[Air-L] Problems for pseudonym in online identity study

[Rhiannon Bury]

Hi Emily

 When working with female fans in the past, I found myself in a similar situation. I had pseudonyms for the list discussion data but was also looking at fan fiction they had written, which was circulated on archives and boards in the broader fan community (this was the pre-blog/LJ  days).  Those familiar with the stories could potentially identify them. The best strategy is to discuss the situation with the participants themselves. Some will not care if they are identified and may wish their public discourse identified with the name they associate with it. Others may be deeply "closeted" (I use this term deliberately in the case of slash fiction writers). In that is the case you should work out a solution on an individual basis. In one case I used the person's real name for the textual analysis of her publicly available writing but a different name for her list interaction as there was no research rationale to link the two.  You will likely have to
 revisit your letter of information.consent and reissue it so that the participants  are aware of any potential breach of confidentiality. 


best

Rhiannon

Rhiannon Bury
Associate Professor
Women's and Gender Studies
Athabasca University
rbury at athabascau.ca
twitter: @television2pt0



________________________________
 From: Emily Liu <b941020045 at gmail.com>
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org 
Sent: Friday, April 6, 2012 5:06:11 AM
Subject: [Air-L]  Problems for pseudonym in online identity study
 
Hello All,

I am a Masters student in the Department of Foreign Languages and
Literature working on my thesis.
However, I have encountered a problem on the use of pseudonyms.

The site of my study is on a online forum-based interactive gaming site,
and I am focusing on how the forum-based (text) role players negotiate
various identities through their language use. Therefore, my participants
have multiple layers of identities and names -- real name, screen name, and
names of the characters they created.

To ensure the confidentiality of the participants, of course I will use
pseudonyms when presenting their real names and screen names in my thesis.
But I am not sure if I should use pseudonyms to replace the names of the
characters that my participants create, as those names sometimes have more
profound meanings to them than just a name, and may signal their change in
identity. Yet I am worried if I don't replace the names with pseudonyms, it
may somewhat influence my participants' rights to full confidentiality.

Please give me some advice as to how I can handle this issue.


Thank you.

--

Min-Ju Liu (Emily)

M.A. Student in Applied Linguistics

Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Sun Yat-sen University
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