Question 3 addresses a "new area of research":

How to focus on social and cultural aspects of the environments we find on the internet so that we can properly safeguard individual's rights and privacy.

BASIC IDEAS

- as social researchers, safeguards must be implemented to protect individuals rights to privacy online

- each individual should have the right to decide for themselves what and how much others get to know about them

- the type of information people want to keep for themselves differs from culture to culture

- in the US personal information is to be held very privately as to not reveal information that can lead to loss of money and/or property as opposed citizens in other countries who instead find it crucial to safeguard political activities or sexual orientation

Ethical Guidelines

- Obtaining consent is a central aspect of most existing guidelines for research ethics

- Swedish Research Council

1. "the informational requirement stating that the researcher shall, at least in sensitive situations, inform those affected about is or her activity

2. "the requirement of consent, stating that the participants should have the right to decide whether for how long and under what conditions they will take part

- The internet makes us reconsider these initial guidelines on how social life is to be studied especially when it takes place online. It is often impossible for researchers to even contact the users whose contributions they are analyzing.

- The Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) was founded at the end of the 1990s to be an international resource and support network promoting critical and scholarly internet research independent from traditional disciplines and existing across academic boarders.

- Due to the rapid growth of the internet it is "difficult to foresee all possible situations a researcher might encounter online…makes it virtual impossible to create guidelines that will adequately cover all aspects of internet research.

My Thoughts...

This is a common thread throughout out the document which begs the question: What is ethically sound when obtaining research via the internet?

Inevitably the answer is always some variation of: it depends.

DEFINING PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

- "From the mid-sixteenth century on, 'public' came increasingly to mean activity or authority that was related to or derived from the state while private referred to those activities for spheres of like that were excluded or separated from it."

- The author suggests that public and private not be considered a dichotomy but "rather a continuum."

- Different degrees of private and public:

1. A public environment

2. A semi- public environment is one that is available for most people

3. A semi private environment is one that is available only to some people, perhaps a membership is required

4. Private online environments

- Researchers then have to define wether an environment is "public enough" to study without proper consent.

- Public and private as a perception, Not a Fact: "The fuzzy boundaries between private and public parts of online environments may make if difficult for users to grasp the gradual transition between private and public spaces"

It should be noted that even if a internet environment is admittedly public it may not carry over to the users of the site, who feel more intimate about the users involved.

My Thoughts...

Again, the author undeniable answer to such a query is that: it depends…

USING OFFLINE GUIDELINE FOR ONLINE RESEARCH

Another way to establish proper guidelines in internet research is to look at charachteristcs of OFF line environments.:

1. A public environment - offline equivalent: streets, shopping malls

2. A semi- public environment - offline equivalent: libraries, schools, and hospitals

3. A semi private environment - offline equivalent: clubs and companies

4. Private environment - offline equivalent: private home

CONSIDERING BOTH CONTEXT AND CONTENT

- "We have to consider not only whether the places we wish to study are public or private but also if the content of the communication is public or private."

My Thoughts...

This consideration begins with a seemingly simple question: What kind of content can be considered public enough to be studied without informed consent? Again, the author begs the answer: it depends.

For instance the in today's growing number of reality shows. People personal lives are exposed through out a variety of media and the distinction of private vs. public and sensitive vs. nonsensitive continues to blur.

People sharing their private problems in an online environment tend to feel a sense of camaraderie. Comforted by other people with similar problems to their own. As well as the urge to seek attentions from others even with in a virtual environment There for what may seem private/ sensitive to an observer is not necessarily apprehended so by the individual who exposed it in the first place. This can also work in reverse when it comes to research methods, that is to say, what may be seen to the researcher as non-private and not sensitive may be sensitive to people who use the online environment. So in a nut shell, this Question addresses the proper use of research methods when applied to internet environments and provides the inevitable conclusion of: it depends.

Ironically we are becoming more and more guarded in our "off line" life by being careful not to get caught doing something embarrassing in public and having it caught on a mobile camera phone and them plastered all over the web. But at that same time some are so addicted to their Facebook status that their using that same phone to tell everyone they have a bad case of heart burn…? Again the lines of privacy are constantly blurred..

"We are longer afraid of Big Brother, but we instead have come to fear an infinite number of little brothers, who spy on us and make their findings known to others such as parents and teachers, but perhaps more annoyingly to our friends and lovers and people we would like to impress."