[Air-L] Dissertation

[Alecea Standlee]

Brooke,
I am also in the process of working on my
dissertation, which uses online sources and
references. There are two distinct issues in doing
this kind of research, ethics and legality. With
regard to legal implications, I would suggest
contacted your academic institutions board of ethical
research. Most such boards include at least some legal
experts who can help you make decisions about legality
directly relevant to your field and your region. 
Now on to ethics, I think its best to go back to
basics with this. One of the earliest and most
important concepts most of us learn about research is
to protect your informants. This means not only
protecting offline information but protecting their
online identity as well. The specifics of how to do
that will depend on the exact nature of your project.
Whenever I conduct research, I firmly believe that my
first duty is to make sure that my research subjects
are not harmed by my research. That being said, I
think that getting the permission of the bloggers
themselves and offering a psudonym is a good start.
However, I don't think that its entirely necessary to
get consent from each respondants. Here's why. A
bloggers response is a semi-public forum. If you treat
Internet spaces like a document, then is akin to a
"letter to the editor" in a newspaper. 
If on the other hand you view Internet spaces in a
more post-modern light, and see it as a location. Then
it is a public venue, a place where ethical rules of
observation or participant observation in a public
space function. I do however, suggest that you ask
your bloggers to notify their readership that they are
particpation in your research. While it may somewhat
influence the behavior, I think that outing yourself
as a researcher fulfills you ethical obligations...
Just my humble opinion.
Alecea



--- brook bolander <brookbolander at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear AOIR,
> 
> I am writing my PhD on the subject of "power in
> blogs", and thereby
> exploring how power is negotiated in the interaction
> between bloggers and
> their readers, and between the readers themselves in
> the comments sections
> of blog posts in which conflicts are salient. I have
> received an initial e-mail confirmation from the
> bloggers that they consent
> to my research and have given them the option of
> requiring me to use
> psuedonyms. I now intend to write to the bloggers,
> asking for their
> addresses, so I can outline the project in more
> detail and
> obtain written consent.
> 
> I am aware, however, that research on the internet
> can be very complicated
> in terms of ethical issues. What I am less sure
> about are the legal issues.
> Am I correct in assuming that if I do not include
> quotations, use pseudonyms
> for the readers (whose permission I have not
> gained), use pseudonyms for
> those bloggers who ask me to (one blogger has
> explicitly asked me not to),
> gain written consent from the bloggers themselves
> and inform them in the
> letter what the study entails, that I will run into
> no ethical or legal
> problems? All my bloggers state they are adults.
> 
> Or do I need to write to the hosts as well, like
> blogger, for example, to
> ask for their permission as well?
> 
> One of the bloggers asked me whether she would have
> any problems vis à vis
> her readers if she consented to my study, for
> example, and I found I didn't
> really know, with any certainty, what to reply.
> 
> I hope that my PhD will be published in a couple of
> years, and am not sure
> whether that plays a role in terms of its label as
> something for 'commerical
> purposes'. I am writing my PhD in Switzerland.
> 
> I really want to go about this the right way and am
> having problems gaining
> the information I need.
> 
> Thanks a lot in advance for your help,
> Best wishes
> Brook Bolander
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