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Introduction

This piece of writing will help me to bring out the purpose and main idea of my research by identifying the research question and determine the scope of my researching. Also this part of the research proposal will make it easier to structure my research paper.
Moreover, it will help me to summarize the literature that already describe my topic and find so called “uncharted areas” in this field.
Also it will prepare a reader for better realizing the aims and ideas of my research. It will help him/her to understand the organization of my paper and to follow my way of thinking.

To the end of this paper I am going to specify the task of my research by finding more concrete issues and make them clear to a reader. Also I am planning to make review of existing sources and to clarify whether they discover the same issues. Also I will choose the methods for my researching, selecting that ones that will help me to make a qualitative analysis of the issue.

My target audience is people, who are interested in social aspects and ethical issues of the Internet usage and sharing information.
It is not necessary for them to have a technical education to understand the topic. But it should be people who have an experience of social networks use.

Body

My research question is How does the information, shared by social network users, can influence other user’s moral identity. I chose this topic because when I became an active user of one of the social network, I was faced with a problem, that other people can add different kinds of information about me without my knowledge and consent. It led me to the idea, that it can cause a lot of problems for users in some cases.

To my opinion, uncontrolled sharing of information about others can negatively impact their moral identity and cause misrepresentation of their identity-relevant information. The more specific issues, that I would like to research, are:
1) In which way can people spread information about others?
2) Who is responsible for information that has been shared?
3) How does the legislation influence the policy of information sharing?
4) Are the users satisfied by current situation?
5) What policy of information sharing would users prefer?

The issue of privacy in the Internet is very important nowadays, that is why some researches have been already done in this field. However, they were concentrated on general aspects of privacy and considered the influence that can have information, provided by users by themselves. The case, when information is shared by strangers, is more specific and it has not been discovered completely yet.

Some articles, such as “4chan, Anonymity and Contingency” by Lee Knuttila and “Transparency as a Catalyst for Interaction and Participation in Open Learning Environments” by Thomas P. Mackey describe the benefits of keeping privacy and anonymity in the Internet. The article “Understanding Latent Interactions in Online Social Networks”, written by Jing Jiang, Christo Wilson, Xiao Wang, Peng Huang, Wenpeng Sha, Yafei Dai, Ben Y.Zhao, describes the issue of popularity in social networks and how ties between users affect their popularity rank.

As the methods of my research I am going to use data analysis (to try to answer the first three questions), interviews and survey (for the last two). I am planning to use interviews on the first steps of researching because detailed answers of social networks users will help me to make a question list for my further survey. During the survey I am going to ask at least 50 people about their opinion of privacy problems in social networks.

There are some conferences where I can present my research:

1) UK social networks conference
The UK Social Networks Conference offers an interdisciplinary venue for social and behavioural scientists, sociologists, educationalists, political scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists, practitioners and others to present their work in the area of social networks.
2) Privacy and Information Security Congress
The conference draws an international audience with an interest in cutting edge policy, programs, research and technologies aimed at the protection of privacy and security.
3) Applications of Social Network Analysis
ASNA 2011 is organized by the Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (c2d), the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research (IPMZ) and the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development at the University of Zurich as well as the Institute for Environmental Decisions (IED) at the ETH Zurich.

Peer reviewed journals, where my research can be published:
1) The Information Society
The Information Society is a multidisciplinary journal intended to answer questions about the Information Age. It provides a forum for thoughtful commentary and discussion of significant topics in the world of information, such as transborder data flow, regulatory issues, the impact of the information industry, information as a determinant of public and private organizational performance, and information and the sovereignty of the public and private organizational performance, and information and the sovereignty of the public. Its papers analyze information policy issues affecting society.
2) European Journal of Law and Technology (EJLT)
The European Journal of Law and Technology (EJLT) is a refereed open access journal focusing on issues of law and technology in a European context.
3) Security Dialogue
Security Dialogue is a fully peer-reviewed and highly ranked international bi-monthly journal that seeks to combine contemporary theoretical analysis with challenges to public policy across a wide ranging field of security studies.

Conclusions

In this research proposal the ethic issues of sharing information were considered on the example of social networks users. Before the research began the existing scientific literature was examined and it became clear that it does not describe the problem in this specific context. That was the reason to carry out some qualitative research for improving this “uncharted area”. Due to selected methods it became possible to analyze the issue and to perform the task of the research.

Lee Knuttila. User Unknown: 4chan, Anonymity and Contingency. First Monday, Volume 16, Number 10 – 3 October 2011.

This article describes the phenomenon of anonymity using an example of web-site 4chan.org – a site with anonymous users with uncensored content, that includes humor, geek cultures, fierce debates and pornography. The author contrasts anonymous community to the trend of social networks’ spreading. By analyzing the history of 4chan.org, it’s content, interface and investigation of the aims of it’s users, the article throws light upon nature of being in terms of philosophical traditions of ontology and some ethnographic questions. Also the author expresses his opinion, according to which the culture of anonymity will remain dominant and will not be displaced by social networking, that provide the connection with physical world outside. This article is important because it describes huge creative force of such kind anonymous communities, while usually they are considered as abhorrent and unpleasant.

Jennifer R. Whitson, Claire Dormann. Social Gaming for Change: Facebook Unleashed. First Monday, Volume 16, Number 10 – 3 October 2011

In this article social change games (SCG) are considered from the point of view their benefit for players and developing certain qualities of characters. Both positive and negative outcomes of SCG in Facebook are described. One of the main issues of SCG is the lack of socio–emotional involvement of users in a game. The authors argue that Facebook in a good platform for SCG due to it’s ability to solve current problems, such as the lack of social interaction and to use built–in tools that collect user metrics. A new strategy of SCG design is proposed in the article. Due to this strategy it will become possible to connect gamers to others in their community and develop, facilitate social change and responsible decision–making.

Thomas P. Mackey. Transparency as a Catalyst for Interaction and Participation in Open Learning Environments. First Monday, Volume 16, Number 10 – 3 October 2011

This article describes features of open learning and emphasizes the role of transparency in it. According to the article, transparency helps to collaborate in Web 2.0 environment, providing interactivity and participation. The author states that transparency is very important for the design of dynamic open learning spaces. The literature review, done by the author, describes trends in open learning and the progress of transparency over time. Using specific examples, the author defines the essential elements of transparent design. The aim of the article is to prove the necessity of transparency for interaction between a teacher and a learner and visualizing of it’s results.

Jing Jiang, Christo Wilson, Xiao Wang, Peng Huang, Wenpeng Sha, Yafei Dai, Ben Y.Zhao. Understanding Latent Interactions in Online Social Networks. Proceedings of The 10th ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC 2010)

The topic of this article is observing human social behavior in social networks. To perform the study, it was taken data from Renren, one of the biggest Chinese social networks. The observation showed that latent interactions, such as profile browsing, are more prevalent than active (visible) events. Also it was told that the profile popularity doesn’t depend on the content update frequency. By analyzing retrieved data a model of using social networks was designed. Due to this studying a deeper understanding of both visible and latent user interactions became possible.

This blog was created as a place where I will share my ideas and present my assignments for Critical Information Management course (XENI004).

I will be glad to see you here, your comments and constructive criticism are always welcome!