2003

Veale K. J.

Acting Ethically in Online Ethnography: A Brief Outline of Issues and Techniques.

http://www.veale.com.au/kylie/pdf/veale-2003-actingethicallyonlineethnography.pdf

Ethnography is a long established method for research and analysis that involves the immersion of the researcher into the activities and practises are being researched. Streams of this discipline emerged with the birth of the Internet aptly named “online ethnography” or “virtual ethnography”, to describe this research in the content of net or cyber-cultures.

Although the application of offline ethical practices to cyberspace should not be any different, there are unique issues for online, which have been the subject of studies over the last nine years. In many cases, observation can be carried out even without informing the people being studied (Paccagnella, 1997), where researchers have largely unprecedented access to people’s conversations and stories (Frankel & Siang, 1999). The purpose of this report is to outline some key ethical considerations for online ethnography and to explore what other researchers have done or suggested to mitigate any issues.