Scenario 1

1
Scenario 1

• Project title Rural experiences of 'gay' sexual
  identity.
• Research questions What is the role of the
  internet in providing an outlet through which
  rural gay males can freely express their sexual
  identity?
• Research methods Covert observation of specific
  gay chat rooms of which you are a member,
  followed by synchronous interviews of
  self-selected sample gained through a message
  transmitted to mailists.
• Ethical issues?

2
Scenario 2

• Project title Participatory research and
  internet activism how activists involved in
  environmental and social change politics utilise
  the internet their internet activism.
• Research questions Exploring the opportunities
  and tensions the internet offers to activists.
  What is the role that the internet plays in the
  broader dynamics of activism and activists
  everyday lives?
• Research methods Onsite face-to-face interviews,
  followed by online email interviews with
  participants recruited during onsite research.
• Ethical issues?

3
Scenario 3

• Project title Social exclusion and the internet
  in Tanzania
• Research questions Who is using the internet in
  rural Tanzania, and what for?
• Research methods Online questionnaire of
  participants using a mutli-purpose telecenter,
  observation of the multi-purpose telecenter,
  followed by face-to-face questionnaire of
  non-users.
• Ethics?

4
Informed consent

• How will you gain informed consent?
• How can the participant withdrawal from the
  research? Is it easier or harder to withdraw
  compared to face-to-face research?
• Is deception a defensible research strategy? Can
  'lurking' as socialisation into the online
  culture of a group be an important prerequisite
  for research?

5
Confidentiality

• How can confidentiality be assured and how might
  this vary with the nature of the research venue?
  (e.g. Chat rooms compared to weblogs, webpages,
  emails to large listservs).
• How might subject anonymity be achieved in
  practice?
• How can you improve data security? Can you
  promise that your electronic information will not
  be accessed and used by others?

6
Privacy

• Can you agree in your groups whether the data you
  collect will be public or private?
• How might participant expectations of privacy
  vary with specific research method used?
• Is alienation a more useful concept to use when
  considering ORE?

7
International inequalities

• How might the digital divide limit who can we
  'speak' to and whose lives we can engage with? Is
  this an important ethical issue?
• Can you assume everyone has the ability to speak
  freely on the internet? Any censorship issues?
• What languages are we going to use to communicate
  our research? How might this limit who can we
  speak to?
• What online power inequalities might be
  significant (race, gender, sexuality, age,
  economic position)?