Week 9: Ethics of Internet Research - contesting the human subjects research model

Bassett, E. and O'Riordan, K. (2002)

Wide range of internet research, e.g.

• virtual ethnography
• linguistic and discourse-bases analyses of computer-mediated communication
• research into the internet as a culture

The perception of the internet as a social domain as led to the widespread application for the human subjects research (HSR) model in internet research. HSR ethics regards the rights of the human subject as primary and the aims of the researcher as secondary. Strong argument for use of HSR model when conducting research into activity such as email between individuals and groups, particularly when groups and individuals use CMC to convey 'private' material through channels that have some mechanism to limit access.

But when applied indiscriminately HSR model risks subsuming the human subject into the technology and merging the textuality of the internet. In a climate of fast developing technologies it is often difficult to define the actual object of internet research precisely. The cost of this blanket approach may be a resulting failure to analyse the significant textuality of internet media.

The internet is not simply a virtual space in which human actors can be observed: it is a medium through which a wide variety of statements are produced.

The internet is not simply a text-based medium made up of communities, newsgroups and email lists. It is also a medium of publication, and significantly one where users can take control of the means of production, create their own cultural artifacts and intervene in the production of existing ones. The internet can thus be perceived as a form of cultural production, in a similar framework to that of broadcast, TV & radio.

Three models to consider:

1. Text as reflection of the author.

• 'text as a precursor to the virtual self'. Literature as a textual opening into the mind of the revered author (text as reflection), or the 'conflation of text and author'. "Great literature is the product of Great Men, and its value lies chiefly in allowing us intimate access to their souls" (Terry Eagleton, 1983). A 'mind made word'.

2. Text as object

• The School of New Criticism challenged the above viewpoint in the post-war period, and was concerned with the interpretation of texts. With New Criticism, the text-as-virtual-writer is replaced by the text-as-object, severed from context, authorial intent, and the response of the reader. Akin to semiotics, it proposed that the meaning of the text lay solely in the language used, regardless  of the intentions of the author at the point of writing. The text was considered to be an organic whole and not a window onto the soul of the author. The text, now considered a elf-sufficient object, was also liberated from both social and historical context of production. 
• The assumption that a piece of text is an object underlies the logic of copyright law. IN copyright law, the text is not akin to a window onto the author's soul but more akin to a box. The contents belong to the author and s/he is free to distribute them and adapt them as s/he wishes. The author sells the distribution of the text, either in units, receiving payment each time the text is reproduced, or outright, by signing the authorial rights over to a publisher for a certain length of time. The reader, by buying a copy of the book, purchases the right to read the work but does not acquire the rights to redistribute it. The author has a right to be recognised as the author of the text, but this means recognition of the fact that s/he owns the text and produced it, not that the text relfects her point of view.
• The registration of the copyright of texts distributed via the Internet counters the notion that the internet is a purely spatial realm.

3. Text as 'reader-response'

• The text separates the author from the reader "...the book divides the act of writing and the act of reading into two sides, between which there is no communication. The text thus produces a double-eclipse of the reader and the writer" (Ricoeur, 1981). The resulting separation between author, text and reader prompts the question of to what degree a text can be said to have any intentional or reflective meaning. "[as] the meanings of the text are the 'production' or 'creation' of the individual reader... there is no one correct meaning, either of the linguistic parts or of the artistic whole of the text" (Abrams, 1941).
• The notion that the meaning of a text is brought about in the process of reading - i.e. that the reader constitutes the text - contests the principles of objective and positivist research. In these paradigms the role of the researcher is to uncover the 'truth' of the object of study. This principle does not only apply to the study of inanimate objects: it is a traditional tenet of anthropological research that the researcher attempt to leave the object of enquiry unchanged. 
• Contemporary research perspectives acknowledge the impossibility of conducting research without altering the meaning of what is observed. This view holds that the meaning of any situation or text does not exist prior to observation, but is inscribed in the process of research. This understanding has led to the use of reflective and 'participant-observation' methodologies that clearly convey the participatory role of the researcher.
• 'Post-paradigm' anthropology and feminist sociological research both require the researcher to account for the dynamics of the relationship between researched, researcher and results. Feminist documentary and film-making has also stressed the relationship between the observed or filmed and the producer of the text. In these paradigms the text is a contested and multiple output with a multiplicity of stakeholders. In other words: the implication for the social construction of knowledge through research is that it is a contested an relational construct.

Question: is it okay to quote a dialogue you copied from a chatroom?

1. The chatroom is a 'space' and the dialogue is between people in it, all of whom are due the protection accorded them under the human subjects research model.
2. The dialogue you have is a 'text', it's in the public domain, and therefore, aside from considerations of copyright, is available for reproduction.

Online communities simultaneously commodify identity and utopian desire, working through a liberal agenda of identity without exclusion, to maximise market share whilst capitalising on fragmentation.

The decision to disguise online activity, justified through the use of a rhetoric of 'protection' may result in furthering the unequal power relations of media production by blocking full representation of alternative media.

Conclusion: advice for internet researchers

Spatial descriptions of the internet are consistent with the Human Subjects Research model, BUT only some types of Internet use can usefully be described in spatial terms. Academic research that positions the internet as a social space containing cultural activity ripe for observation ignores the range of textual applications that the internet supports.

As internet researchers, we need to develop models that acknowledge both spatial and textual understandings of the internet. Such models are required if we are to produce research that examines the complex intersection of technologies, form, genre, and content that the internet supports.

Users may be less informed about the issues involved in textual production via the internet than in print media or traditional broadcast media such as the radio or television. However, researchers cannot afford to assume that individuals engaging in cultural practices through the internet are always at more risk than those using other media.

If an individual or group has chosen to use internet media to publish their opinions then the researcher needs to consider their decision to the same degree that they would with a similar publication in traditional print media.

To maintain a research model akin to the HSR model would be to risk impeding and potentially eliminating promising research. It is not always possible, for example, to gain the consent of a large number of participants who may have changed their email address or ceased posting to a web site on which the material under research is located. This should not prevent research of textual material that they have chosen to output via the internet anymore than it would for textual products in other print or broadcast media.

We should attempt to find a way of acknowledging the hybridity of the internet, acknowledging that the texts it supports are neither virtual selves nor objects completely distinct from those who write them. A reading of the text that includes the content, form, history and researchers' response all need to be considered as part of these relations of production, and power is a central issue. These relations include, for example, statements of intention in the text about whether it is intended for publication or for consumption by a circumscribed group of people... These relations will effect how users perceive their acts of participation and production: for example, is the site like a public forum / message board, or is it more like a newsletter intended only for members of a group? These structures clearly contribute to the user's perceptions of their activity on it.

Commonly deployed spatial models of the internet appear to be seeing a resurgence through the dominant construction of the internet as a place in which human subjects act. We argue that a hybrid model of relational ethics that incorporates text, space and bodies needs to be applied to Internet research. The HSR model only has limited application, and where it is applied indiscriminately or as the 'safest' option it in fact can be unethical and not 'safe' at all.

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Key points from online discussion: \

https://modules.lancs.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=22328

From David Pike:

Hi Sue,

Using your "obligation to protect people" and a bit of googling about the idea of duty of care (which seemed like a good phrase) I found there's something called the Caparo Test........so with some intellectual alchemy I would say........

1) If you send/bring/encourage students, assuming no prior experience, to an place/community online/part of an environment - you have an obligation to protect

2) If you gather the students who are part of an existing network e.g. Facebook - you have an obligation to protect only within the bubble you create

3) If you cause students to create new artefacts which are displayed out on the internet you have an obligation to protect by ensuring that students know the rights they hold in relation to said 'things' (i'm thinking of art students, musicians, maketeers, programmers etc).

4) If in any of the cases above you will be working with a group who could / are considered vunerable [e.g 1 perhaps something like the definition and who is sections?] [e.g. 2 - defined as a child] you automatically have an obligation to protect

What does everyone think? Question is, how? This probably varies by technology.....

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From Nafeth:

Hello David and Ayman,

I believe that users don't have to learn the technical stuff of information security terminologies to be safe. A big part of the responsibility is on the owners of the websites. One thing they can do is to exercise the 'Due Care' standard that is a the minimum and customary practice of responsible protection of information published through the website. Due care is exercised to ensure that appropriate controls are implemented . Applying this standard implies reasonable care and competence.

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Week 8: isms and ologies - summary of discussion

Questions 1: do I believe truth is discovered or made?

Possible viewpoints:

• 'relative' truth (i.e. as it happens to be at a given moment based on a set of evidence/information) is decided or discovered by a process or argument and reasoning e.g. an academic paper / court of law. BUT this doesn't make it universal/absolute truth because it is based on the wisdom of people with a range of interesting and subjective outlooks. 
• is that 'discovering' truth or 'making' truth based on the perspectives of the process and participants?
• does 'truth as a discovery' only happen after we filter the cultural, social, historical etc. bias out?
• Any perception that involves opinions/feelings/ideas or simply convincing people one way over another probably involves viewing truth through some form of 'filter', i.e. cultural, social, historical. Ergo a perception of truth might look highly misguided to someone who does not see life through the same  filters.
• Truth-making is related to knowing, experience, context, association, power, and choice. For example, the connections we choose among findings, our choice of relations with actors (researchers, subjects, policies), contribute to (or construct) a truth, which can be socially accepted (or not) within a community(s).
• The 'truth' can change based on new knowledge, therefore there are no absolute truths - truth is discovered. OR is 'truth' a static value and instead it is that our knowledge, understanding or perception of it that changes?
• e.g. everyone believes the 'truth' that a plant is green. However, new discoveries reveal that in fact the green is a result of the plant reflecting particular colours and that the structure of the molecule causes the pigmentation. These physical factors have always been there (i.e. constant), it's just that we didn't know. Our discoveries have improved our understanding.
• not being able to discover the absolute truth doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
• most of the time truth is made, however a quasi-absolute truth ('real' reality) may be discovered once we filter out the how and why of the “the meaning-making mechanisms of the social, mental and linguistic worlds that individuals inhabit”.
• ‘truth, and any agreement regarding what is valid knowledge – arises from the relationship between members of some stake-holding community’.  This reinforces the impact of communities, cultures and political systems in their subjective construction and understanding of what is ‘real’ and what is ‘valid truth’ and the critical role of language and discourse in shaping and negotiating these views (and beliefs?). Is this temporal view of a subjective and dynamic truth therefore created, reinforced and legitimised by those who construct it?
• At what point does a ‘notion/idea/concept/ belief’ become truth’?  At what point does the ‘communal test of validity through the argumentation of the participants in a discourse’ decide that something is ‘true’ or is ‘truth’ only ‘true’ to those who believe it to be so?

• Accepting that validity does not constitute a single truth, but can only provide a “thoroughly partial understanding” of a topic is likely to be an uncomfortable choice for many.

Question 2: as a researcher am I part of the action or resolutely outside looking in?

Possible viewpoints:

• the very choice to research a subject and the choice of instruments -- not to mention the very design of the instruments themselves -- are embedded with culture, history, and power. This would suggest to me that the researcher is indirectly (involuntarily?) part of the action.
• because history, politics, power, and social references are embedded in a paradigm, researchers are contributing to a wider context (our meaning and knowledge of something) through the action of their research -- which is often a reaffirmation, causation and/or consequence of  what is embedded in the paradigm. 

My thoughts:

• All truth is subjective. Even physical laws are subject to doubt arising from what we don't yet know. 

Week 8: Paradigmatic Controversies

Lincoln, Y.S. and Guba, E.G. (2000)

(n.b. this article is super-dense...)

N.B. the full discussion around this article can be found here https://modules.lancs.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=22907 - the discussion is more enlightening than the article itself!

How values inform the enquiry process:

• choice of the problem
• choice of paradigm to guide the problem
• choice of theoretical framework
• choice of major data-gathering and data-analytic methods
• choice of context
• treatment of values resident within the context, and 
• choice of format(s) for presenting findings   

Values constitute a major point of departure between positivist, conventional modes of inquiry and more interpretive forms of enquiry.

Human phenomena are themselves the subject of controversy. Classical social scientists would like to see "human phenomena" limited to those social experiments from which (scientific) generalisations may be drawn.

New-paradigm inquirers, however, are increasingly concerned with the single experience, the individual crisis, the epiphany or moment of discovery, with that most powerful of all threats to conventional objectivity, feeling and emotion.

Social scientists concerned with the expansion of what count as social data rely increasingly on the experiential, the embodied, the emotive qualities of human experience that contribute the narrative quality to life.

"in the Postmodern moment, and in the wake of poststructuralism, the assumption that there is no single "truth" - that all truths are but partial truths; that the slippage between signifier and signified in linguistic and textual terms creates re-presentations that are only and always shadows of the actual people, events, and places; that identities are fluid rather than fixed - leads us ineluctably toward the insight that there will be no single "conventional" paradigm to which all social scientists might ascribe in some common terms and with mutual understanding.

Rather, we stand at the threshold of a history marked by multivocality, contested meanings, paradigmatic controversies, and new textual forms. At some distance down this conjectural path, when its history is written, we will find that this has been the era of emancipation: emancipation from what Hannah Arendt calls "the coerciveness of Truth", emancipation from hearing only the voices of Western Europe, emancipation from generations of silence, and emancipation from seeing the world in one color."

Week 4: The issue of quality in qualitative reserach

Hammersley (2007) The issue of quality in qualitative research. 

Available at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17437270701614782

Focus: Examines whether criteria are necessary and considers whether a single set of criteria is achievable.


Problems with qualitative research:

• Criticised for not servin evidence-based practice well
• Argument that there is no clearly defined set of quality criteria available for judging it, ' so that it is of uncertain quality'

This assumes that:

• There are already clearly defined criteria of quality for quantitative research
• That explicit assessment criteria are needed

Problem faced by lay users e.g. policymakers and practitioners):

• how to assess research findings in the terms in which they present themselves
• how to relate these findings to what they already know and how they normally judge validity

Importance of trust - researchers largely have to trust that other researchers have carried out their work efficiently, presented their findings honestly, that normal processes of criticism with in the research community have reduced the danger of error etc. There is no mechanism that can check independently that the knowledge they produce is sound, or even that they have pursued this knowledge in the most effective way possible. Dilemma: the whole point of research is that it may produce un-commonsensical conclusions, therefore findings must not be dismissed because they are counter-intuitive. It is not possible for researchers to make their judgements transparent, in the sense of fully intelligible to anyone, irrespective of background knowledge and experience. Indeed, there are limits to the extent to which these judgements can be made intelligible even to fellow researchers, because of the situated nature of judgement.

Paradigms

Different 'paradigms' of qualitative research (Thomas Kuhn) - i.e. qualitative research is divided by divergent theoretical, methodological and value assumptions about the nature of the phenomena being investigated and about how they can and should be researched. The differences between qualitative researchers stem from the reality that each comes from their own unique situated practice and each employs a different approach to examining the process of research. Hammersley therefore believes that 'paradigm conflict' arises from a difference in practices rather than just a 'clash of ideas'.

Max Weber (& Neo-Kantianism) believed that social scientists strive to understand 'social phenomena in their socio-historical contexts' rather than attempting to establish 'universal laws' as is the case with natural science. This is an important difference as it means that social scientists will always draw on different sets of values and assumptions about the factual nature of the social phenomena, which will inevitably bring about divisions within educational research.

Scientific method and rigour

Historical clash of opinion between researchers who believed that physics / Botany etc. provided the exemplar for scientific method and those who believed that the study of social phenomena required a very different approach. Some researchers believed that understanding social phenomena could only be achieved 'from within' in order for the researcher to fully understand the meanings and cultural references of those people being studied. This led not to a wholesale rejection of scientific method but rather to a conception of science that was better suited to studying social phenomena.

Discourse analysts vs ethnographers

It is often the belief of Discourse Analysts that readers must be presented with the data to enable them to form their own opinions as to the validity of the data. Some also state that what is inferred must not go beyond what can be 'observed' in the collected data. This differs from the argument made by many ethnographers that it is not possible to make all the data available to readers, and that the accuracy and relevance of their observations is wholly dependent upon their successful observation and interpretation of the culture of the people being studied.

Realism vs constructionism

Constructionists believe that social phenomena

• 'do not exist independently of people's understandings of them, that those understandings play a crucial generative role'
• 'are culturally constituted and can only be understood by describing the processes by which they are culturally constituted as the things they are'

This means that the social phenomena, their causes and effects are no longer the focus of investigation. Rather it is the processes by which they are identified and in effect created through identification by culture members' that becomes the goal of enquiry.

Conclusions

• There is a need to try and reduce the significant differences in perspective of approaches to social science research in order to try and establish guidelines for what is and is not good quality work.
• The plurality of methodological approaches and respective criteria for what constitutes 'quality' should not simply be accepted unquestioningly.