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 consider 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data I collected and my investigations as a whole ethical I would need to consider the fact of data being published or unpublished.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 I can use it without any doubts about confidentiality. I would be able to use the editor’s letters in women’s and men’s magazines and Michael Gove’s comments on education as an investigation as they are both examples of data that have been published. Using the Argos catalogue and analysing ‘live’ broadcasts would also be fine. If I want to use unpublished data I would need personal permission to do so. However, one problem that might occur is the use of Brian Cox’s tweets, when analysing his tweets I would need to make sure that the tweets were actually posted by Brian and not someone who works with him, making sure the tweets are of his own beliefs and not those of his employers.

The factors I considered when worrying about ethicality were:

·         -Whether the data was published or unpublished

·         -The choice of language used and whether the data includes any taboo language which some people may find offensive

·        - The data itself and whether it can offend people