[Air-L] Public/ Private

[Jeremy Hunsinger]

On Aug 14, 2007, at 5:53 AM, George Floros wrote:

> I said
>> the devil is in the details. "A living individual" IMHO disqualifies
>>> imaginary personas and as long as you can't rule them out, you
>>> write off
>>> your entire work (even if we talk of just one in a hundred.).
>>
>
> Jeremy responded
>> I'm not sure I understand where you are going here?   I don't need
>> 'real' people to talk about the things that I need, I just need the
>> results to be created by either humans or created by something that
>> human creates.   It is perfectly valid, but then I'm not dealing
>> explicitly with human subjects either.
> The point is very simple ; unless your results can be traced back to
> specific individuals then they can't be treated as valid.

that is false, validity is the strength of the conclusions.  given  
the broad expanse of human actions, some of which is collective and  
not individual, the strength of results is tied to whether they best  
map onto the world, not whether they map onto individuals, sometimes,  
perhaps even most times, collective and creative identities may be a  
better representation of that world then the individual.

> In an Internet
> board for example anyone can log in with multiple aliases and publish
> opinions. Problem is that the researcher can do that too, create
> multiple imaginary aliases and force his opinion as something "out
> there". You do need some very real people in order to prove that your
> work is valid and not something pulled out of a hat.

so you are saying that your research methods do not account for  
people lying?  or what?   because even if you trace it back to the  
individual, there is no necessity that that person is telling the  
truth, nor any necessity in the relationship between that person  
forcing or otherwise coercing or being coerced into representing  
something falsely.  validity has no relationship to data being  
individual.
>
> I said
>> Name one field of research which does not "need" identifiable
>>> individual
>>> subjects. I'm not aware of any.
>>
>>
> Jeremy responded
>> sociology, anthropology, musicology, literary studies, anything that
>> does not require methodological individualism, which is most fields
>> of research.   Even some topics of research that do no sometimes
>> require methodological individualism don't require identifiable
>> subjects.  In fact, I'd say those that ''need'' identifiable
>> individual subjects are probably in the minority in terms of research
> I can't really see that in any of those examples.

ok


> All of those fields
> deal in the study of concrete human cultural output.

hes
> You seem to confuse
> the actual quoting of names with the existence of identifiable
> individuals.

nope, i make not posited relationship between names and individuals

> You can't just say "we conclude on the basis of our
> observations that x stands and y doesn't", the natural question by any
> reader would be "so what or whom did you observe, what was his
> demographics, for how long did you observe him/her, how many times,  
> etc.
> ?"

that isn't my natural reaction, my reaction is 'how do you know?'   
and if they say, I observed... then I say 'how do you know?'  and if  
they have an answer to that, i ask, 'how do you know what it means?'

> You need not identify them on print but you certainly need to have
> records of their existence and/or records of you spending time in the
> field doing the observations, or records of which cultural produce you
> studied (which again implies creators hence individuals with names).

personally, I don't need that at all.  All i need is their artifacts  
and as a subset, i like to have some rich narratives, preferably  
shared in text form.

> Just because you may be a conscientious researcher don't mean everyone
> else is.

luckily, in science, it doesn't matter if I or you are conscientious,  
what matters is that we publish and share our findings.  over time,  
those findings will either be used and shown useful or not, or  
forgotten.

> The recent example of that Korean guy springs in mind.

I don't know who you mean.

> I don't
> really think that research w/o those characteristics can even be
> considered, in principle, reproducible .

ohhhhh, well there's the thing... most research on human behaviour is  
only reproducible in the abstract and then likely only in statistical  
relations.   reproducibility as such is not what makes something  
science or scientific, or even worthwhile.  in fact, i'd argue that  
finding a reproducible thing... most of the time has nothing to do  
with science per se, but quite alot more to do with organizational  
theory, but that's a whole other set of arguments.
>
> George
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// 
> listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/

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

wiki.tmttlt.com
www.tmttlt.com

()  ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail
/\                        - against microsoft attachments
http://www.stswiki.org/  sts wiki
http://cfp.learning-inquiry.info/  Learning Inquiry-the journal
http://transdisciplinarystudies.tmttlt.com/  Transdisciplinary  
Studies:the book series