Compilation of Priorities for Social Responsibility Codes in Cyberspace(Case Study: Citizens of Tehran)

Given the unparalleled, extensive, and ever-increasing capabilities of cyberspace, ethical rules seem to be undeniably necessary for such a space. Benefiting from the role of social responsibilities and defining relevant codes are among the neglected capacities to organize and develop ethics in cyberspace. Based on the grounded theory (GT) and mixed methods, semi-structured interviews were first conducted with the experts of communications in this study to extract their proposed social responsibility codes for cyberspace. Then a questionnaire was employed to carry out a survey to evaluate the priorities of those codes from the perspective of Tehran citizens. It is important to devise a prioritization system because it can be used by decision-makers and executives to formulate policies, set rules, and make strategic plans. According to the research results, the proposed social responsibility codes were classified into ten categories: “social relationships”, “privacy, protection, and security”, “family and children”, “e-advertisement and e-commerce”, “unprofessional, annoying, and harmful measures and techniques”, “media literacy”, “content creation”, “intellectual property”, “right to access”, and “Internet service and bandwidth”. From the perspective of cyberspace users in Tehran, social responsibility codes of “social relationships”, “e-advertisement and e-commerce” and “privacy, protection, and security” were the top priorities.