[Air-L] an ethical question or two

Sharon Haleva Amir sharon at trebcon.com
Mon Aug 4 10:50:50 PDT 2014


Dear Charles, I'm an e-Politics researcher and have been working with these
materials for more than a few years now. As long as you're citing / screen
shooting public posts (meaning you don't have to friend these personas to
follow their activity. It is a different thing if it is a personal FB
account or a Twitter account which requires permission from its holder in
order to follow its activity)  there is no ethical issue. Regarding
copyrights - as long as the screenshots are for teaching and research, to
the best of my knowledge, there is no copyrights violation. Only my 2 cents.
Sharon     

Best Wishes,
Sharon Haleva Amir, 
School of Governance and Social Policy, Beit Berl College, 
HCLT Fellow, (PhD Candidate) Faculty of Law, 
University of Haifa, ISRAEL. 
--------------------------------------------------
http://haifa.academia.edu/SharonHalevaAmir 
http://weblaw.haifa.ac.il/en/research/resstudents/pages/sharonha.aspx 
SSRN Author Page: http://ssrn.com/author=1227022 

-----Original Message-----
From: Air-L [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Charles
Ess
Sent: 04 August 2014 20:17
To: Air list
Subject: [Air-L] an ethical question or two

Dear AoIRists,

I am editing a piece for a forthcoming journal issue; it includes two
screenshots of tweets from Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and a
screenshot of the Facebook page of a politician running for office in 2014,
including their pictures and names.
These are public figures very intentionally engaged in a public activity in
a medium that functions as a de facto public sphere (or at least an
approximation thereof).
There is nothing in the screenshots that could be construed as potentially
embarrassing, much less libelous, much less potentially warranting
protection as private.


I have gained the impression over the past few years that both in practice
and in emerging guidelines codes, and law (specifically, based on what
[little] I know of law surrounding freedom of speech and privacy issues in
journalism in the U.S., the E.U., and Scandinavia), it is permissible to
publish these without permission from the politicians in question.

At most, if these were tweets and FB pages posted by U.S. politicians aimed
at U.S. voters, we would have to note that the tweets and pictures were de
facto copyright by their authors; to my knowledge, however, there is no
parallel requirement on this side of the pond.

Of course, it's usually when I think I know a good response to an ethical
dilemma that I turn out to be missing something crucial - so: am I missing
something crucial, or are we indeed on reasonably safe ground to publish the
screenshots as is, no permissions required, no copyright notices included?

Many thanks in advance,
- charles ess

Professor in Media Studies
Department of Media and Communication
University of Oslo
P.O. Box 1093 Blindern
NO-0317
Oslo Norway
email: charles.ess at media.uio.no


 



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