[Air-L] IRB and blogs + invitation

[Charles Ess]

Hi all,
Let me see if I can helpfully complicate this discussion. What we discovered
as we developed the first set of guidelines for internet research - i.e.,
prior to the current popularity of blogs, etc. - nonetheless seems to hold
here as well. 

On the one hand, in general, yes, there's plenty of good warrant for viewing
blogs as analogous to print publication and thereby seek to use our
established rules, practices, and law for print publication as the basis for
how we approach material posted in a blog. (This is especially true for
humanities-based folk rather than for the social science folk - i.e., the
former tend to view online material more along the lines of this analogy
than the latter, which makes perfect sense give the diverse disciplinary
assumptions, methodologies, practices, etc., in play.)

On the other hand, however, in a range of ethical approaches (especially the
feminist / communitarian / deontological approaches favored in
participant-observation methodologies, at least as we could document this)
the role of an person's expectations - whether or not they are warranted by
the technological realities - often take priority over other considerations.

So, as I see it, the disagreement here is between two well-established modes
of ethical reflection on these matters.
It may be of further interest and relevance to note that there is also some
evidence to suggestion that, especially in the U.S. context, the former
approach is favored by men as a group, while the latter approach is more
frequently taken up by women as a group (i.e., these are, of course,
statistical generalizations based on observation, not essentialist bits,
etc.).
However that may be, there is also a very large gap here between U.S.
approaches and those at work, say, in Scandinavia and Europe.  The
importance of protecting what is seen to be personal information and data is
much higher on this side of the pond - doubly so in Denmark, for example.
I'm familiar with at least one similar research project here in which my
Danish colleague worried precisely about these issues - and decided against,
pseudonymity in one case, because it seemed clear that there was no
expectation of privacy.  In a different case, however, where the
expectations of privacy seem to be stronger - though unwarranted from a
technological standpoint - the tendency is to lean in favor of pseudonyms
and even stronger measures of privacy protection.

All of which is to say - (a) these matters are frequently more complicated,
multifaceted, and ethically ambiguous than they may seem at first glance -
hence the need for informed and reflective ethical judgments, and
(b) please wish your colleagues on the AoIR guidelines committee (as chaired
by Elizabeth Buchanan) best of luck as we continue to work on revising the
AoIR guidelines in order to update them in light of newer uses of the Web
and the Internet.  
In particular, whether or not you may be participating in the upcoming
pre-conference workshop on internet research ethics at AoIR this Wednesday,
we hope to see many of you at our panel on research ethics on Thursday @
11:40, where we will report on our efforts and seek your responses and
suggestions.
As I hope the above comments make clear, our efforts are very much driven by
the view that we must start with the experience and insights of researchers,
and, so to speak, work up towards whatever generalized claims that can be
made, rather than work top-down from a given set of ethical norms, etc. Your
contributions to this work is thus essential.

See many of your soon, I hope -
charles ess
Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab
Helsingforsgade 14
8200 Århus N.
Denmark
mail: <imvce at hum.au.dk>
tel: (+45) 8942 9250

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


On 10/17/10 3:31 AM, "Brabham, Daren C" <dbrabham at email.unc.edu> wrote:

> I would even respectfully disagree about this line:
> 
> "Sometimes even when a blog is technically public, if it is about a very
> personal matter (like illness, or family) there is an expectation of
> privacy/anonymity even when the blog is publicly accessible. In those cases I
> could understand going with pseudonyms, but not with blogs about indie music."
> 
> The act of publication is to make public a set of ideas, and at that point it
> becomes an artifact--a text--game for analysis without the concern of human
> subject research ethics (in my opinion). Again, if the authors attempt to
> password-protect their work, that's an IRB-worthy issue, but otherwise, even
> if it's about a "personal matter," the act of publication is a public
> thing...thus no IRB needed.