Doing Risky Research: Integrity, Impact and Safety in Digital Ethnography

Academics navigate an increasingly risky research landscape. How can digital ethnographers deal with dynamics of mistrust and skepticism, the weaponization of science, and threats to information integrity in both online and offline contexts? Join panelists Kamile Grusauskaite, Carolina Parreiras and Melissa Aronczyk for an important conversation about best practices for doing risky research safely and effectively.

This event is co-sponsored by the Rutgers University Digital Ethnography Working Group (DEWG) and the Laboratory of Ethnographies of Technology and Digital Studies (LETEC) at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

PANELISTS:

Dr. Kamile Grusauskaite is a postdoctoral fellow at the Media Culture & Policy Lab at KU Leuven and a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Sociology at Yale University. Her research addresses the social, cultural and political implications of online media technologies. Using qualitative and digital ethnographic methods, she has written extensively on conspiracy theories, disinformation, and platform policies. Her research has appeared in New Media & Society, Social Media + Society, and Public Understanding of Science. She regularly presents her work at international conferences including ICA, EASST, AoIR, ISA, and the European Sociological Association.

Dr. Carolina Parreiras is an anthropologist and holds a PhD in Social Sciences (State University of Campinas, Unicamp, Brazil). She is a researcher at the Department of Anthropology at University of São Paulo, Brazil and the Director of the Laboratory of Ethnographies of Technology and Digital Studies (LETEC).

Dr. Melissa Aronczyk (moderator) is a professor in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University and the co-director of the Rutgers Digital Ethnography Working Group. She is a contributor to the major synthesis report, Information Integrity about Climate Science (IPIE, 2025) and to the open-access book, Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment (Oxford, 2025). Her award-winning research on the hazards of organized persuasion for democratic communication has been featured in national and international media including the BBC, The Nation and CNBC.