Online Ethnographic Research and

Dissemination: Method, Ethics and Practice

Matthew Williams & Bruce Mason

Cardiff University

Presented at Research Methods Programme Online resources workshop 16/12/2004

The Scope

Assessing the methods, pratice and ethical considerations of online ethnographic research.

Assessing how to build ethical practice into all phases of an ethnographic project for online dissemination.

virtual ethnography: the ethical challenges of researching online environments

Online Participant Observation

Online Focus Groups

informed consent & anonymity

Turbulent & shifting online populations Public vs. private online discourse Online disinhibition

online public discourse may be considered private

Asynchronous communication possibility of virtual informed consent

Difficulty achieving online anonymity

established ethical guidelines

ISP acceptable use policies CPSR, EFF, AoIR

Online community codes of conduct

Implications of certain laws Data Protection Act 1998

reciprocity in online research

Ease of transmitting online information

Participant can review and reflect on digital data

Further ethical dilemmas of representing data online

Insights from “Ethnography in the Digital Age”

Multimedia fieldwork in the real world. Hypermedia presentation online. And an aggrevating factor…

Every digital ethnographer’s worst nightmar.

Ethics and consent in the field

Looking to achieve active, informed consent Opt in vs. opt out consent Active consent allows subjects to withdraw

consent later Consent for reuse and repurposing

Simple consent form used during visitor interviews.

Used with subjects who will have personal contact with researchers.

Requires an informational leaflet.

No explicit space for restrictions.

Consent form to be used alongside an informational flyer with restrictions added. Used during Photo essay and vox pop project.

Detailed Consent form used during photography at research site used during a “photo essay” task.

Minimal contact with researchers except during the consent process.

Explicit, active consent with restriction boxes.

Warning poster

Used alongside an informational flyer.

To warn people that they may be recorded as part of a research project.

Used when there is no intent to identify potential subjects caught on camera.

Working to achieve consent

Still working to achieve consent

Information poster for staff at research site

Online Dissemination The Ethnographic Hypermedia Environment (EHE) online.

Not just online dataset Not just online scholarship

Data Protection act looms large. Do you know who your Data Protection Officer is?

Procedures for handling indvidual media types are often relatively well known but combining media (multi/hypermedia) facilitates unexpected identification.

GOOGLE! It can identify people It can misidentify people

Do you know who’s looking?

Internation online (Web/Grid) dissemination. E.g. Data Protection act forbids sharing data held

under the act outside of EU. (e.g. USA). Password protection (personal or via a facility

such as Athens) Use copyright to prevent re-use and re-

purposing? Surely the whole point is to enable reuse.

Oh Brave New World

Industrialisation of teaching If teaching is becoming an industry what impact

will this have on the research process? As an example, full economic costing is being

applied to research funding. What impact might that have on our relationship with research participants?

Don’t Panic? Are we over-concerned about the ethical issues?