Purpose
The purpose of the project is to study how social media affects how we share and discuss art. Through a case study of Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s viral artwork Can’t Help Myself, I aim to find out how this work has been presented, discussed, and interpreted on different social media platforms. How does the social media interfaces shape the presentation of the artwork? What are the similarities and differences between platforms? What discussions are repeated and encouraged, and which are shut down?
Findings will be published in a master’s thesis at the University of Oslo. This is the only purpose the information will be used for.
Who is responsible for the research project?
The University of Oslo is responsible for the project.
Why have you been included in the study?
You have been included in the study because you’ve either shared an image or video about the artwork Can’t Help Myself or commented on a post about the artwork. This data has been acquired from the social media platforms TikTok, Instagram, Twitter/X and YouTube. What does the project mean for you? I would like to obtain your posts/comments from TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter/X. This will be information about the artwork Can’t Help Myself, and is obtained by manually searching through keywords, hashtags (such as (#canthelpmyself #sunyuanpengyu #canthelpmyselfart and other variations), TikTok sounds (such as Exit Music (For a Film) by Radiohead and Je Te Laisserai Des Mots by Patrick Watson) from the period 2021-2022, as well as posts and comments from 2016 and 2019 (the years where Can’t Help Myself was exhibited on Guggenheim and the Venice Biennale). In the comment sections I have gathered data from, I have also commented myself with the information about the research project and how to contact me. This is in line with SIKT’s own guidelines for providing collective information.
Posts from the social media platforms will be saved as screenshots, while comments and tweets will be transcribed and saved as text. If notable, I will collect the date of publication and metadata such as likes and shares. As I am solely interested in information about the artwork, comments which include sensitive personal information, and posts that contain faces or other personally identifiable information, will not be collected. I will not collect usernames, which means that the data is anonymised as I collect it.
You can object
You can object to being included in this research project at any time, and you do not have to give a reason. All your personal data will then be deleted. There will be no negative consequences for you if you choose to object.
Your privacy - how we store and use your information
I will only use the information about you for the purposes we have described in this letter. I treat the information confidentially and in accordance with the privacy regulations. The data I collect will be anonymised, as I will not collect data that might reveal your identity.
The data will be stored on the OneDrive-client provided by the University of Oslo, which follows the security standards for storing this type of information. Only me and my supervisor will have access to the data, but the contents of it might be discussed in supervision meetings where two more students are present.
When the thesis is published, posts, captions and comments may be used as direct examples in the analysis, such as ones stemming from Instagram and Tiktok. Twitter comments will be paraphrased. I make this distinction because users are able to search for comments on Twitter, but not on Instagram and TikTok. This means that you might be able to recognize your post or comment, but your username will not be published.
What happens to your personal data at the end of the research project?
The information will be anonymized and kept until the thesis is approved, which according to the schedule is 01 June 2024.
What gives us the right to process personal data about you?
We are processing information about you because the research project is considered to be in the public interest, but you have the right to object if you do not wish to be included in the project.
On behalf of the University of Oslo, Sikt – Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research, has assessed that the processing of personal data in this project is in accordance with the privacy regulations.
Your rights
As long as you can be identified in the collected data, you have the right to:
- object
- access the personal data registered about you
- have personal data about you corrected/rectified,
- have personal data about you deleted, and
- file a complaint with the Norwegian Data Protection Authority regarding the processing of your personal data.
If you have questions about the study, or would like to know more or exercise your rights, please contact:
• Student Linn H. Hestnes, TikTok/Twitter: @linnification, Instagram: @indielinn, E-mail: linnhhe@student.media.uio.no
• Supervisor Timotheus Vermeulen, E-mail: timotheus.vermeulen@media.uio.no
• Our data protection officer: personvernombud@uio.no
If you have questions related to the assessment of this project by Sikt's data protection services, contact:
• Data protection services at e-mail (personverntjenester@sikt.no) or by phone at: +47 73 98 40 40