[Air-L] Online research ethics

[Jeremy Hunsinger]

>>
>
> 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.

ooo, Asa and I had a big debate about this sort of thing on second  
life research list a while ago.   my position is that documents are  
exempt and openly published, searched/archived blogs are documents,  
much like architecture and environments in online worlds are  
documents, much like studying the pen and pencil collection of Charlie  
would be studying documents.   You might need permission of the extant  
property or copyright holder, but categorically, you are not studying  
humans or creating subjects.   This is similar to places in which you  
have a right to public photography, you can take pictures of people  
for research without their permission so long as you are not dealing  
with those people in any way that intervenes or likely causes any more  
predictable substantial harm than any other person taking pictures.   
That is to say that if in your actions, in reading a book or taking a  
photograph, you are doing it like anyone else and possibly using/ 
reviewing it for a publication, you are not directly intervening with  
the author in a harmful manner or in a way that uniquely identifies  
them in a way that anyone else could not in acting in their normal way  
have done.