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Introduction to the special issue
Krotoski, Aleks
Krotoski, Aleks
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n1_krotoski.pdf
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Abstract
"The Web offers huge possibilities for current and future generations of researchers and, with the relative freedom to explore, define, collect, analyse and distribute knowledge with little consistent regulation, scholars are currently experiencing a golden age of research online. At present, the only real limits to data collection and analysis are our technological expertise and the size of our processors. But if we begin to factor in the human on the other side of the screen, by considering the ethical implications of our methods, we necessarily begin to limit our designs. There are many online contexts, relevant to both the form of the interaction (e.g., text, audio or video) and to the environment under scrutiny (e.g., online community, e-commerce site, business application, etc), and they each require nuanced ethical approaches. For example, a more situated and community-focussed ethical protocol may be required when documenting the practices of individuals who are part of social networking sites, blogging groups, listservs and forums, than when the objects under scrutiny are transactions made during virtual auctions or in the user interactions with Web page designs. Indeed, while the Web does connect people to information, it also – crucially – connects them to each other. This feature demands that social scientists and online community researchers face the person behind the screen when doing research; rather than looking only at the technology that powers interpersonal connections, it’s necessary to understand how connections are meaningful to the people who make them, and how our designs affect them.
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2010-12
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With permission of the license/copyright holder