Four ethical elements to blogging, but bloggers 'see no need'

New research suggests that while there may be four main underlying ethical drivers in blogging, bloggers don’t see the need for a code of ethics.
I was trying to get a framework together for assessing trust of online media previously, and have since come across a site with some research carried out by undergraduate students at Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore.

They undertook a brief literature review of online ethics, netiquette and nethics. The study drew four main areas, and broke them down into their component parts:

• Truth telling – honesty fairness, equality and completeness in reporting;
• Accountability – answerable to the public, honesty in one’s work, revealing conflicts of interest, and bearing consequences of one’s actions;
• Minimising harm – privacy, confidentiality, flaming, consideration of others’ feelings, respecting diverse cultures and underprivileged groups;
• Attribution – plagiarism, honouring intellectual property rights, and giving proper credit to sources.

One broad conclusion from the survey is that “bloggers currently do not perceive a strong need for a blogging code of ethics.” However, the researchers perceived a difference between people writing personal weblogs and those writing blogs for other reasons.

Personal bloggers were more concerned with attribution and minimising harm, others valued attribution and truth telling the most. Personal bloggers were also perceived to be “less consistent in practicing the ethics they said they valued”. Non-personal bloggers were perceived to bring a more ‘journalistic’ approach.

Matt