Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

‘What are these researchers doing in my Wikipedia?’: ethical premises and practical judgment in internet-based ethnography

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Ethics and Information Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The article ties together codified ethical premises, proceedings of ethical reasoning, and field-specific ethical reflections so to inform the ethnography of an Internet-based collaborative project. It argues that instead of only obeying formal statutes, practical judgment has to account for multiple understandings of ethical issues in the research field as well as for the self-determination of reflexive participants. The article reflects on the heuristics that guided the decisions of a 4-year participant observation in the English-language and German-language editions of Wikipedia. Employing a microsociological perspective, it interrogates the technological, social, and legal implications of publicness and information sensitivity as core ethical concerns among Wikipedia authors. The first problem area of managing accessibility and anonymity contrasts the handling of the technologically available records of activities, disclosures of personal information, and the legal obligations to credit authorship with the authors’ right to work anonymously and the need to shield their identity. The second area confronts the contingent addressability of editors with the demand to assure and maintain informed consent. Taking into account these problem areas, the ethical reasoning on the one hand proposes options for observing and documenting episodes. On the other, it provides advice on the feasibility and the necessity of obtaining informed consent.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Adapted from McKee & Porter (2009)

Fig. 3

Adapted from McKee & Porter (2009)

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bakardjieva, M., & Feenberg, A. (2001). Involving the virtual subject. Ethics and Information Technology, 2(4), 233–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barbrook, R., & Cameron, A. (1996). The Californian ideology. Science as Culture, 6(1), 44–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Basset, E., & O’Riordan, K. (2002). Ethics of internet research. Ethics and Information Technology, 4(3), 233–247.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beaulieu, A., & Estalella, A. (2012). Rethinking research ethics for mediated settings. Information, Communication & Society, 15(1), 23–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Becker, H. S. (1964). Problems in the publication of field studies. In A. Vidich, J. Bensman & M. Stein (Eds.), Reflections on community studies (pp. 267–284). New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benkler, Y. (2006). The Wealth of Networks. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boellstorff, T., Nardi, B., Pearce, C., & Taylor, T. L. (2012). Ethnography and virtual worlds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, D., & Crawford, K. (2012). Critical questions for big data. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 662–679.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bruckman, A. (2002). Studying the amateur artist. Ethics and Information Technology, 4(3), 217–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buchanan, E., & Ess, C. (2009). Internet research ethics and the institutional review board. Computers and Society, 39(3), 43–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, G. (2013). Coding freedom. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Data Retention Policy (2008). Retrieved from http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Data_retention_policy.

  • de Laat, P. B. (2012). Coercion or empowerment?: Moderation of content in Wikipedia as ‘essentially contested’ bureaucratic rules. Ethics and Information Technology, 14, 123–135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Laat, P. B. (2014). ‘Backgrounding’ trust by collective monitoring and reputation tracking. Ethics and Information Technology, 16, 157–169.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dingwall, R. (1980). Ethics and ethnography. Sociological Review, 28(4), 871–891.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ess, C. (2013). Digital media ethics. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ess, C., & AoIR Ethics Working Committee (2002). Ethical decision-making and Internet research. Retrieved from http://aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf.

  • Eynon, R., Fry, J., & Schroeder, R. (2008). The ethics of Internet research. In N. Fielding, R. Lee & G. Blank (Eds.), The sage handbook of internet research (pp. 23–41). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and Method. New York: Seabury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gillespie, T. (2010). The politics of ‘platforms’. New Media & Society, 12(3), 347–364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilligan, C. (1982). In a Different Voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glott, R., Schmidt, P., & Ghosh, R.A. (2010). Wikipedia survey. Maastricht: UNI-MERIT United Nations University. Retrieved from: http://www.wikipediastudy.org/docs/Wikipedia_Overview_15March2010-FINAL.pdf.

  • Goffman, E. (1967). Interactional ritual. New York: Anchor Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, E. (1983). The interaction order. American Sociological Review, 48(1), 1–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gray, M.L. (2014). When science, customer service, and human subjects research collide. Now what? Ethnography Matters. Retrieved from http://ethnographymatters.net/blog/2014/07/07/when-science-customer-service-and-human-subjects-research-collide-now-what/.

  • Hammersley, M. (2009). Against the ethicists: On the evils of ethical regulation. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 12(3), 211–225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hine, C. (2015). Ethnography for the Internet. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jemielniak, D. (2014). Common knowledge? Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kraut, R., Olson, J., Banaji, M., Bruckman, A., Cohen, J., & Couper, M. (2004). Psychological research online. American Psychologist, 59(2), 105–117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kraut, R., & Resnick, P. (2011). Building successful online communities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Librett, M., & Perrone, D. (2010). Apples and oranges: Ethnography and the IRB. Qualitative Research, 10(6), 729–747.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lincoln, Y., & Tierney, W. (2004). Qualitative research and institutional review boards. Qualitative Inquiry, 10(2), 219–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Markham, A. (2012). Fabrication as ethical practice. Information, Communication & Society, 15(3), 334–353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Markham, A. (2004). The politics, ethics, and methods of representation in online ethnography. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 793–820). London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Markham, A., Buchanan, E., & AoIR Ethics Working Committee (2012). Ethical decision-making and internet research 2.0. Retrieved from http://aoir.org/reports/ethics2.pdf.

  • McKee, H., & Porter, J. (2009). The ethics of digital writing research. New York: Peter Lang

    Google Scholar 

  • Milne, C. (2005). Overseeing research: Ethics and the institutional review board. Forum: Qualitative Research, 6(1), Art. 41.

  • Nissenbaum, H. (2011). Privacy in context. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Neil, M. (2009). Cyberchiefs. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petronio, S. (2002). Boundaries of privacy. Dialectics of disclosure. Albany: SUNY Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Privacy Policy (2011). Retrieved from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy.

  • Quan-Haase, A., & Collins, J. (2008). ‘I’m there, but I might not want to talk to you’. Information Communication & Society, 11(4), 526–543.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raz, J. (1986). The morality of freedom. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reagle, J. (2010). Good faith collaboration. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reid, E. (1996). Informed consent in the study of on-line communities. The Information Society, 12(29), 169–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Santana, A., & Wood, D. J. (2009). Transparency and social responsibility issues for Wikipedia. Ethics and Information Technology, 11, 133–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schroer, J., & Hertel, G. (2009). Voluntary engagement in an open web-based encyclopedia. Media Psychology, 12(1), 96–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Senft, T. (2008). Camgirls. Celebrity and community in the age of social networks. New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simon, J. (2010). The entanglement of trust and knowledge on the Web. Ethics and Information Technology, 12, 343–355.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sveningsson, M. (2004). Ethics in Internet ethnography. In E. A. Buchanan (Ed.), Readings in virtual research ethics (pp. 45–61). Hershey, PA: Information Science

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Sveningsson-Elm, M. (2009). How do various notions of privacy influence decisions in qualitative Internet research? In A. Markham & N. Baym (Eds.), Internet inquiry (pp. 69–87). London: Sage

    Google Scholar 

  • Tavani, H. (2007). Informational privacy, data mining, and the Internet. Ethics and Information Technology, 1(2), 137–145.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tilley, L., & Woodthorpe, K. (2011). Is it the end for anonymity as we know it? Qualitative Research, 11(2), 197–212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tkacz, N. (2015). Wikipedia and the politics of openness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, F. (2006). From counterculture to cyberculture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • van Djick, J. (2013). The cult of connectivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • WMF:Terms of Use (2012). Retrieved from http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use.

  • Walther, J. (2002). Research ethics in internet-enabled research. Ethics and Information Technology, 4(3), 205–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waskul, D., & Douglass, M. (1996). Considering the electronic participant. The Information Society, 12(2), 129–140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wikipedia:Don’t bite the researchers (2016). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don%27t_bite_the_researchers.

  • Wikipedia:Ethically researching Wikipedia (2016). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ethically_researching_Wikipedia.

  • Wikipedia:Statistics (2016). Retrieved from https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm.

  • Wikipedia:What are these researchers doing in my Wikipedia? (2016). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_are_these_researchers_doing_in_my_Wikipedia%3F.

  • Wikipedia:Wikipedia (2016). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia.

  • Zimmer, M. (2010). But the data is already public: On the ethics of research in Facebook. Ethics and Information Technology, 12, 313–325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

No financial interest or benefit arises from direct application of this research.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI), University of Bremen, Linzer Strasse 4, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Christian Pentzold

Authors
  1. Christian Pentzold
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christian Pentzold.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Pentzold, C. ‘What are these researchers doing in my Wikipedia?’: ethical premises and practical judgment in internet-based ethnography. Ethics Inf Technol 19, 143–155 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-017-9423-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-017-9423-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation