Your gut is a good guide, but probably informed consent is sufficient, as you mention, so long as the "stalking" is limited to openly accessible information. Some questions to consider, however: How will the data be safeguarded? How much of the data will be revealed in the paper? What will happen to the data after the project ends? How will the participants be involved, and to what degree will they be allowed to "own" their own data after it has been collected? [Note: I am a member of the AoIR Ethics Committee, but this email is not intended to speak for that group.] -- Mark D. Johns, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Communication Studies Acting Department Head, Fall 2014 Luther College, Decorah, Iowa USA ----------------------------------------------- "Get the facts first. You can distort them later." ---Mark Twain On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 7:05 AM, Jill Walker Rettberg < Jill.Walker.Rettberg@lle.uib.no> wrote:
One of our upper-level undergrads would like to write a paper about privacy using a slightly unusual methodology: he wants to find five informants who are willing to let him google them exhaustively in order to find out everything he can about them using legal, public online methods. Then he wants to show each informant the information and interview them, asking things like "did you know this information about you was accessible?" and more in order to find out something about what information people think is available about them, what is actually available about them, and how people feel about all the information out there about them and the possible disconnect between what they think and what is in fact out there.
My gut reaction is that I wouldn't want to let a researcher "stalk" me online like that, and if I wouldn't want to be an informant maybe I shouldn't allow the project, right? But I'm also guessing that the project might be approved by the ethics board so long as there is clear, informed consent. And it'd be interesting to see the results.
But beyond the ethics board: what do you think about a methodology like this? Do you share my gut reaction or am I overreacting? Would you let a student do it? And what might be better ways for a student to do a small scale research project on this topic?
Jill
Jill Walker Rettberg Professor of Digital Culture Dept of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies University of Bergen Postboks 7800 5020 Bergen
+ 47 55588431
Blog - http://jilltxt.net Twitter - http://twitter.com/jilltxt
My latest book, Blogging (2nd ed), will be available from Polity from September 20: http://www.politybooks.com/book.asp?ref=0745663648
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/