scholarly journals Brands and Consumption in Virtual Worlds

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioanna Nikolaou
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
Great Growth

Virtual worlds, such as Second Life, are rapidly becoming recognized as a technology of substantial future importance for marketers and advertisers due to the great growth of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). In recent years virtual worlds have become highly interactive, collaborative and commercial; these worlds would have the potential to be new channels for marketing content and products, integrating ‘v-commerce’, or ‘virtual e-commerce’. Virtual Worlds clearly demonstrate how the boundaries between the physical and the virtual are becoming more fluid as individuals are interacting with digitally constructed entities. This paper aims to explore the literature in order to illuminate some of the issues related to consumption in virtual worlds and offer a better understanding of virtual participants’ consumption practices.  

Theatre in Second Life® Holds the VR Mirror up to Nature

2011 ◽  
pp. 376-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Schrum
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Creative People ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Definition Of

As creative people inhabit virtual worlds, they bring their ideas for art and performance with them into these brave new worlds. While at first glance, virtual performance may have the outward trappings of theatre, some believe they don’t adhere to the basic traditional definition of theatre: the interaction between an actor and an audience. Detractors suggest that physical presence is required for such an interaction to take place. However, studies have shown that computer mediated communication (CMC) can be as real as face-to-face communication, where emotional response is concerned. Armed with this information, the author can examine how performance in a virtual world such as Second Life may indeed be like “real” theatre, what the possibilities for future virtual performance are, and may require that we redefine theatre for online performance venues.

Transmedia Communication

2013 ◽  
pp. 15-32
Author(s):  
Sharon Stoerger
Keyword(s):  
Continuing Education ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Educational Communication ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Text Chat ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
The Media ◽  
Education Courses

Virtual worlds have the potential to foster new forms of educational communication among students and their instructors. These digital exchanges in virtual worlds are facilitated by computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools such as text-based media and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This chapter will investigate the media that were used to support student-instructor interactions in three continuing education courses situated in Second Life (SL). Based on these observations, text chat was more effective than VoIP at supporting educational discussions during these class sessions.

From CMC Technologies to Social Participation Technologies

2010 ◽  
pp. 627-641 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaka Chaka
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Participation ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Multiplayer Online Games ◽  
Computer Mediated

This chapter characterises the evolution of computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies into social participation technologies (SPTs). With respect to the latter, it explores blogs, social networking sites (e.g., Facebook and MySpace), media sharing sites (e.g., Flickr and YouTube), virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life), massively multiplayer online games (e.g., Lineage and World of Warcraft), and mashups in varying degrees. It also contends that SPTs serve as instances of inscription and attention technologies in relation to users employing them. In addition, it delineates new genres, changing discourses, emerging literacies, online socialised learning and changing learners associated with SPTs. Against this background, the chapter provides, first, a short overview of the evolution of CMC technologies into SPTs. Second, it presents a case for new genres, changing discourses, emerging literacies, online socialised learning and changing learners in the context of SPTs. Last, it outlines some of the future trends likely to influence SPTs in relation to genres, discourses, literacies and online socialised learning.

Virtual worlds and language learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabela Melchor-Couto
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Teacher Perceptions ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
Affective Variables ◽  
One Step ◽  
The Eu

Technology has made an invaluable contribution to foreign language (FL) teaching, particularly so in recent years. The advanced technical capabilities offered by digital games, including voice and text chat, take the use of computer-mediated communication in language learning one step further, allowing for remote, anonymous and situated learner interaction. This article presents an overview on how virtual worlds (VWs) are being used for educational purposes and for FL teaching in particular. A literature review on existing research has been included, covering areas such as FL interaction, impact on affective variables and attitudes towards the use of these environments. Special attention will be devoted to how VW interaction may affect students’ anxiety, motivation and self-efficacy beliefs. Finally, teacher perceptions will be explored through the data collected among 179 secondary school FL teachers participating in the EU-funded TeCoLa project (‘Pedagogical differentiation through telecollaboration and gaming for intercultural and content integrated language teaching’).

Networking Identities

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-42
Author(s):  
Lhoussain Simour
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
New Space ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Virtual Interactions

Electronic connections allow the individual to be at various global sites while sitting in front of his or her computer. By being electronically connected, one’s participation in virtual worlds raises important questions about the nature of our communities and problematizes our identities. This paper examines how experiences in virtual interactions affect people’s real lives and what impact computer mediated communication has on the formation of a virtual community and its relation to individuals’ identities. Virtual communities stimulate experiences that redefine the basic concepts and contexts that have characterized the essence of human societies. They offer new contexts for rethinking the concept of identity and provide a new space for exploring the extent to which participation in computer mediated interaction modifies the subject in terms of identity, leading to a reconstruction and a reconstitution of self.

Networking Identities

2013 ◽  
pp. 235-246
Author(s):  
Lhoussain Simour
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
New Space ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Virtual Interactions

Electronic connections allow the individual to be at various global sites while sitting in front of his or her computer. By being electronically connected, one’s participation in virtual worlds raises important questions about the nature of our communities and problematizes our identities. This paper examines how experiences in virtual interactions affect people’s real lives and what impact computer mediated communication has on the formation of a virtual community and its relation to individuals’ identities. Virtual communities stimulate experiences that redefine the basic concepts and contexts that have characterized the essence of human societies. They offer new contexts for rethinking the concept of identity and provide a new space for exploring the extent to which participation in computer mediated interaction modifies the subject in terms of identity, leading to a reconstruction and a reconstitution of self.

Cybercultures

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sverker Johansson ◽  
Ylva Lindberg
Keyword(s):  
Second Life ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Social Rules ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Continuum

This chapter aims to describe how cultures have emerged in interactions among users of the multitude of online platforms that have become available over the past few decades. It discusses innovations regarding uses of representations to communicate identity, time, and space in social practices with technology, and how cybercultures are played out in theory and in practice. Cybercultures resemble cultures in the non-virtual world—but display significant differences regarding social rules, identity, and spatiotemporal issues. Case studies of three types of cybercultures in social media: information and knowledge building on Wikipedia, culture, and virtual world building on Second Life, and dating practices on online dating services, such as Tinder, will shed light on how cyberspace allows for developing both symbolic representations and social practices through computer-mediated communication (CMC), and how users are situated in the continuum virtual-real.

(Digital) experiences

First Monday ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald E. Day ◽  
Hamid R. Ekbia
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Computer Interaction ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
The Common ◽  
Shed Light

What is digital experience? This question is of interest to different discourse traditions, each of which would answer it differently. The literature in Human-Computer Interaction, Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), virtual worlds, and Artificial Intelligence, for instance, each present distinctive understandings of the concept of 'experience' and, consequently, of 'digital experience.' However, if we start with the concept of experience as an event, the common historical lineage of these distinct understandings reveals itself. We are interested in this historical lineage, and would like to explain 'digital experience' as a historically developing category. For this, we begin by returning to discussions on two modern concepts of experience (Erlebnis and Erfahrung) in the mid-twentieth century works of Martin Heidegger and Walter Benjamin. Then, we discuss three forms of 'digital experience' -- simulated, embedded, and artificial -- and we suggest that these experiences constitute a modern understanding of experience, namely, as a tension between experience as an embedded or 'situated' event and 'experience' as one that is had. By focusing on this tension, we hope to shed light on some of the shared underlying assumptions among disparate discourse traditions.

scholarly journals Networked Worlds: Social Aspects of Multi-User Virtual Reality Technology

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 89-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Virtual Reality Technology ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This paper examines two aspects of multi-user virtual reality (VR) systems; the socio-technical shaping of these systems and the social relations inside multi-user virtual worlds. The paper begins with an overview of the history of networked interactive computer graphics and examines the main factors which are currently shaping networked VR systems. The second part explores the social relations between users inside virtual worlds and makes comparisons with other forms of computer-mediated-communication. In the conclusion, these two parts are linked: how is the development of multi-user virtual reality technology influencing how users interact within virtual worlds - and vice versa?

The Paradox of Computer-Mediated Communication and Identity

2011 ◽  
pp. 1559-1575
Author(s):  
Lynnette G. Leonard ◽  
Lesley A. Withers ◽  
John C. Sherblom
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Thematic Content ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
Constant Comparative Method

Past research on the effects of computer-mediated communication (CMC) on identity has focused either on the inherent risks or opportunities it provides. The authors argue that the paradox within the nature of CMC has led to paradoxical predictions about the effects of CMC on identity. Rather than adopting a naïve perspective focusing on only one side of the paradox, the authors take a view of technological realism in which the paradox is embraced. Guided by these views, the authors analyze 59 students’ papers reflecting on their identity choices in the creation and development of a Second Life avatar. Second Life is a three-dimensional (3D) multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) in which users create avatars (called “residents”) to explore, interact with other residents, learn, recreate, and shop with the local currency (i.e., Linden Dollars; http://secondlife.com/whatis/). Using the constant comparative method for thematic content, themes supporting a paradox of CMC effects on identity are identified from the student papers. The implications of a view of technological realism are offered.

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