[Air-L] blogs and confidentiality

[Marj Kibby]

I'm supervising a similar project where the researcher is analyzing newspaper articles on a topic, and interviewing journalists on the process of reporting on that topic.

We are referring to specific, identified news stories. The interviews will not be directly quoted, and interviewees will be anonymous, but our IRB advised us to warn the journalists that people who knew them well or followed the topic closely would be able to identify them. I think it is unlikely because of how the interviews will be written up, but I agree that they should be warned.

Sometimes you can, but you shouldn't.

Regards,
Marj

 



Associate Professor Marjorie Kibby, B.Ed, M.A, Ph.D, FHERDSA
Head of Discipline: Film, Media and Cultural Studies
School of Humanities and Social Science
The University of Newcastle  Callaghan NSW 2308 Australia
Marj.Kibby at newcastle.edu.au
+61 2 49216604
>>> C Sosnowy <c_sosnowy at yahoo.com> 27/11/11 4:20 AM >>>
For my dissertation on personal health blogs, I will be conducting a visual content analysis of 40-50 blogs. I will then be conducting an online discussion with 10-12 bloggers on a closed site. Their identity will be protected by a username of their choice, but can I use the real URL and name of their blogs (I would tell them that I'm doing this)? I'm of the opinion that I can because they are publicly-available, but one of my more traditional advisers has doubts. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Collette Sosnowy
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