[Air-l] ethics of recording publicly observed interactions

[Rod Carveth]

Jenny,

I agree with you about the public nature of writing to a newspaper and the 
ambiguity of whether or not posting to a newsgroup is public.

I disagree about the public nature of a loud cell phone conversation.  
Culturally, it is *polite* to ignore a person being loud on the phone.  
OTOH, we all know that there is a point in terms of the loudness of our 
voice where while the intent of the conversation may be private, the effect 
is public.  Once past that point, we lose control over how the communication 
is used.  For all intents and purposes, the part of the conversation is in 
the public realm.

Example.  Suppose a few months ago, Bennifer (pick either one) is having a 
cell phone call with a friend.  They're talking and the conversation gets 
animated.  The volume gets loud enough that people can easily hear Bennifer 
say "It's so over.  We'll have to anounce that soon."  Among the people that 
hear the conversation is a gossip columnist.  Would we be suprised if an 
item based on this phone call appeared as a scoop in the gossip column the 
following day?  Would we think the gossip columnist was acting unethically?

Same example.  If I -- an academic following a "higher standard" of research 
approaches -- was writing an article about cell phones and how people get so 
into them they exceed culturally acceptable standards of volume, I would 
have no problem using actual conversations in the article.  Once a person 
gets too loud, he or she by behavior has waived any right to privacy.

OTOH, there's a more practical matter to consider in terms of this kind of 
data -- you only get part of the conversation, and you only hear one side.   
So, while I believe such data is fair game, there are few times when such 
data would be useful.

Rod



Rod Carveth, Associate Professor
Department of Communication
Rochester Institute of Technology
100 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623
585-429-6127
docrod at rit.edu

"On the Internet, no one knows if
you are a dog, but they do know if
you are an ass."


>From: "Jennifer Stromer-Galley" <jstromer at albany.edu>
>Reply-To: air-l at aoir.org
>To: <air-l at aoir.org>
>Subject: RE: [Air-l] ethics of recording publicly observed interactions   
>Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 09:15:24 -0400
>
>A letter to the editor in the NYTimes, a post on Newsgroup, and a loud
>cell phone conversation are not analogous.
>
>A person writing a letter to the NYTimes knows that his or her letter,
>if it gets printed will be part of the public record, open for public
>comment and public scrutiny. Culturally, we understand that a newspaper
>is a public document; and, if one writes a letter to be placed in it, we
>recognize that it may be read, analyzed, and commented upon privately
>and publicly.
>
>A person posting to a Newsgroup may or may not share the same cultural
>understanding of publicness. Some participants in this discussion on
>AoIR have assumed that all participants of the Internet understand the
>public nature of the Internet, but I challenge that assumption. Late
>adopters of the Internet and technologically unsavvy users (just to name
>two groups) may not full understand or appreciate how public their posts
>are. It's one thing for a techie to declare all communication online
>public, and another thing entirely for a user of the Internet to
>perceive his or her communication online as public. To compare back to a
>letter to the NYTimes. There is a culturally-shared understanding of the
>newspaper's publicness. There is not a culturally-shared understanding
>that all communcation online is public.
>
>A person talking loudly on a cellphone on a train may experience his or
>her phone conversation as a private act, even though the people in the
>immediate vicinity hear one side of the conversation. Unlike a letter to
>the NYTimes, there is not a culturally-shared agreement, nor is their an
>individual-level perception, that such cell phone talk is public. How
>many of you have started a cell phone conversation while walking or
>driving (eek!) have ended the conversation and realized that you're
>surprised at where you're located? We pay less attention to the external
>world when we engage in cell phone conversation than when we're not
>having that conversation. Although some cell phone users may be
>conscientious to the fact that others can hear their conversation, I
>challenge an assumption that they know and feel that their conversations
>are public, and therefore open to structiny and public comment.
>
>So, before we academics start declaring that "those people" should know
>that their communication is public because we can hear it need to
>recognize the difference between academic "objective" observations of
>public communication (i.e. "Newsgroup posts ARE public") and the
>observeds own perceptions of publicness.
>
>As academics, we have a moral obligation to respect the boundaries our
>potential research participants establish. As academics, we are held to
>a higher standard of research approaches than, say, our journalist
>colleagues (although, I wish journalists were held to a higher
>standard). We ought not record and analyze for research purposes online
>communication unless we are certain that the participants engaged in the
>communication recognize the publicness of their communication, or unless
>we acquire some level of informed consent from those participants.
>
>Best wishes,
>~Jenny Stromer-Galley
>
>
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