[Air-l] ethnography and ethics
bakera at ohiou.edu
bakera at ohiou.edu
Sat May 8 11:00:07 PDT 2004
Hi, Eero, and all
A long post I made in answer has fallen into the internet ether, so I
will let elijah's stand in for me to some extent. I do want to say
though, I don't agree that our individual attachments to personal
ethics or the law are quite enough to stand in for guidelines. As a
newer member of the aoir ethics committee chaired by Charles Ess, and
as a presenter of a paper on ethics of researching online community
and relationships, I applaud the aoir group for putting together a
pioneering set of guidelines growing from people with allegiances to
many different disciplines and countries.
I also disagree that posting in a newsgroup is analogous to walking
down the street. There is a large grey area between the totally
public and totally private online which bears examination and
continued attempts to reach at least a rough agreement on how and
when to do research there. Finally, without having professional
knowledge of the profession, it seems to me that journalists often
have fewer strictures than researchers, not only because of our
IRB's, but because of the demand for daily stories and the traditions
of their profession. For example, they may be more than satisfied if
three people back up their information, whereas we may need far more
than that to support a thesis about everyday life.
best,
andrea baker (andee)
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