University Healthcare: Ethical Issues in Social Media Research Report

This report delves into the ethical considerations surrounding the use of social media in healthcare research. It addresses the impact of ethical dilemmas on both healthcare organizations and society, particularly concerning data privacy, advertising strategies, and the integrity of information shared on social media platforms. The report highlights potential solutions to these dilemmas, emphasizing the importance of identifying ethical issues, evaluating alternative courses of action, and selecting appropriate ethical reasoning methods. It underscores the necessity of maintaining transparency and ethical conduct to preserve the integrity of healthcare research and protect the interests of patients and the public. The report references the work of Hunter et al. (2018) to support its analysis and provide a comprehensive understanding of the topic.

Running head: ETHICAL ISSUES IN SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH
Ethical Issues in Social Media Research
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ETHICAL ISSUES IN SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH
Question 1: Describe how the ethical dilemma can affect both the organization and
society.
There are diverse categories of social media platforms which are increasingly
deployed in the health care industries all around the world for research and development
purposes. It can be said that both commercial organizations as well as the society can be
affected due to the ethical dilemma of the social media platforms such as the selection of
advertising strategy for the service which are provided by the healthcare organization,
management of the confidentiality of the information, and maintaining the integrity of the
healthcare products which are sold using the social media platforms (Hunter et al. 2018).
Issues like spamming, and misrepresentation of the data can an adverse impact on both the
business reputation of the healthcare industries as well as for the patients who are using social
media. Thus, it can be said that the business reputation of a commercial healthcare
organization and morale of the users of social media platforms can get affected due to the
ethical issues in social media research.
Question 2: Evaluate changes could have been done to prevent this ethical dilemma.
There are diverse categories of ways by which the ethical dilemma associated with the
use of social media platforms in healthcare industries such as the followings:
1: Identification of the issue: It is the primary step of the prevention of ethical issue
in the healthcare industries. The moral imperatives associated with the dilemma along with
the acceptance level has to be set in this step. The actions required to solve the dilemma also
needs to be understood.
Step 2: Identify alternative courses of action: The opportunities of the dilemma has
to be understood which can be very much beneficial for the healthcare environments which
uses social media for research purposes.

2ETHICAL ISSUES IN SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH
Step 3: Selection of the course of action: Selection of the ethical reasoning skills
using different methods such as egoism and enlightened egoism, utilitarianism and rights and
obligations is the final step to prevent the ethical dilemma related with the use of social media
across the healthcare industries.

3ETHICAL ISSUES IN SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH
Reference
Hunter, R. F., Gough, A., O’Kane, N., McKeown, G., Fitzpatrick, A., Walker, T., ... & Kee,
F. (2018). Ethical issues in social media research for public health. American journal
of public health, 108(3), 343-348.