For my PhD, I arranged via my Uni's ethical review process to offer participants (Flickr users) this option (full attribution, username, or anonymity) ahead of time. I didn't see why people I was talking to about their public creative practice should be anonymised by default and felt it would run counter to the way they saw their practice (i.e. as authors, not 'research subjects'). In almost all cases I was right. See also this early paper on the topic by Amy Bruckman: Bruckman, A. (2001) Studying the amateur artist: a perspective on disguising data collected in human subjects research on the Internet. Paper presented at Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiries (CEPE), Lancaster University, On 3/07/11 3:37 AM, "Mark D. Johns" <mjohns@luther.edu> wrote:
I know there have been instances in which persons observed in online research have not wished to be anonymous, but rather have insisted on having their online writing cited and credited to them as authors. But for the life of me I can't recall a reference in scholarly literature for this phenomenon. Would anyone be willing to provide one? Thanks! -- Mark D. Johns, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Communication Studies Luther College, Decorah, Iowa USA ----------------------------------------------- 2011-12 Director, Luther Study Centre 23 Haslemere Road Nottingham NG8 5GJ United Kingdom ----------------------------------------------- "Get the facts first. You can distort them later." ---Mark Twain _______________________________________________ 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
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