Thanks to Charles for complicating things :). I think part of the issue here is a disconnect between ethical protections of the source of the material studied and whether submitting to an IRB is sensible or practical. Part of the idea behind an IRB is that human subjects are human subjects and an oncologist, a psychologist, and a pharmacologist sitting on the committee should be able to tell whether there is significant risk of harm to the subjects--or, as in this case, whether there are human subjects at all. Frankly, as someone who has studied blog content without passing my protocols through the IRB, I strongly suspect that they are not prepared to make that call. There is certainly evidence that bloggers expect scholarly attention about as much as they expect the Spanish Inquisition. Fernanda Viégas might be worth looking at on this: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/viegas.html though I'm sure there is other work on the topic out there as well. That said, journalists also don't expect scholarly attention, nor do tourists walking through Times Square. That lack of expectation does not mean that they should remain unstudied. And at some point I think we have to say that there are competing values in research, and it is harmful to scholarship--and by extension to humanity--to require *everything* to be exposed to prior review by peers. So the question is where to draw the line. I generally draw it such that utterances in public should reasonably be open to interpretation by members of the public, including scholars. Certainly, there are risks, but there are always risks where communication is involved. Whether these risks rise to the level that we should institutionalize protections is the question. I am less sanguine about this line in particular cases: say, studies of blogging about self-harm, or by prison inmates, or similar groups. In other words, I don't think there is a clear line. But the lack of clarity also--I think--does not automatically necessitate submission to a human subjects board. Best, Alex -- -- // // This email is // [x] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded, but I certainly don't expect it to be used as primary material in any sort of research ;) // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing. // // Alexander C. Halavais, ciberflâneur // http://alex.halavais.net //