on the rights of privacy in research that harvests social media for data

ethics, material culture, politics, publications

Following up on my previous post on the Frontiers of Psychology decision to retract a published paper that investigated conspiratorial ideation by analyzing blog posts, the most recent statement by the Frontiers group re-writes its reasons for the retraction:

Frontiers came to the conclusion that it could not continue to carry the paper, which does not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects. Specifically, the article categorizes the behaviour of identifiable individuals within the context of psychopathological characteristics.

And, they continue: “we also must uphold the rights and privacy of the subjects included in a study or paper.”

A troubling feature of this revised retraction is that is contradicts the first, which asserts there were no ethical issues with the research, but now there are. This does not speak well for the journal, its editors and the umbrella Frontiers group. (See here for commentary about the media coverage of the journal.)

But the heart of the matter is whether the identity of  bloggers who made comments openly and publicly should be protected? The short answer is, no. The key here is that bloggers’ personal comments are public and so once made, bloggers give up their rights to privacy. And indeed, in the discourse one presumes these bloggers do not wish to be anonymous, but to own their viewpoints.  Blog comments are not responses to a researcher’s queries offered in the frame of most social science research, which does offer protection of privacy through confidentiality and anonymity. The blog comments are therefore a legitimate source of found data that support a range of analyses, including in this case what they might reveal about conspiratorial ideation.

I would note though that this matter is not straightforward and harvesting of social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs) is still new territory for social scientists. There are essentially two positions:

  1. what is archived on the internet is public, and no consent is required from those who created the data
  2. what is archived is public, but the content creators imagined they were writing in private and so consent is required

(See here, for one discussion of both sides,  here for a discussion of the blogosphere as a source of data, here for a commentary on qualitative research blogs. And here for a legal opinion on the matter.)

Email, RSS Follow
Pin It
Email

power over publishing ~when special interest trumps scientific research

ethics, politics, publications

In 2012 Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Western Australia published an article in Psychological Science, which analyzed anti-climate change blog comments to explore the idea of conspiratorial ideation. He concludes people who believe in one unsubstantiated conspiracy theory are likely to believe in others. Amusing at times (people who believe Princess Diana was ordered to be murdered by the Royal Family are also likely to agree she faked her own death and is still alive ~ pay no attention to the contradiction) and decidedly not amusing at other times (people who endorse free market economics reject climate change, and a number of other scientific facts like HIV causes AIDS and smoking causes lung cancer ~ pay attention to the potential constraints on improving the quality of individual and collective human life).

This article outraged conspiracy theorists and a maelstrom of protest hit the blogosphere, which Lewandowsky also analyzed and published in a subsequent article in the Frontiers of Psychology, part of the Frontiers conglomerate publishing 45 open access journals in all. This paper was also challenged by the conspirators, and although no fault could be found with the quality or ethics of the research Frontiers has withdrawn the article from the journal with the vague legal issue (read, I think, fear of a lawsuit) as the reason.

But fear not, you can still read the paper, Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation, thanks to academic freedom and the internet. Read more at I Fucking Love Science, here. And, there are no shortage of blogs that follow the climate change deniers (see, for example, Watching the Deniers).

Lewandowsky also talks at length about the controversy and issues.

Stephan Lewandowskay: In Whose Hands the Future? from Peter Sinclair on Vimeo.

What should trouble ALL researchers is that a powerful special interest group has threatened academic freedom, and especially an open access journal that although levying author fees does not likely have the resources to withstand legal challenge in the same way that a for-profit publisher does. Sage Publications, owners of the journal in which the original article was published, never buckled under protest to the original article now referred to as LOG12. Indeed, an investigation by the journal asserted no wrong doing and Lewandowsky’s own university supports him by posting the article on the UWA website, thus also affirming academic freedom. Even more important, this threat is based on deniers skeptics disliking the research topic and conclusions ~ not one based on poor quality research, unethical research practices or failure of the peer review process. This is a chilling prospect for all researchers, but especially so when research challenges powerful ideologies that effect rationale critique and potential positive social change.

Email, RSS Follow
Pin It
Email

Google Glass ~ a data collection tool?

ethics, field notes, researcher roles, technology

Field work depends on researcher’s senses, maybe most especially their eyes and ears, and given the participant observer role we rely on our memory to reconstruct our experiences into field notes, the foundation for our analysis. Sometimes we are in contexts (like classrooms or meetings) where note taking is facilitated by computers or smart pens. One wonders if recording devices that just come along with us and record what is going on might be useful for researchers. For example, the GoPro, strapped to your head or chest, is now standard equipment for sports enthusiasts to capture their accomplishments or nature enthusiasts their surroundings. It might well be the means to record that ritual or interaction your research focuses on, but it might also be a bit intrusive. YouTube Preview Image

Google Glass is definitely more stylish, less obtrusive, and provides interactive capabilities. It’s in the beta stage, what Google is calling the Explorer Program and if a space is available you could be an early adopter for the cost $1500, that is if you live in the USA. In short you tell it what to do, take a picture or video, which you can share, send a message, look up information. The example below shows some of its capabilities. Imagine a research context that would allow you to record what you see, do and to share and connect that with other researchers and research participants. Video ethnography on the go?
YouTube Preview Image

Google Glass has been controversial when people wear them as a matter of course in their daily lives creating exaggerated tensions in an already surveillance rich society (smart phones being the obvious device). But used in a research context, where people have accepted the researcher’s role as a recorder of events, interactions, and talk, these controversies might be obviated.

Email, RSS Follow
Pin It
Email

a blog post about whether I should be blogging: the case of the ISA

ethics, politics

The International Studies Association (political science folks) is discussing a proposal to ban Association journal editors, editorial board members and anyone associated with its journals from blogging. Here is the language:

“No editor of any ISA journal or member of any editorial team of an ISA journal can create or actively manage a blog unless it is an official blog of the editor’s journal or the editorial team’s journal,” the proposal reads. “This policy requires that all editors and members of editorial teams to apply this aspect of the Code of Conduct to their ISA journal commitments. All editorial members, both the Editor in Chief(s) and the board of editors/editorial teams, should maintain a complete separation of their journal responsibilities and their blog associations.”

Singling out blogs, but no other social media or letters to the editor or op eds, the ISA asserts that blogging is some how unseemly, that it is a kind of discourse that is not proper professional behavior, and that if one blogs one is likely to sink into some abyss losing a grasp on one’s dignity and respectability.

At best this proposal is quaint, a desire for a past when professors stayed in their offices and wrote for and engaged with their peers through narrow publication channels (like the ISA journals). At worst, this is a draconian effort to challenge academic freedom, to squelch professors’ engagement in public life, and to control access to knowledge. The silliness of this proposal does little to obviate its threat to civic engagement of scholars, both the activist minded and those who understand the world is bigger than the university campus.

Email, RSS Follow
Pin It
Email

Upcoming conferences

events

27 February-1 March 2014, San Angelo, Texas, USA
Conference “Doing Autoethnography”

7-9 May 2014, University of Oulu, Finland
VI Conference on Childhood Studies “Values of Childhood and Childhood Studies”

21-24 May 2014, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
10th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry “Qualitative Inquiry and the Politics of Research”
see also the Pre-Conference Call for Abstracts “Qualitative Psychology: Critical and Post-Structural Possibilities”, http://www.icqi.org/pre-congress-days/a-day-in-qualitative-psychology/

25-27 June 2014, Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico
Fifth International Qualitative Research Conference

13-19 July 2014, Yokohama, Japan
ISA World Congress of Sociology, Research Committee on Biography and Society

Email, RSS Follow
Pin It
Email

The diary of a high school student ~ thinking about representation

representation

The following isn’t from a research project, but in a similar vein to the “The Slow, Costly Death of Mrs. K.” captures Rohan Nuttall’s (a Grade 12 student at Strathcona Composite High School in Edmonton, AB) interpretation of a day in the life of a high school student. The day is marked by time, a linear frame, through which the student moves visually illustrating monotony, distraction, disconnectedness.

The diary of a high-school student: Facebook or chemistry?

8:31 a.m. Wake up. Alarm was set for 6:30. School starts in 15 minutes.

8:35 a.m. Jump out of bed. Head-rush. Pause. Embark on journey to the bathroom. Turn on shower.

8:57 a.m. Step out of shower. Look at the clock. Swear. Look for towel and realize it’s in my room. Swear.

9:08 a.m. Consider eating breakfast. Think about having to take out bowl, find cereal box, find milk, put cereal in bowl, pour milk on cereal, find spoon, lift spoon to mouth multiple times.

9:10 a.m. Decide not to eat breakfast.

9:20 a.m. Anxiously await the arrival of bus. Of course it’s not on time. Blame bus driver for everything. Bus still hasn’t come.

9:20 a.m. Bus comes.

9:59 a.m. Arrive at school. Decide to make the last few minutes of my grade 12 biology class. Realize I have a spare 1st period. Marvel at my dim-wittedness. Forgive bus driver.

10:06 a.m. Bell rings. Realize I’m hungry. At risk of loud stomach rumbling in class decide to get a snack from the cafeteria.

10:10 a.m. Spend $7.00 on a ham sandwich. Get lectured by lunch lady after I question validity of food prices.

10:20 a.m. Still late for class. Give teacher petty excuse–“I was eating breakfast.”

10:45 a.m. Watch teacher spill information over our heads.

11:30 a.m. The all too familiar bell rings for lunch. Students swarm the narrow hallways. It smells like I’m either walking down a perfume aisle or through gym locker room. I can’t quite tell.

11:34 a.m. Get to my locker. Forgot to pack a lunch. Already spent all of my money. Decide to pass the time studying in the library. It’s loud. Kids shouting to each other enthusiastically about how cool GTA 5 is. Ponder the irony of the situation I’m in. There’s a large seagull nonchalantly strolling around in the parking lot.

12:05 p.m. Seagull flies away. Start calculus review. I’ve read the word “derivative” more times than I can remember. What was so wrong with the word “slope”? None of this makes sense.

2:10 p.m. The monotony of the day drags on. Notes. Test. Notes. Test. Worried that I’ll never know the meaning of freedom of interpretation. But hey, at least I’ll have 12 years of practising rote memorization as a life skill. We’re always told that critical thinking is something you do in university. So I guess it makes perfect sense to not bother about it in high school, right?

3:30 p.m. Bell rings for the 13th and last time of the day. Administration thought it would be a good idea to have warning bells. Student autonomy? What a crazy idea.

3:34 p.m. Leave school with bag slightly heavier. 10 pages of chemistry homework even though I know I’m studying economics in university. Useless.

4:05 p.m. Get home. Parents ask how day was. “Fine.” Take dog for a walk. Buckle down to finish homework and study for upcoming tests.

6:00 p.m. Disturbed by parents to eat dinner.

6:50 p.m. Sit down again to study. Phone buzzing every 5 minutes, Facebook messages popping up on laptop screen, music pounding in my ears. It’s no wonder I don’t remember anything I read. Favourite TV show in 10 mins.

7:23 p.m. Sitting on couch in living room. Books on my lap – open – but still only on the table of contents. Fifth time watching this episode.

9:00 p.m. Turn off TV when the news program begins. Head to bedroom. Continue procrastinating.

9:14 p.m. Decide to start chemistry homework. Out of all the questions I’m looking at, the only one that I can think about is “Why do I even have to do this?” What’s the point in homework? Sure, I get that silly yet oddly fulfilling completion mark, but what about the meaningful application? Instead, I’m just spending my time ingraining all of this information in my head for a stupid test at the end of the week only to forget it all on the bus ride home. Doesn’t seem like a very sustainable pedagogical model for the 21st century. So much for saving trees, too.

9:30 p.m. Feeling frustrated. Decide to get ready for bed.

9:36 p.m. Go to bed.

12:34 a.m. Stop texting. Fall asleep.

1:20 a.m. Set alarm for next day.

6:30 a.m. Wake up to alarm. Get ready for school.

7:00am It’s Saturday. Swear.

Email, RSS Follow
Pin It
Email

Meet The Somalis ~ illustrated stories of Somalis in seven cities in Europe

image based research, narrative inquiry, publications, representation

You might have just seen Captain Phillips, the movie starring Tom Hanks as the real life Captain Phillips, commander of a Maerck shipping freighter hijacked by Somali pirates. The movie gives a wee glimpse into the life of Somali pirates, and the circumstances in their home country related to piracy. But, of course, to be Somali is something quite a bit larger.
Meet the Somalis tells the stories of 14 Somalis living the refugee or immigrant life in seven European cities. Based on interviews, “the illustrated stories focus on challenges faced by Somalis in their respective cities in Europe and issues raised in the Somalis in European Cities research, including education, housing, the media, employment, political participation, and identity. Meet the Somalis depicts experiences many of us will never know, like fleeing a warzone with your children or, worse, leaving your loved ones behind.”

Like most ethnographic research, the stories are not just windows to the experiences of others, but also mirrors reflecting our own values and the deep interconnections among all people, like the importance of family, well-being, and identity. The cartoon illustrations combined with interview excerpts build the narrative of experience as an immigrant and/or refugee connected to a war-torn homeland.

Email, RSS Follow
Pin It
Email