Friday, April 11, 2008

An ethical quagmire

I had a meeting with another professor in my Faculty today, who took a look at my ethics application and helped me through it. She helped me quite a bit, I must say - pointing out things I never would have thought of, because I've never technically done internet-based research before.

But I must say I think I've gotten myself in a bit of a pickle with this whole thesis topic, just because of the things you never think of, you know? I'm specially referring to the issues of copyright infringement in regards to vidding. I'm worried now that my ethics form will scare away any potential vidders whose vids I'd like to use as examples, because of the consent form they'll have to sign. Of course, this could be said of any consent form - they do detail worst-case scenarios, and the potential risks are minimal at best, but the fact that they could potentially happen is what scares me, because the last thing I want to do is bring down the law-man on my participants.

Perhaps the sky just seems black right now; this is what the professor told me. And she's studying sex tourism online, so she would know about ethics approvals from hell to be sure. I must say, I'm going to do my damndest to make sure this whole thing works out for all of us. These are our people, as my friends and I say all the time. These are our people.

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