The Ethics of Internet Research: A Rhetorical, Case-Based Process

by Heidi A. McKee, James E. Porter

Rare book

Genres: Internet

188 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Shonell Bacon · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my dissertation, I am examining the blogosphere as a space where race and gender are negotiated to not only develop identity both individually and socially, but to also foster community amongst the blogger, her readers, and the blogging group community at large. Specifically, I'm focusing on African-American mommy bloggers. I'll be using interviews, surveys and analysis of blog design/content/interaction in the dissertation. I've been so focused on my IRB proposal, in which only the interviews and surveys are being presented because they deal with human subjects. But in the back of my mind, I was always concerned about the blogs and getting consent to analyze them. In several studies I've read in which researchers conducted content analysis on websites and blogs, the researchers tend to specifically state the manner in which they determined unit of analysis, developed coding schemes, coded for interrater reliability, and coded and analyzed material; however, it's rare that I've seen any mention of ethics and the researchers' rationale for obtaining (or not) informed consent on blog content for analysis.

McKee and Porter's "The Ethics of Internet Research" explores how we can use the theoretical framework of rhetoric and casuistry as a process to making ethical decisions in research. While reading, I found myself thinking about how I perceive blogs and how I perceive those who interact on blogs. I had to consider my focus in wanting to analyze blogs...was my goal to study text or was my goal to study people in conducting the analyses? Although blogs are "public," for the most part in that - unless a blog of noted as private and restricted - anybody with a blog URL can visit the blog, how public are the blogs to the bloggers? To their readers? Should a researcher consider these questions or just deem the space public, forgo consent, and take what she will from the blog space? How does the researcher build ethos with the community she wishes to investigate? How will that ethos building affect the community investigated and the research? So many questions posed themselves as I read, and that's a good thing. They were questions I had before coming to this book, and what McKee and Porter offered me was a rationale for understanding those questions and heuristics to gathering answers to those questions and making a choice in my research on how to consider the nuances of Internet Research Ethics (IRE) as they pertain to my research.

Definitely recommend this book to any and all who are interesting in Internet research.

[Matt Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was somewhat disappointed with this work although perhaps I should have paid more attention to the subtitle. I expected a work on the ethics of Internet research, more philosophical in nature, more about the ethical issues themselves, but instead this is primarily about the process of considering ethical behaviour in situations of Internet research.

That being said, this book does bring up many issues unique to doing research on Internet spaces/places and/or through the Internet. But the bottom line of the work is that when conducting Internet research, there is no easy answer. For example, some online venues may seem more public than private when compared to others but there's no blanket definition of what counts as public versus private. Ethical considerations should be considered as an important part of your research methodology and should continue to be tweaked and honed throughout the research process.

The book is repetitive, included important but less content that is expected, and suggests a largely impractical (though perhaps ideal) process to ensure ethical behaviour in Internet research.