[Air-l] Google is watching !

Rod Carveth rodcarveth at hotmail.com
Fri May 21 09:59:03 PDT 2004


Jenny,

Interesting post, but there's a couple different issues in your online 
support group example -- insuring anonymity and understanding the public 
nature of the conversation.

If a researcher wants to record the interactions of a GLBT support group, 
anonymity is pretty easy to insure -- just don't reveal the names (or any 
other identity revealing information) in the public dissemination of the 
data.

The second issue involves whether or not participants understand the public 
nature of Internet interactions.  I have in an earlier post agreed that 
there are areas of the world (such as Africa) where the experience of the 
Internet is so recent that participants in online conversations may not be 
fully aware of how the interaction is public.

This is not the same as the interactions of Internet users in the United 
States in an online support group.  For example, people can lurk relatively 
anonymously in many groups, so the total number of people involved in the 
interaction is not known (unlike F2F).  Second, the interactions are written 
down and can be archived, so there's a record of what is being said.  In 
other words, participants in an online support group know that the nature of 
their communication is different than in F2F interaction.  And, by agreeing 
to participate in an online forum, they are inherently agreeing to deal with 
those differences -- basically, they have given implied consent to having 
their interactions collected, analyzed, interpreted, etc.

Thus, given that participants' anonymity can easily be insured, and that 
interactants by their very participation have given their consent to their 
comments to be used as data, then I don't see anything ethically wrong with 
using their postings as data.

Jenny, if you are uncomfortable recording those conversations as data, then 
you can choose not to.  I just happen to believe that those who choose to 
are not violating any ethical principles here.

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] Google is watching ! Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 11:48:37 
>-0400
>
>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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