Ethicality Task

Ethicality

 

Task) Look back at what you decided you could collect to investigate further after looking at the sample data. How could you make what you collect more comparable/ethical/reliable? Write a list of all the factors you considered including problems.

 

In order to make the data I collected and my investigations as a whole ethical I would need to consider the fact of data being published or unpublished. If something is published then I wouldn’t need to worry about the privacy and copyright of the text, whereas if something was unpublished then I would have to ask for permission to use this data. Using the information about the editor’s letters in men and women’s magazines and Michael Gove’s comments on education would be acceptable to use as they are already published. Using the ‘live’ broadcasts and the beauty products adverts would also be fine because again they have been published. However, Brian Cox’s tweets may be a problem because you wouldn’t be sure if it was actually him writing those tweets or someone working for him or pretending to be him, therefore, not his actual moods, thoughts or feelings.

 

The factors I considered when worrying about ethicality were;

-          Whether the data would offend people or not

-          If the data was published or unpublished

-          The choice of language used, so if any taboo language was used which could offend people or be abusive.