Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Blog ethics

I've just deleted my most current blog post, where I scanned and made anonymous a very absurd and awful paper a student turned in to me. I blocked out his name and made no reference to the course. In the paper, he references how "hip" he is, four times, and that he's "neato". The joke is that for his grand sense of self, the paper had absolutely no academic content or value, other than being ridiculous. After tonight's blogging/new media and ethics discussion in my History of Media, Art and Text course, I ran home with such an immense sense of guilt and terror. Though all efforts were made to keep the student's identity unavailable, I think the potential for trouble was imminent. I kept thinking, as I practically ran through campus, I'm fucked. I'm fucked for finding something funny and posting it in this wasteland. The fact that I covered his identity isn't enough to cover my ass because really, I compromised my integrity as a professor. Lesson learned. More than a lesson, a hands-on, tangible, worldly, first time ever brush with the underbelly of the internet. You can get the gist of the idiocy in the paper without me posting a scanned image of it; the above paraphrase seems to suffice. What I'm afraid of, sincerely afraid of, is that what I post on my PhD mandated blog will one come back with a vengeance and keep me from landing a job, grants, respect. I bitch all the time about media ethics, low standards, inaccuracy, and here I go and do exactly what I've found to be distasteful. No sense in beating myself up over it, damage averted for now. But my filter is up and that does make me a little sad. Now I have to censor myself in this forum, which I didn't want to think was possible. Alas, repercussions are so "in". And so traceable! It would probably be better if I posted drunken photos. I'll leave that to myspace.

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