I would agree with what Wendy said, and others, about the need to consider what bloggers expected their audience to be. I faced most or all of the issues discussed above, and these are my solutions. 1. Long term observation of their blog, including archiving their blogposts, etc.: I asked for their permission. 2. Use of direct quotes that are searchable: I asked for permission from the blogger to use direct quotes (one declined, and I need to paraphrase the quotes). 3. Anonymity and pseudonyms: although most of those I interviewed wanted me to use their real name/online pseudonym, I decided to anonymise them (I told them it was standard practice). I did this because of the issue of unintended audience, and also because they may not like what I say about them in the end. Additionally, I found it to be advantageous in interviews sometimes, when the interviewee would pause, and say - 'This is anonymous right? Well, ...' and then proceed to give some juicy details I may not otherwise have obtained. For me, this made anonymising them worth it, although it is quite a headache when it comes to reporting the results (see point 2). I also had a sticky post on my blog announcing that I was researching blogs, and invited bloggers to give their opinion on two research-ethical questions (and two others related to my research): "Will a blogger mind if s/he finds out I've been storing all his/her posts for a month or more, and doing analyses on the topics covered and the way s/he interacts with commenters?" "Should I ask permission to 'observe' a blog in detail? And if the answer is yes, why? I mean, if a blogger wants to keep his/her blog private, why not just password-protect it?" People can see their responses here (http://julianhopkins.net/index.php?/archives/84-Anthroblogology-Monetisatio n-in-the-Malaysian-Blogosphere.html), if interested. Cheers, Julian *** Please note that I am changing my email address. You can now reach me using reach@julianhopkins.net *** ++++++++++ Blog: www.julianhopkins.net Twitter: @julianhopkins Skype: julhop -----Original Message----- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2010 18:44:34 -0500 From: "Johnson, Thomas J" <tom.johnson@austin.utexas.edu> To: "air-l@listserv.aoir.org" <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Subject: [Air-L] IRB and blogs Message-ID: <25C010B6-D82E-4E40-9EFF-9A25F14A0CDB@austin.utexas.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A master's student I am working with was told by the Human Subjects Committee that in doing a textual analysis of indie music blogs that she could not list the name of the blog but had to use pseudonyms. Has any heard of this before? They are public sites after all and their content is easily searchable. If you were coding newspapers you wouldn't need to identify them as newspaper A or B. I think it is crazy, but wanted to hear what you think. ------------------------------