Ed, I'm having real problems understanding where you are coming from. I feel like I'm reading someone arguing that the Tuskegee Syphilis Research was bad...with people who are arguing the reverse. I don't think that is really where the rest of us are positioned. Many years ago, I did EEO case preparation. One of the rules we lived by was called The Rule of Ten, and I think it applies to what we do as researchers as well. The rule works like this...if I went up to ten random people on the street...now they have to be "similar" to the complainant, so ten black women or ten men over 50 years of age...and did to them or said to them, etc. what was done to the complainant would they be upset? It's a pretty good test to think your way through, and to use in discussion with others. So would ten random people on the street be harmed if I took their public words and used them in a study? And harmed doesn't mean not joyously happy...it means harmed. A journal article that is published in an academic venue is no more likely to lead someone back to the real life person behind the blog then their everyday postings. You are not exposing them to a new audience, maybe a bit brighter light I agree...but the audience is already there and much larger than any group an academic article will tap, they have a potential audience of everyone on the planet who has any access to the internet. Also I would like to say that getting a release doesn't mean participants can't be harmed by the research. It simply means they were informed of possible harms...it passes responsibility to them for their decision to be part of, say an MRI study. They could conceivably still be physically, emotionally, etc. harmed by the research. Is there a chance of harm from any of the research we do...a small one for most projects. And I can be hit by a falling satellite when I take my walk this evening...life is full of minimal risks, and more than a few maximal ones as well. The issue is not making anything risk-free, that's impossible. The issue is are the risks known, and are the known risks low enough that subjects are protected...if the known risks aren't low enough then the subjects must be informed of the risks and allowed to make a personal decision on their participation. Nothing in the law or the Human Subjects documentation I've read has ever said "risk-free" it says, and rightly so, "minimal risk." Lois Ann Scheidt Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington IN USA Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and IUPUC, Columbus IN USA Webpage: http://www.loisscheidt.com Blog: http://www.professional-lurker.com Quoting Ed Lamoureux <ell@bumail.bradley.edu>:
On Aug 11, 2007, at 12:47 PM, Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
The only way to respectfully judge an author?s choice of an ?intended audience? is to ask them, otherwise we are using mind-reading to ?protect? those we see and vulnerable in some fashion. I will say here that I have much more problem with the idea of ?mind-reading? people?s intentions than I have with saying publicly accessible communication is ?overheard? or equivalent to a letter to the editor, and therefore open country for research.
further, informed consent is about consenting to allowing ones material to be used IN RESEARCH.... not just read. A lot of the arguments presented in favor of not asking/informing have to do with the material being readily available for READING . . . which strikes me as a different matter than material that is knowingly allowed to be treated as research data. I know.... if the stuff if fully public, one doesn't have to ask for that informed consent. But I believe that there are so many grey areas in online communication (both in terms of private/public expectations AND intentions about recipients) that seeking informed consent of subjects is pretty important. I have to wonder how many bloggers who willingly and self- consciously put their stuff out for everyone to read would respond when informed that their material was used as research data in a specific study . . . one that, perhaps, isn't about what they are interested in (or thought they were doing) at all?
Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D. Associate Professor, Multimedia Program and Department of Communication Co-Director, New Media Center 1501 W. Bradley Bradley University Peoria IL 61625 309-677-2378 <http://slane.bradley.edu/com/faculty/lamoureux/website2/index.html> <http://gcc.bradley.edu/mm/> AIM/IM & skype: dredleelam Second Life: Professor Beliveau
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