[Air-L] public/private

[Jeremy Hunsinger]

> A lot of the
> arguments presented in favor of not asking/informing have to do with
> the material being readily available for READING . . . which strikes
> me as a different matter than material that is knowingly allowed to
> be treated as research data
> .

what isn't research data?   I mean... as researchers, only very few  
research traditions allow one to make clear demarkations and I know  
that I generally make no differentiation between what what I read and  
think about and my topics of research.  Some people are more formal,  
sure, but I think that the tendency to formalize and demarkate that  
barrier is one of the many things that pushes research toward  
irrelevancy.  I keep in mind the idea of a research journal as  
recommended to almost all researchers in all kinds of fields, in a  
journal one takes notes on anything that might be of interest...

I think that so far the public/private debate has been put forth by  
people who think that there are real and discernable barriers between  
public and private, owned and not, original author and not.   I think  
we need to be highly skeptical about any barrier to research, barrier  
to interpretation, and barriers in general.

>   I know.... if the stuff if fully
> public, one doesn't have to ask for that informed consent. But I
> believe that there are so many grey areas in online communication
> (both in terms of private/public expectations AND intentions about
> recipients) that seeking informed consent of subjects is pretty
> important.  I have to wonder how many bloggers who willingly and self-
> consciously put their stuff out for everyone to read would respond
> when informed that their material was used as research data in a
> specific study . . . one that, perhaps, isn't about what they are
> interested in (or thought they were doing) at all?

I don't think they can have a 'reasonable expectation' of privacy,  
and given the history of research on the web and the public coverage  
of that research in the blogosphere, i don't think anyone that is not  
behind a password should have an expectation that they publicly  
available words will not be used in research.  Indeed, I can point to  
probably 100 or so people on the list who have archives of some type  
not only of various blogs, blog communities, or otherwise online  
content.

Keep in mind also that there are licenses and other ways that  
bloggers and other web content creators can use to require prior  
contact before use of their published materials.  That those exist,  
and are used by some, to me indicates to me that the ones that do not  
are either not informed of their existence, and thus do not care to  
be informed, or are otherwise indisposed to use them.

Informed consent comes into play when there is a possibility of  
harm.   I do not think it comes into play to protect property rights  
or otherwise dealing with the ethics of property.




Jeremy Hunsinger
Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research,  
School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee  
(www.cipr.uwm.edu)

Words are things; and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a  
thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions,  
think. --Byron