Group items tagged

ABSTRACT: Research on the digital and online environment poses several ethical questions that are new or, at least, newly pressing, especially in relation to youth. Established ethical practices require that research have integrity, quality, transparency, and impartiality. They also stipulate that risks to the researcher, institution, data, and participants should be anticipated and addressed. But difficulties arise when applying these to an environment in which the online and offline intersect in shifting ways. This paper discusses some real-life "digital dilemmas" to identify the emerging consensus among researchers. We note the 2012 guidelines by the Association of Internet Researchers, which advocates for ethical pluralism, for minimizing harm, and for the responsibility of the researcher where codes are insufficient. As a point of contrast, we evaluate Markham's (2012) radical argument for data fabrication as an ethical practice. In reflecting on how researchers of the digital media practices of youth resolve their dilemmas in practice, we take up Markham's challenge of identifying evolving practice, including researchers' workarounds, but we eschew her solution of fabrication. Instead, we support the emerging consensus that while rich data are increasingly available for collection, they should not always be fully used or even retained in order to protect human subjects in a digital world in which future possible uses of data exceed the control of the researcher who collected them.

Thanks for posting this, John. Considering the ethical concerns we all have expressed in class, I am sure this article will be helpful. I will be sure to put it on my reading list.

The website contains the following statement under the heading "Intellectual Property and Ethical Issues": "Ethical considerations are handled primarily by individual depositors, based on (a) their arrangements with their primary consultants regarding consent and permission and (b) their concern for materials they do not wish to make public. While guidelines for ethical ethnographic research behavior have been around for many years, the methods of gathering permissions for recordings have varied widely in the decades since video technology has been employed as part of fieldwork" This seems to bring to light the concerns being presented when dealing with materials recorded over a large time period, where ethical considerations chanced considerably. This might be a good project to talk about when we are discussing the ethics of digitization.

AoIR's ethics guide from 2002.

quite robust listing of issues, possibilities, pitfalls, and facets related to research through/on the Internet...as of 2008. No solutions offered nor is there much analysis; a primer with a good bibliography

This is the site of the photographer from the BBC News piece on "A 13-year-old eagle huntress in Mongolia." His own account is completely different from the BBC article. He is not, as BBC portrayed him, an ethnographer who stumbled onto a cultural shift in gendered activities-he is a storyteller who went looking for an unusual story, and made it happen. "I had gone looking for my eagle huntress. . .I was amazed by her comfort and ease as she began handling the grand eagle for the first time in her life." I have the same question I asked on the bookmark for the BBC article; why was it important to the BBC to represent this story as ethnography?

Agreed - and even without the quotes, a casual observer could tell that these images are posed. However, I think portraiture-as-documentary photography raises some intriguing methodological questions/concerns. Considering the original piece was published through a (well-respected) international media organization, my guess is that some interesting conversations occurred during editorial meetings regarding the nature of Svidensky's work. Maybe this example points to the blurring lines between traditional news photography and pictures made for ethnographic purposes?

Quite possibly. And if that is the case, it is certainly evident in the two contrasting articles we have here. But I also wonder if we're not watching a paradigm shift to the photo-essay style that Svidensky is making use of. With the rising popularity of sites like Buzzfeed, I wonder if--in order to bring more interest to his work--he's utilizing that same style in hopes of being more "readable" for the masses. What will be interesting, though, is if we see a similar shift to the photo-essay from the sites that push traditional news photography.

I haven't been able to find a free online copy of this yet. It looks very helpful. Has anyone else been able to secure one? The title reminds me of Patrica Lange's piece on YouTube and "publicly private" and "privately pubic" online spaces. Her application of the idea of "fractalized communities" has been very useful to my research on out-of-the-way online communities. Check that one out at http://uolibraries.worldcat.org/title/publicly-private-and-privately-public-social-networking-on-youtube/oclc/726935972&referer=brief_results

I have not been able to find one either, although I was able to find proof chapters of another two articles in the book.

Great example of using digital tools to conduct ethnography. Notice that not only does the photographer/travel writer show his pictures to the source community on his laptop, but he's staged a photo of that. The documentarist's relationship with his subjects becomes part of the story selected by the BBC writer for our consumption. I've been trying to puzzle out why that is. Does today's BBC readership want or expect reassurance of ethical cultural fieldwork? Does that picture demystify our exotic "13-year-old eagle huntress," or does it reinforce a contrast between the modern and the traditional in Mongolia? I'd be very interested in your thoughts.

I think--looking at both articles--that it reinforces the "us" and "them" quality of the work. The idea that the US has that says, "Duh, girls can totally do that too" against the extraordinary existence of a huntress. --I was briefly skimming over the comments in other article and noticed this gem... "I raised my son and daughter on a ranch in Wyoming, USA, and I remember once when a Mongolian diplomat came to their "sister country" Wyoming to visit. I took my 9 year old daughter and he talked to her through a translator about horse races and archery. She was enthralled, since she'd been riding horses nearly since she was old enough to walk. Your story of the eagle hunters, and the young girl and her father, is very powerful." ...which I think illustrates the point. The way this girl's mother talks about "horse races and archery" like they are a totally foreign concept added the fact that she felt the need to add the bit about talking through a translator.

The Wayback Machine! This is a great tool for retrieving old copies of web sites or completely defunct/ missing websites. It has been helpful for me to delve into everyday digital content (calendars, announcements, etc.) that wasn't archived clearly. It also gave me access to abandoned sites years after the community had moved on.

And, depending on the site, can be a sort of auto-ethnographic document or snapshot...great for comparing design changes and/or significant shifts that might occur when a community changes (rather than moves on). Sort of an archaeology, I suppose.

This is the article by Henry Jenkins talking about the trends in young generations and their participation in the digital world creation. This article seem relevant because it explores how and why these digital communities are forming, which would give us a better sense of how to study them.

I really like this piece! I'm not super familiar with DML as a field, but the author's attention to the world-making capabilities (and not even capabilities - it's built in or "politically preloaded") of research methods. The post provides a clear defense against those who would argue that research is just objectively recording the world. At the same time, it doesn't slip into a poststructuralist wormhole about meaning. There's an attention to politics here that 's fruitful [Ah! but politics in general.. What are this author's projects' politics? What departmental/ disciplinary political fights shape the ground on which DML research takes place?]

this is all you really need to read (abstract/chapter intro...): New technologies represent a system of constraints and possibilities that constitute the foundation of new rhetorical spaces: the spheres of new communicative and persuasive procedures. Nowadays, urban planning has the chance to critically and rigorously experiment with these new spaces. It has the chance to transgress traditional representational codes and to expand its semantic horizons. This chapter portrays one such challenging exploration: the fecund crossroads between qualitative analytical approaches and digital languages within the planning field. It is a path that embraces diverse dimensions media and messages, analysis and rhetoric, ethics and aesthetics.

I only read the first 15 pages or so of this chapter through Google Books preview - but - I loved it. It's beautifully written (jargon-y at times, but it's good for the genre). Plus, it works as a manifesto for the kinds digital ethnographies I want to read/experience. The best part for me was the author's focus on "multi -sensory aesthetics" in digital ethnographies. It's worth a block quote: Understanding that reason doesn't produce the totality of our actions, to create real communicative space, and induce peoples to act it is not enough to "tell" rather it is s necessary to transfer energies, make sentiments, and emotions vibrate, awaken latent aspirations, knowledge and enrages, rediscovering the powerful role of artistic and poetic languages. It is necessary to focus on the cognitive and communicative performance of aestehec pleasure, a pleasure that is not an accessory but rather a central moment of very communicative process.