[Air-L] Online research ethics

[Charles Ess]

Hi again,
> 
> the Blogs I am using for my Diss are being treated as Web content too and I
> am citing them accordingly.
> 
> Doing my Diss in the literary studies department this was accepted without
> further discussion, i guess because -  basically - the
> author-as-an-inidivdual-subject is not a category given much consideration.
> So if I am speaking about the "Blogger" I am talking about a textual
> subject.
> 
> Still textual subjects obviously have a lot to do with who and what we are
> and definitely deserve protection.
> 
> The Blogs I am dealing with (Soldiers Blogs) have mostly been written about
> in the press and are all under censorship by the Pentagon anyway - so that
> complicates the question even more, but makes it ok for me to also treat
> them as public material.
> 
> Sorry, as you can see I think this is a difficult issue too.

Thanks very much for this -
I'm wondering: since bloggers by definition want their material to be read,
and so a blog is a publication - it would seem that they are to be
considered primarily as authors.  As noted previously, copyright law then
comes into play - at least in the U.S. (I don't know how this would play out
in the German context - aber es würde mich sehr interessieren, das zu
erfahren!)  But, at least in the U.S. Context, not so much concerns about
Human Subjects protections.
But you're also quite correct, of course, that bloggers are people, too
(smile).  And so I'm wondering if you can say more about what sort of
protection you think might be ethically called for here?

Let me quickly add: I'm _not_ challenging your intuition - on the contrary:
I think you are on to something important here.
Part of my curiosity stems from the fact that when the AoIR guidelines were
developed and approved, blogs were a relatively new phenomenon and we did
not have much opportunity to explore the ethical dimensions of this then
very new territory.  But they clearly evoke important ethical
considerations, as these recent postings make clear.  And so I'm hoping and
hopeful that by teasing out a bit more here, we - and especially the ethics
working group - might gain some very helpful insight indeed into some of the
issues, possible responses, etc.

Vielen Dank / many thanks!
- charles 


Distinguished Research Professor,
Interdisciplinary Studies Center <http://www.drury.edu/gp21>
Drury University
Springfield, MO  65802  USA

President, Association of Internet Researchers <www.aoir.org>
Co-Editor, International Journal of Internet Research Ethics
http://ijire.uwm.edu
Co-chair, CATaC conferences <www.catacconference.org>
Professor II, Globalization and Applied Ethics Programmes
<http://www.anvendtetikk.ntnu.no/pres/bridgingcultures.php>

Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23