Ørecomm Festival: Live-reporting Ethics

The Ørecomm Festival will have many academics presenting their, in some cases unpublished, research. We encourage live-reporting through social media and think it’s a good way of engaging with what’s going on during the festival, creating possibilities for further reflections.

But to make sure all our speakers can rest calm that sharing their ideas with the rest of the world is to their benefit, we have collected a few rules of thumb on live-reporting in academic contexts, based on Ernesto Priegos article (1) on the subject:

1. Be clear in your posts about who is saying what. If you don’t attribute and/or use quotation marks when reporting what has been said, people can (and rightly will) assume it’s you saying it.
2. If you are quoting directly, use quotation marks. Think direct and indirect reported speech. Attribute other people’s ideas or anything else you quote. It’s not just good manners, it’s professional ethics.
3. Even if you completely disagree with what is being said, always be polite and respectful. Don’t post anything you wouldn’t say to a person or group face-to-face.
4. Enjoy it. Live-reporting should be fun, empowering and inspiring.

All our speakers have been informed about live-reporting and photographing. Do however take care not to publish a big number of pictures of one single speaker, without asking for permission.

Ørecomm Festival hashtag: #orecomm2013

(1) Freelance researcher affiliated with the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities.