[Air-L] the ethics of online research

[Lois Ann Scheidt]

I'm throwing the debate open a bit because one of the undertones I see 
repeated throughout this thread I find very disturbing.  It seems to me 
that some of the writers
I’m not throwing stones at anyone
are coming 
at the debate with the attitude that researchers are in a special place 
verses regular people who may have access to the subjects or their 
artifacts.

When framing new research, I believe that one of the first questions I 
must ask myself as a social scientist is - am I in a different position 
than anyone else who the subject would interact with or would have 
access to the data I will need to use for this study?  Obviously if I 
will be using experimental methodology the answer is YES
in all caps 
all the time.  The answer is yes here because no one else would have 
the same data I have created through the research.

The answer to the question falls along a continuum to, and beyond, 
purely qualitative methodologies that may place the researcher in both 
a usual and unique position in relationship to the subject and the data 
or may place the researcher as yet another viewer, albeit with special 
properties and considerations but still they are just another member of 
the crowd.

I find it hard to imagine under what conditions, a researcher viewing a 
blog and analyzing the presentation of the material in the blog, their 
viewing would be unethical.  While anyone else who stumbled onto the 
blog
and linked to it, or talked to their social network about it would 
be ethical.

When I write about teen blogs, I use the names given to the blogs by 
the authors
so that proper attribution of creative work can be given.  
I write for and publish in academic journals and books, as such I am 
not exposing the author’s creative work to a broader audience, rather I 
am exposing the work to a more focused subset of the audience they 
already have
anyone worldwide with access to the internet.  The risks 
associated with my research are minimal, not nonexistent, though in 
truth the risk level is pretty close to zero.

Now we can structure lots of “what-if’s” that would make any particular 
webpage author in danger from my work. Personally, I do work through 
such scenarios in my developmental process before I begin a new 
project, and I review them regularly throughout the process.  However, 
it is impossible to get a risk level down to absolute zero
if that is 
the goal then all research must stop
as well as all plane flights, 
skateboarding, and football – since far more people are harmed in these 
activities than in most social science research.

I sincerely think it’s time to discuss what listserv authors mean by 
“ethical” and “human subject” rather than using the terms without a 
definition, when definitions are so clearly differing.  We are at 
cross-purposes as this thread has developed
can we get it back on track 
by looking at the underlying beliefs and structures that are clearly 
motivating responses?

Lois Ann Scheidt

Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana
University, Bloomington IN USA

Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and
IUPUC, Columbus IN USA

Webpage:  http://www.loisscheidt.com
Blog:  http://www.professional-lurker.com