DOCUMENT RESUME ED 392 087 CS 509 181 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (78th, Washington, DC, August 9-12, 1995). Qualitative Studies Division. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE Aug 95 NOTE 404p.; For other sections of these proceedings, see CS 509 173-187 and CS 509 196. PUB TYPE Collected Works Conference Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MFOI/PC17 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *American Indians; *Ethics; Higher Education; *Journalism; Journalism History; Labor Standards; Lying; Media Research; *Online Systems; Periodicals; Political Issues; Qualitative Research; *Racial Attitudes; Research Methodology; *Television Viewing IDENTIFIERS Gulf War; Jdia Coverage; Media Government Relationship; Simpson (0 J) Murder Trial ABSTRACT The Qualitative Studies section of the proceedings contains the following 14 papers: "'Virtual Anonymity': Online Accountability in Political Bulletin Boards and the Makings of the Virtuous Virtual Journalist" (Jane B. Singer); "The Case of the Mysterious Ritual: 'Murder, She Wrote' and 'Perry Mason" (K:-en E. Riggs); "Political Issues in the Early Black Press: Applying Frame Analysis to Historical Contexts" (Aleen J. Ratzlaff and Sharon Hartin Iorio); "Leaks in the Pool: The Press at the Gulf War Battle of Khafji" (David H. Mould); "Professional Clock-Punchers: Journalists and the Overtime Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act"(Robert Jensen); "Love, Gender and Television News" (Don Heider and Leona Hood); "Tabloids, Lawyers and Competition Made Us Do It!: How Journalists Construct, Interpret and Justify Coverage of the O.J. Simpson Story" (Elizabeth K. Hansen); "The Taming of the Shrew: Women's Magazines and the Regulation of Desire" (Gigi Durham); "Communitarian Journalism(s): Clearing the Conceptual Landscape" (David A. Craig); "What 'Indians' Mean in the Media: Race, Language, and the Popular Imagination" (John M. Coward); "'It's Going to Be a Rough Ride, Buddy!' A Phenomenological Analysis of the Collision between 'Hate Speech' and Free Expression in Students' Experiences of the Khallid Muhammad Controversy" (Brenda Cooper); "Noise and Signal as a Textbook Case: Rhetorics of MassCommunication Inquiry" (Ralph Beliveau); "Implications of Audience Ethics for the Mass Communicator" (James L. Aucoin); and "Telling Lies: The Symbolic Function of Lies in Sitcoms" (Elizabeth Atwood-Gailey). (RS) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATION IN JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION (78th, Washington, DC, August 9-12, 1995). Qualitative Studies Division. U.S. IMPARTMENT Or EoucAnON Offocs Of Educational Rewerch and Improvement "PERM ISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY CENTER (ERIC) Ut4hutdocument has been reproduced as received trom the person or organizetion -J 0-Cc L:efe_ Ongnatingit 0 Miner Changes have been made to improve rePrOdUctron quality Points of wear or opinions stated in this doc merit do not nectISSIrilv represent official TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES OERI Madan or policy INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)" BEST COPYAVAILABLE "VIRTUAL ANONYMITY": Online Accountability in Political Bulletin Boards and the Makings of the Virtuous VirtualJournalist Presented to: Qualitative Studies DIvision Association for Education in Journalism and MassCommunication Annual meeting, August 1995 Jane B. Singer Ph.D. candidate 23 Walter Williams School of Journalism Uniuersity of Missouri-Columbia Columbia, MO 65211 (314) 882-7763 [email protected] ABSTRACT "VIRTUAL ANONYMITY": Online Accountability in PolitY.cal Bulletin Boards and the Makings of the Virtuous Virtual Journalist Online communication offers an alternative to traditional methods of political discourse and, in the process, raises new ethical concerns about anonymity and accountability. This paper explores the ethical implications of these related issues through a look at the discussion on the political bulletin boards offered by two online services during the 1994 campaign season. It then considers the role of the journalist in this computer-mediated world. 1 "VIRTUAL ANONYMITY": Online Accountability in Political Bulletin Boards and the Makings of the Virtuous Virtual Journalist We may verge on the kind of golden era described in John Milton's paean to unfettered publishing in Areopagitica,' an era when people are disputing, reasoning, reading, inventing, discoursing ... things not before discoursed or written of'(J. Hamilton, 1994, p. 36). It is chilling to think that one's freedom or survival might hang up on the electronic whim of one's neighbor a neighbor who might be a passionateignoramus, a religious fanatic, or a well-meaning, completely uninformed person. Who could rest secure a single night in such a society? (Didsbury, 1994, p. 27) It would be difficult, one suspects, to find two Americanswho could agree on the impact that new forms of communication arelikely to have on the democratic process or, indeed, on our democracy itself. It probably would be equally difficult to find two whowould disagree with the assertion that the nature of political discourseis changing. Around the world, 400 million people a day tune in to "Larry King Live" (Media Studiesiournal, 1994b). The White House receives an average of 26,000 constituent messagesdaily, the majority of them electronically -- a volume so large that it took months for staffers to figure out how to handle it (Lemert, 1994). The most popular aspects of online commercial services now estimated to have more than 6.3 million subscribers nationwide, up 38 percentfrom a year ago (Quill, 1995) have consistently been those that provide a way for people to talk with one another; the number of discussion groups on the Internet, which serve a similar function, is growing sofast that obtaining an accurate count is impossible. All this technologically enabled discourse is alteringthe way Americans participate in the affairs of their nation and therefore, Virtual Anonymity 2 given the representative nature of government, the way the nation conducts its affairs. This paper will examine the ethical implications raised by the uniquely anonymous nature of online political talk. Most discussion about the ethics of online communication to date has centered on one of two issues: either access, and related knowledge-gap concerns about society's haves and have-nots; or privacy, with cogent and urgent questions raised about what legal scholar Anne Branscomb calls "personal autonomy over decisions about how information about [people] is used and when and how it 4.s made public" (1994, p. 183). This paper, however, will focus on a different ethical aspect, one the author believes has not been adequately explored:1 the issues raised by the "virtual anonymity" of political discussion that falls somewhere between face-to-face and mass communication. The first part of the paperexplores the nature of the political messages eXchanged online; the second part considers the multiple roles of the ethical online journalist as an information gatherer and disseminator as well as a community member in this computer-mediated world. If we accept the philosophical notion that a proper action is one that can withstand the glare of publicity (Bok, 1984), what ethical sense can we make of communication that is conductedby individLals sitting in isolation before a computer monitor, yet consists primarily of seeking and finding connections with others sitting elsewhere in similar isolation? And if ethical questions are indeedraised by this computer-screened anonymity, can journalists and their ethical norms provide any answers? Virtual Anonymity 3 THE STUDY This paper is based on the results of research conducted during the 1994 campaign season; information about the methodology used is provided in the endnotes. Messages concerning the elections in three states including particularly heated races in California and Virginia were sampled from among those posted by users of the political bulletin boards on the Prodigy service and America Online (AoL).2In addition, a separate census was taken of Prodigy messages from three political candidates who made "guest appearances" to answer subscribers' questions online during the study period. The most interesting findings concerning online anonymity relate to how individuals used the boards specifically, the nature of their online conversation, and the varying degrees of personal identity and involvement they displayed. (The following discussion concerns messages posted by subscribers to the two services;candidate messages are discussed separately under "Virtual Anonymity.") Exactly half the messages were identified by the researcher as expressions of opinion: people stating their views about any of 42 different candidates, 77 different issues or whatever else happened to be on their minds. (Few of those issues were in line with traditional media campaign coverage, which scholars such as Jamieson (1992) categorize as focusing excessively on strategic concerns such as who is winning at any particular moment and what various candidates are doing about it). This message, posted on AoL on Nov. 5, is an example of an "opinion":3 If North lied to Congress, so what? Congress is