The study that will be analysed is titled ‘On our own terms: the working conditions of internet-based sex workers in the UK’ and looks at researching all the permutations that come with earning your living as an online sex worker. The aim of this essay is to critically analyse the methodological approach taken to acquire the research for this study. The overall aims and objectives of the study should be outlined near to the start of the study and justification for why the topic even needed to be researched to begin with. The different types of methodologies used will be evaluated by outlining the advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, these evaluations will be described in the terms of reliability, validity, generalisability, credibility and reflexivity. Suggestions of what other methodologies could have been used to improve the study, if any are needed, whilst also outlining the potential issues with these as well. Another feature of the essay that will be analysed is the ethical approach taken within the research used for the findings of the study. Ethics are often a controversial topic within research as there is always the argument of does the ends justify the means so it will be key to see how far the researchers were willing to go with research on such a sensitive topic and if they claim that they can justify the findings if they support the study to a good enough extent. The essay will conclude with a summary of all the key points discussed and whether or not the findings found what they were intending to, based on the working conditions of internet-based sex workers.
Within the abject of the study, the aims and objectives are clearly stated in good detail. The first aim was to discuss the working conditions of internet-based sex workers with the objectives being sub-topics based on this aim. The objectives were to look at the basic working patterns, trajectories, the everyday experiences of doing sex work online and the impact this has on the lives of the sex workers. The other aim was to research the experience of different crimes these individuals go through online now, such as blackmail and harassment. Exploration of the relationship between the sex workers and the police is the objective as laws on online sex work currently have detrimental effects for safety and justice when the sex workers are victims of crime. It is clear and apparent as to why research is needed on this topic, due to the obvious issues the online sex workers face when it comes to being victims of crime and the police not being able to help very much, but in the abstract it also states that the research is only based on a specific group of individuals, women, who share the same characteristics. The question that needs to be asked is, why were men not researched as this could drastically change the results of the study (research men). It is also stated this research does only look at the impacts on some of the online sex workers, but the question still remains, why was it only this specific group of people that were researched?
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The methodological approach taken for the research finding for this study was a quantitative method in the form of a survey. The ontology of the study is that the reality is that sex workers exist, and it is known that they experience harassment but what is not known is how the police can actually help the victims due to the current laws in place. The epistemology is the fact that we know of the experiences of online sex workers but what we don’t know is how anyone can help them. The survey will supposedly help to understand. As previously mentioned, the aims and objectives are based around the working conditions of internet-based sex workers and the different crimes they experience. The ontology and epistemology and are justified by the research objectives as they look at the reality that sex workers exist and are victims of crime.
Surveys are often used to collect specific details on offenders, victims and non-victims that have been involved in the crimes (Keith, 2014). Surveys have benefits and limitations. One of the benefits is that the results generally give a good representation of the population that are being researched (Sincero, 2014), in this case online sex workers. Whilst surveys can be beneficial for a topic that would be generalisable to a large amount of the population, this topic, in particular, would not be beneficial in that light as it is researching such a niche occupation. This is because online sex work is not often seen as a desirable job and some people may not even be willing to come forward and admit that it is their occupation. Also, stated within the study, it outlines the fact that the research was only conducted on people who were part of the National Ugly Mugs (NUM), an organisation which confidentially reports incidents involving online sex workers, therefore leading to a limited sample as it is not known how many other sex workers’ have been victims of crime. The researchers do state that they are aware of the lack of representation within the sample but this does not mean there can be any claims that the research has much external validity as it does not correctly represent all the online sex workers. Along with the lack of overall representation within the research, there is also an alarming lack of research on men in this area. Only 11.7% of the participants were men, with 81.7% being female, and the other percentages being made up by those who identify as trans or would prefer not to say. It has to be asked why there was such a low percentage of males researched. The most reasonable explanation could be that there is just a lack of males within this industry but there is a lack of research into this that it cannot be fully justified until there is substantial evidence. Another more likely reason is the whole thought process that men are effectively ashamed to come forward as a victim as they feel it may harm their masculinity (Engel, 2017).
The use of qualitative research within this study would not have worked as it is hard to conduct experiments on violence that online sex workers experience. However, this is not to say that surveys were the perfect method to use. An interview with sex workers could have been conducted to get a more detailed report on what the participant actually experienced and a trend of what specific crimes are usually committed to further help sex workers to not experience this anymore. An interviewer asking questions face to face will be able to tell what emotions the participant is portraying (DeFranzo, 2014) and therefore should hopefully be able to identify when the participant is telling the truth or lying. It is often harder for the participant to lie when it is face to face but much easier when just ticking boxes on a survey. The lack of detailed reports through interviews within the research means that there was not enough research done to justify the conclusions made by the researchers themselves. There is no way for them to prove that the participants taking the survey were not lying as they could not see their raw emotions. Obviously, there is no way to prove that they are lying either but the fact that there is no way to tell either way means there is a lack of reliability based around the findings of the survey. While there are the clear positives of using an interview instead of a survey, there is also negatives to using an interview as well. The detailed reports that come from an interview often come with the downside that they take so much time to do because you are individually interviewing each person which could take up to 30 minutes to complete, depending on the participants answers. This time-consuming aspect of interviews in turn leads to the researchers often having to reduce the number of participants, as they just don’t have the time to interview everyone, thus leading to a limited sample size (DeFranzo, 2014). A limited sample size, as discussed previously with surveys, will not give an accurate representation of the sex workers as a large majority have not been interviewed. Therefore, the findings from an interview have a lack of generalisability to the large majority of online sex workers that have not been researched.
With ethics, there is often a fine line between what is said to be going too far for research and what isn’t going too far. It is often difficult to properly define how far is too far as the ends may justify the means. The overall goal of any study, ethics wise, is to ensure that the way the research is conducted is justified by the need for the findings. Looking at the study into online sex workers, many of the ethical basis that need to be covered, were covered to an acceptable extent (BSOC, 2015). The first step that was taken was to ensure that the participants knew they had the right to withdraw from the research at any point. This is a key part of any study because the participants need to be provided with as much information as possible regarding the research as long as it will not have an effect on the participants’ performance (Caulfield and Hill, 2014). Furthermore, the researchers also provided the subjects with the contact details of the Principle Investigator for further information or if they wanted to withdraw from the study. The only slight issue with providing the sex workers with this much information is that it could alter how they react to the questions being asked. It is quite common that some people will want to answer the questions based on what they think the researchers want to hear instead of what their true opinion is. Therefore, this can have an effect on the reliability of the research due to the fact that the subjects were told a lot about what the study was for. However, the researchers could claim that, as it was a sensitive topic to be studying, they felt the need to not leave the participants in the dark about any part of the study. The researchers also outline that the identities of the participants will be kept confidential and this is another key part of ethics in criminological research because the researchers are required to ensure that this confidentiality is kept at all times unless any of the participants have given consent to their name being used (Westmarland, 2011). Along with stating that no form of identification was taken by the researchers, it is also stated that no IP addresses were collected to be traced which ensures absolute confidentiality. The IP addresses not being collected is obviously incredibly important as these can be used to trace a person to their location, and with such a frowned upon job, this means the participants themselves do not have to worry about being tracked down. The study clearly covered the basis of confidentiality and informed consent to a more than acceptable standard but one issue that did not appear to be touched upon is the potential to cause harm to the participant, whether it be physical or psychological. As it is just a survey, there is clearly a very minimal chance of any physical harm being caused but there is every chance that answering questions on a topic of this magnitude may lead to psychological harm occurring. Participants should not be placed under any psychological harm and, if this happens, they should be given the chance to discuss anything that caused them distress (Matthews and Ross, 2010). At no point in the ethical section of the study does it state that there was any awareness of any psychological harm that could have been caused and consequently there was no mention of how they would assist participants if they felt they had been subjected to psychological harm. There is no way of confirming if the researchers did or did not do this as they could have just forgot to state it but the fact that they went into such detail stating everything they did for confidentiality and informed consent, it is hard to believe that they would have just forgotten to mention it. Unfortunately, this is an ethical issue posed for the study in an otherwise flawless display of covering the majority of the basis with ethics. It is only a minor issue as the likelihood of psychological harm occurring through a survey is slim but there is always the potential no matter what study is being conducted, especially considering it is regarding online sex workers.
The aim of conducting research into online sex workers and the conditions they work in was always going to be tricky due to the laws that are in place meaning there is little anyone can do to help the sex workers if they are the victims of a crime. Overall, the aims and objectives were set out clearly and there were no questions left to be desired regarding what the researchers were planning to investigate. The use of quantitative data instead of qualitative was beneficial as it allows for more data to be collected in a shorter amount of time, as apposed to the longer time usually taken within qualitative methods. Surveys were the obvious choice of methodology as they can be sent out for participants to complete instead of asking them to come in. The slight issue with using surveys instead of interviews is that the participant is more likely to be honest with their experiences in a face to face situation due to it being easier to tell if someone is lying in person. The sample size was not the best representation of all sex workers as there appeared to be a lack of male participants and this could be due to the predicted lack of men in this line of work but it is not exactly clear how many people work in this industry as it is not desirable or something that some people are willing to come forward and admit to. The ethical points were well covered in terms of confidentiality and the participants knowing they have a right to withdraw but the slight risk of psychological harm was not stated and, therefore, probably would not have been dealt with if there were any issues. The study does well to gain insight into a topic that is not often researched but there are still some minor flaws regarding the methods used to achieve the findings for the aims and objectives of the study.
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