Field Research

[Matthew Bernius]

On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 7:43 PM, Chad Nilep <nilep at ilas.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
 wrote:

> I think that distributed emails from the list can be considered public
> behavior, in which case you probably do not require informed consent to
> analyze them.


>From my own experience doing similar research, I second Chad's comment.

The general way that I've handled this with IRB in the past is to argue
that publicness, on the internet, is tied to the requirements necessary to
view or join the conversation. Any content that can be accessed via a
standard search should be considered public. In the case of other forms of
electronically mediated exchange which are not necessarily archived (such
as chatrooms and listservs), publicness can be determined by the joining
requirements. If, for example, there is no membership process other than
the creation of an email address, which can be freely acquired, then the
space could be argued to be simiiliar to any other public space. The
"openness" of membership, combined with the explicit understanding that the
medium in question, the mailing list, is explicitly one-to-many, makes a
list-serve like this one more-or-less public.

On the other hand, if membership to this list was curated or there were
additional joining requirements or any other practices that suggest a
heightened degree of privacy, then things get a lot more muddy in terms of
permissions.

BTW, Kathryn I see that you (or your professor) refer to this sort of work
as "virtual" communications. I'd urge you to, in your studies, reflect on
that term as none of the communication that takes place on this list is
"virtual" in the commonly accepted sense -- i.e. simulated. I've found its
much more helpful to think about it in terms of mediation.

Good luck!

- Matt

-----------------------------
Matthew Bernius
PhD Student | Cultural Anthropology | Cornell University |
http://anthropology.cornell.edu
mBernius at gMail.com | http://www.mattbernius.com | @mattBernius
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