The use of social media platforms (such as Facebook) for research recruitment has continued to increase, especially during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Social media enables researchers to reach diverse communities that often do not have their voices heard in research. Social media research recruitment, however, can pose risks to both potential participants and the researchers. This topic paper presents ethical considerations related to social media recruitment, and offers an example of harassment and hate speech risks when social media is used (...) for research recruitment. We explore the implications of hate speech risks for ethical research. (shrink)

Chemicals have penetrated everyday lives of men who have sex with men as never before, along with new online and mobile technologies used to seek pleasures and connections. Poststructuralist (including queer) explorations of these new intensities show how bodies exist in the form of (political) surfaces able to connect with other bodies and with other objects where they may find/create a function (e.g., reproduce or disrupt hegemonies). This federally funded netnographic study explored how a variety of chemicals such as recreational (...) drugs, pharmaceuticals and steroids are contributing to the construction of gay, bisexual and other men having sex with men (GBMSM) communities and their interactions with idealized masculinities in the age of increasing technology. Five major thematic categories emerged from our analysis: (1) assembling bodies and technologies, (2) becoming orgiastic, (3) experiencing stigma, (4) becoming machinic and (5) negotiating practices. Our analysis explores how and why GBMSM pursue excesses of pleasure and connection through the assemblages they make with sexualized drug use, online platforms and other men. (shrink)