I think this idea of permission really touches on what makes me so uncomfortable about a lot of the sociology work that happens on social media data. I really don’t like that people are using blogs and social media content without asking. There are cases where asking is impractical – I get that – but there are cases where it is actually pretty easy and courteous. Recently a PhD student asked if they could use my Breast Cancer blog for a discourse/content analysis they were doing. Of course, I’m honored. Another person asked if they could link to a specific post in a course they were creating. I am honored to to say yes. These people didn’t need to ask – the content was self-published on my blog – but honored that they did ask. We also get the occasional request to use a photo from our GoingEast blog (apparently there are few photos of the pot ash tailings in Saskatchewan!).

I’m glad that you brought up power in all this. In the social media data context, what I see is a lot of people with privilege using “publicly available” data and analyzing it, and publishing research on it, without providing any attribution (anonymizing sources even), which is done as completely ethical practice within that field.

I actually had another issue happen with my research. When I did interviews, I found that people were giving me ideas in the interviews. They were sharing their experiences. They were giving me their stories. The default ethics says that they shall remain anonymous. But the ideas where not mine, I was merely the person collecting them. Why should I get all the credit. Fortunately, I was able to fight the ethics process a little and get a check box that allowed my participants to chose whether or not they wanted to be anonymous or credited. I think that is a much more ethical way to proceed with research.

Perhaps I’m not really making a point with this comment, just sharing a few different scenarios. I’m conscious of having my contributions not recognized in certain spaces because it has happened to me before – both in school and in professional settings. In both cases the person who took my ideas without crediting me benefited from my work, and I did not (I got a lower mark in the class, and fortunately my partner talked to the professor about it – but really, I didn’t get the credit for the co-authorship that I deserved as we drafted the original together, she just typed it in and edited while I illustrated – but alas, I learned from that experience).

I’m also aware of at least some of the privileges that I hold. I only hope that my friends and colleagues feel comfortable enough to let me know when I overstep or do something insensitive. It is never my intention.