Studying cyborgs: re-examining internet studies as human subjects research
Author
Summary, in English
Virtual communities and social networks assume and consume more aspects of people's lives. In these evolving social spaces, the boundaries between actual and virtual reality, between living individuals and their virtual bodies, and between private and public domains are becoming ever more blurred. As a result, users and their presentations of self, as expressed through virtual bodies, are increasingly entangled. Consequently, more and more Internet users are cyborgs. For this reason, the ethical guidelines necessary for Internet research need to be revisited. We contend that the IS community has paid insufficient attention to the ethics of Internet research. To this end, we develop an understanding of issues related to online human subjects research by distinguishing between a disembodied and an entangled view of the Internet. We outline a framework to guide investigators and research ethics committees in answering a key question in the age of cyborgism: When does a proposed Internet study deal with human subjects as opposed to digital material? Journal of Information Technology (2012) 27, 301-312. doi:10.1057/jit.2012.30; published online 13 November 2012
Department/s
Publishing year
2012
Language
English
Pages
301-312
Publication/Series
Journal of Information Technology
Volume
27
Issue
4
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Topic
- Information Systems, Social aspects
Keywords
- research ethics
- entanglement
- living and virtual bodies
- human
- subjects
- Internet research
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0268-3962