[Air-L] Inquiry on screen shots

[Chris Leslie]

Dear Alex Gekker, 

I think you are making an effort to be clever, humorous, or provocative. However, I don’t think the ethical question posed by the original query goes away because it relates to something we do every day (or that the human subject are doing among themselves). I also think the difference you suggest about private messages and public posts is worth thinking about more.

For instance, what if I published an academic article about the attitudes of Internet researchers and quote your email as an example that reflects x number of posts on the AOIR listserv? Depending on my thesis, you could rightly be offended and potentially harmed by my article, even if forwarding the email chain to your grad students or summarizing the discussion for their benefit might have seemed ok. In the journal article, I am using your statement as a research finding - a generalization of a human trend I have observed that is backed up by quantitative data. Yet in sending your email to the group, you didn’t consent to being a human subject and you were not given the opportunity to give permission afterward. Even if I changed your name and rearranged the words, you could still feel like you were identifiable to members of AOIR who witnessed the conversation.

I interact publicly with humans in everyday life - asking people their opinions about politics or their jobs, for example - in ways that are ethical in interpersonal or educational settings. Those activities don’t involve the IRB or raise ethical concerns because they are not the foundation for research findings. Everything changes when I publish an article with my name and academic affiliation and the implied endorsement of the academic journal. So, to me, the dilemma you pose doesn’t seem to reflect the need for IRB clearance in the first place.

Chris