The following is an excerpt from an e-mail I recently wrote, which I later realized would be an applicable subject here. I've spruced it up a bit to make it something other than a letter, but if you're the recipient of the letter and want me to take this down, let me know and it's gone. It deals with whether or not it is appropriate to speak of a code of ethics for blogs.

When discussing a code of ethics for blogs, one generally thinks of the blogger-as-reporter paradigm. Yet this lays certain traps because it linguistically it refers to a medium, when it intends to refer to a use of a medium. To speak of a universal code of ethics one would have to consider blogs that do not always see their purpose as entirely journalistic, like music blogs, tech blogs, gossip blogs, as well as the socially-localized personal blogs that dominate the medium. In some of these contexts, speaking of a universal code of ethics doesn't make too much sense, since informal, unique codes arise through the interaction between the bloggers within sub-network groups. For instance, a group of high-schoolers with blogs written for consumption by their friends will (and, I would say, should) have a very different code than someone blogging for the New York Times. The problem with this many codes-of-ethics view could be that it leans overly populist or relativist at times, but ultimately any code of ethics is going to be determined through the interaction of bloggers and readers, regardless of other concerns.

That said, any individual blogger who takes themselves reasonably seriously would be able to describe a code that s/he follows or ascribes to - that's simply good (public) writing. I have a different sets of ethical practices for the blog I edit for the day-job, Swarming Media, and the other blogs I've started in the past. These came about largely in relation to the other blogs in the topic-field, the context (corporate, academic, personal, artistic, journalistic etc), and how I expect readers to interact with the blog. In this sense, a code of ethics becomes a socially and collectively determined thing - one that is relevant usually only to the readers and blogs within close network-proximity.

Ultimately, this comes down to the question that always arises in media studies: are we talking about content or medium? When it comes to blogs, there are certain medium-specific properties that differentiate it from other media and are used to great advantage in a number of blogs. At the same time, while these properties are quite worthy of analysis, how they are used, who they are used by, and at whom they are directed will determine a large portion of their cultural, political, and social significance - including ethically.