that poses realistic questions and concerns about the future of archiving in a digital age.

Breed, Miana

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

2019-05-08

Alexis Cosio

Online Journal

Breed, Miana. 2019. Capturing a Moment: The Practices and Ethics of Social Media Archiving. https://doi.org/10.17615/p4ff-zk64