Framing media analytics and data ethics
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This document discusses methods for evaluating research quality and ethics in data analysis. It describes key aspects of good research such as being organized, objective, controlled, and empirical. Good research topics are within a line of research, relevant to the real world, possible to conduct, and meaningful. When analyzing data, analysts should use a consistent method, consider the ethical implications of decisions, and protect data quality and confidentiality. The document also identifies potential risks to ethics like prioritizing professional needs over ethics.
Framing media analytics and data ethics
- 3. How do you know when something is true?
- 4. Methods of knowing • Tenacity – It’s true because it has always been true • Intuition – It’s true because it is self- evident • Authority – It’s true because I trust the source
- 5. So what’s the problem?
- 6. Quality research is • Organized • Objective • Controlled • Qualitative or quantitative • Empirical
- 7. Our class
- 8. Good research topics are –In a line of research OR –From the real world –Possible • Scope • Access • Data Quality • Ethical –Meaningful
- 9. The ethics of analysts
- 10. Framework • Decisions have ethical implications • Decisions should be made with a consistent method
- 11. • Data – a record (can be tangible or electronic) that is used as a basis for decision-making, discussion or calculation that requires processing and/or analysis to have meaning • Data Scientist – A professional who uses the scientific method to answer questions with data • Data quality – the truthfulness of data
- 12. • Signal – a meaningful interpretation of data that is based on scientific evidence and knowledge • Noise – other interpretations of data • Algorithm – a set of rules used in problem solving
- 13. Should she? • The University of Central Carolinistan has a pretty good Propaganda department. They do student evaluations of courses, and the propaganda department, which taught 2,000 class sections, had an average score of 5.37 on these evaluations. The entire university average across 10,000 sections was 5.35. The head bureaucrat sends out a press release saying Propaganda is better than the University as a whole. Should she?
- 14. • Statistics – collecting and analyzing numbers in large quantities • Statistical significance – a statistical assessment of whether the observed finding is real or caused by chance • Causation – a relationship between a first and second phenomenon in which the second is a consequence of the first. • Spurious correlation – a relationship caused by a hidden or lurking variable
- 17. • Ludic fallacy – thinking the real world (complex!) is comparable to the models used in experiments and modeled with math • Naïve interventionism – preferring to do something over nothing when nothing may be more appropriate • Naïve rationalism – belief that explanations will necessarily follow investigations
- 18. Humans are rational beings Humans want to maximize utility (get the most for themselves out of a transaction)
- 19. Explain charity
- 20. Risks to ethics • Hammurabi Risk Management – the builder knows more than the inspector and can hide flaws in the foundations • Ethical inversion – putting the needs of the profession ahead of the ethics (aka politics) • Narrative fallacy – the need to fit a story to a set of facts
- 21. • Why did Donald Trump get elected president? – Narrative: disenfranchised working class voters – Narrative: the Russians did it
- 22. Recognizing ethical risk spots? • Could the action be damaging to people or community? • Does the action have ramifications beyond legal or institutional concerns?
- 23. Ethics and data • Analysts shouldn’t attempt to provide explanations beyond their ability • Analysts should provide their methods, to the ability of their client to understand, including limitations of the data and the insights • Analysts should protect confidential information • Analysts should avoid conflicts of interest • Analysts should use the data science method – Careful observation – Analysis for potential meaning – Formation of hypotheses – Empirical testing of hypotheses