[Air-L] Criteria for proving that online data (especially forum comments) are real?

[Maria Eronen]

I want to thank you all for your helpful information about online data  
validity. Since I'm analyzing morality in celebrity forum discussions,  
I've been pondering a lot about the issues of trustworthiness in the  
digital space. My material involves very hostile commenting (even  
death threats to
particular celebrities). A lot of that data is now omitted from the  
internet - I think because it is illegal to be accessed in public.

Interestingly the issue of data trustworthiness touches both research  
(research ethics, reseach credibility - Michael dealt with these two  
issues very thoroughly) and the actual participation online. Who can  
you trust? What is the criteria of trustworthiness?

Maybe this sounds like a science fiction thing, but I think Rushing  
and Frentz (1995: 180, "Projecting the Shadow: The Cyborg Hero in  
American Film") have described this phenomenon of untrustworthiness  
very well by introducing the problem of shadow. The "shadow" is not  
the real 'self' but an outcome of technological proximity in which the  
part of us that is projected onto the other is rejected.

One may ask, where do we situate our trust in digital environments?  
One may also ask where do we situate our trust when internet research  
is concerned - in the mercurial digital space itself or in a  
researcher and her description?

Maria