[Air-l] Google is watching !

Jennifer Stromer-Galley jstromer at albany.edu
Fri May 21 08:48:37 PDT 2004


Eero's post (below) makes me think of this:

(from Dewey) the public sphere is called into being whenever two (or
more) people are involved in a conversation, and that conversation has
unintended consequences that reach beyond the originators of the
conversation. 

Lesson (for me, anyway):

The Internet renders visible, concrete, and "public" a social process of
communication that may not have been felt in these ways before. 

Example: three people sit at a Starbucks in New York discussing
Massachusettes legalizing marriage between gays and lesbians. Sally and
Kate are a lesbian couple that feel strongly that legalized marriage
will be a step towards ending discrimination against them. They retell a
story to their friend Jamaal, who's sitting with them, about their own
experiences with discrimination at work, and at a hospital when Sally
was ill. Jamaal mostly listens to the conversation, but leaves the
conversation with renewed enthusiasm for legalized marriage for
homosexuals. After the three depart, Jamaal meets up with an old college
roommate for dinner. They too discuss gay marriage, and Jamaal uses many
of Sally and Kate's examples with his college roommate. The college
roommate the next day talks with his wife about the conversation with
Jamaal, and she, in turn, takes a tidbit of a fact about discrimination
that Sally had said, and shares it with a co-worker . . . . . And so it
goes.

The Internet enables the same kinds of interaction. But, it does so in
ways that are visible and far more permanent than a throuh-the-air
conversation. This makes the Internet as an archival medium
simultaneously a delight and a fright. 

It's really remarkable to see that the conversation we're having on AoIR
about ethnography, ethics, and public and private distinctions, has made
its way to a blog. It's remarkable to see my post recreated for another
forum, for a slightly different group of people to read and comment on.
And, it's out of my control. 

But, on one hand it's no more or less out of my control than Sally's
comments that get passed from Jamaal to the roommate, to the wife, to
the co-worker. On the other hand, conversations captured online can be
perceived as more harmful because names are associated with the
conversations, the conversations are persistent in ways that
over-the-air conversations are not, and that persistance and visibility
means a message is far more durable online than offline. A conversation
that could not easily be quoted or analyzed when occurring face-to-face,
becomes an easy opportunity for a researcher, for example, to save and
analyze, to reprint and quote. But, just because it's easier to do so
online, doesn't mean that it's ethical to do so.

So, to return to the larger question at hand: 

Thomas and Eero, as I understand them, continue to argue that what is
posted online is inherently public. As a result, following guidelines
for attributing sources, it's A-OK to do what we will with it.

My position is that although posts online are durable, persistant, and
visible, it does not mean they are inherently public such that
researchers can do with the posts what they will. Now, I agree with
Nancy that researchers should not have to get consent from participants
in a discussion group, such as Usenet, that are open to anyone to
participate and to read, and where identities (that is, first and last
names and identifying information) is generally unavailable, rendering
the posts anonymous. But, there are many grey areas, as others have
identified, like the AoIR list. Few of us are anonymous on this email
list. Our posts have email addresses and names (usually first and last)
attached to them. 

So, I point back to Dannah's eloquent post, that the *experience* of
participating online, the *perceptions* of those involved in the
interaction, need to become the primary concern in determining how to
proceed with research. If the conversation between Sally, Kate, and
Jamaal had happened in a support group for gays and lesbians, I'm
unconvinced that many participants would feel it okay for a stranger to
record, analyze, and publish the discussion, just as they likely would
not feel okay if someone secretely recorded the conversation at
Starbucks. But, that is a question that requires a researcher to know
and understand the group and abide by the norms the group has
established. 

At the heart of this, I'm urging that the primary consideration when
engaging in research of people online is not if posts are durable,
archived, visible, public, then they are fair game for research, but how
do those who participate in the conversation perceive their
participation? If they recognize and are comfortable with their posts
being researched, great. If they don't, then as researchers, we ought to
respect that.

Sincerely,
~Jenny Stromer-Galley


> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-admin at aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin at aoir.org] On 
> Behalf Of ET
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 3:42 AM
> To: air-l at aoir.org
> Subject: [Air-l] Google is watching ! 
> 
> 
> I decided to type my own name into Google.
> And apart from the top few entries being expected - as they 
> relate to sites I have here, there and everywhere - and a few 
> that dont relate to me, there was an entry about my comments in here.
> 
> But the page isnt in this forum. My comments, and those of 
> Danah and Jenny are being discussed in someone ELSES forum !!!
> 
> here is the link 
> http://lackaff.net/archives/2004/5/15/ethics-and-online-identi
ty/

Isnt that amazing. Our comments of the 15th of May have been picked up
and discussed on another forum and are already in Google.

So much for privacy :-)

I rest my case....

see ya

Eero Tarik




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