Online PHD Degree In Dubai Presentation

1
Second Life

• a brief introduction to a new virtual playground
• Graham Bell
• Online PhD Uuniversity Student

2
What I will be talking about

• 1. My project - a very short summary and some
  theoretical approaches to the study of computer
  mediated communication in a graphical virtual
  world context
• 2. Second Life - an introduction, some facts and
  the history behind the world.
• 3. Second life - Literary influence, cyberpunk,
  structure of play, how to get settle, player
  behaviour and virtual identity.

3
Social realities of virtual worlds

• A study of human interaction and socialization
  within non-role play graphical virtual worlds
  (Mainly Second Life, but might also to a lesser
  extent do some interviews in the graphical
  virtual world named There)
• My aim is to illuminate some social communicative
  aspects of virtual worlds.
• I am interested in how players, or inhabitants as
  they usually are called, contemplate their
  identity and their relationship to others while
  being in-world. I am interested in how they
  choose to present themselves and how the identity
  one chooses for the virtual world influences how
  one behaves, communicate, interact and simply
  comprehend being an avatar. I also on a more
  theoretical level want to compare and reflect
  about how GVW are structured for sociability and
  play compared to other more traditional forms of
  computer mediated play (Tetris, MUDs, MMOG).
• I use what has become named virtual ethnography
  as my preferred method, which means immersing
  myself in the virtual environment doing in-depth
  interviews. I will strive to establish a close
  relationship with my interviewees which involves
  trying to keep in touch with them on a weekly
  basis for several months. Because of the nature
  of my study I am especially interested in
  immersed inhabitants (or hard-core gamers), that
  is players who are logged on for several hours a
  day.
• In one way or the other, all my articles tries to
  grasp something about the sociability and the
  potential for expression of self in virtual
  worlds. In that regard I am interested in how
  people behave and socialize in the virtual world,
  as well as how they contemplate and relate their
  online behaviour to their offline behaviour.

4
Studying computer mediated communication

• When studying how people communicate/express
  themselves in a VW in particular, and in
  computer-mediated-communication in general, one
  traditionally investigate the limitation, or the
  differences, of VW-communication compared to
  RW-communication. Or put differently, how the
  medium at hand change/alter the communication
  compared to face-to-face communication. In other
  words we study how people are able to overcome
  and find other means to express themselves when
  real life communication tools, such as bodily
  and facial expressions, as well as tone of voice
  and the ability to feel and touch are deprived
  them.
• To illuminate this point If the interface of a
  VW becomes to real, that is, if we no longer are
  able to notice the interface (keystrokes and
  mouse clicks) but simply are present with our
  physical bodies within the virtual space
  (Matrix), it will no longer be interesting to
  study the mediation of the interaction (which is
  what I do), since then we in fact will be
  studying the purest form of human communication
  (FtF), not the a mediated one. (Put differently
  one would no longer need media sociologists but
  simply sociologists...) So, what I am studying is
  really the effects and consequences of the
  mediated communication among people in a GVW
• Earlier studies on textual virtual worlds, also
  called Multi user dungeons (MUDs) have emphasized
  the significance of elements such as name and
  style of writing. Since one in a textual world is
  unable to express facial emotions, a unique
  computer mediated language has emerged, which are
  meant to function as substitutes for the physical
  gestures we use in real life, like an iconic
  smiling face created with colon and parenthesis
  ) (
• What the example of textual virtual world
  illustrates is that people uses the means
  available to them to express themselves. In SL,
  in addition to text, one also has a graphical
  persona and the opportunity (though seldom used)
  to use ones real voice when interacting with
  other avatars. Given the novelty of virtual
  bodily experience I am especially interested in
  investigating the how the new graphical
  experience influences upon issues such as
  avatar-to-avatar relationship, understanding of
  self as well as topics of conversation.

5
Second Life -A short introduction

• Second Life is a 3D graphical virtual world
  almost entirely built and owned by its residents.
  Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown
  to around 10 million registered users
  (inhabitants), although rarely more than 50 000
  are online simultaneously, and about 1,5 million
  have usually logged on during a 60 day period
• SL was created and developed by Linden Lab, a San
  Francisco-based company founded by Philip
  Rosedale. More specific, what Rosedale and Linden
  Lab have created is a platform and some tools for
  creating content. They have in other words
  outsourced the building of the world to the
  players.
• Almost all the objects you will find in Second
  Life are created and built from solids (3D
  geometric shapes) called prims. These prims can
  assume any shape you want, and are the basic
  building blocks of the virtual world, like atoms
  in the RW.
• Second Life attempts to replicate the basic
  elements of the real world. It features men and
  women, land and sky, day and night, flowers and
  trees. You can build houses and shop, you can
  work or play, you can make, save or spend money,
  you can hang around in bars, watch bands, go on
  dates or simply choose to stay home.

6

• SL consist of interlinked regions that contain
  land, water, and sky where each region has an
  area of approximately 65 thousand sl square
  meters (US195 monthly land-use fee).
• Sl residents often refer to regions as sims -
  short for simulators. This is because originally,
  one server or simulator held one entire region.
  (Now there are two regions per server, but the
  old name has stuck). SL regions are both
  geographical and administrative units they are
  governed by rules and regulations that may change
  from region to region governed by a given set of
  rules which the owner(s) of the region define.(
  That is the person who pays for it)
• There is an internal currency with real market
  exchange, where Linden Dollars change hands every
  month for the goods and services residents create
  and provide. (with an exchange rate on L300 to
  US1)
• From June 2003 resident creations have been
  protected by copyright/permission system. This
  means that you and not LL are the owner of the
  things you make in-world. For instance, a SL
  resident, Kermit Quirk created a game called
  Tringo which could be played inside SL only.
  Quirk went on to sell the game to Nintendo which
  made an offline version on their Game Boy
  Advance. There are also a number of opportunities
  for making money (Lindens) in-world. One could
  for instance develop and design everything from
  pets, vehicles, clothes, to avatar skins.
• One could compare the openness of SL to the
  openness of the worlds first mass produced
  computer The Apple II (1976), which was an ideal
  computer for anyone who wanted to produce
  software (content) and make profit from their
  creations. This because apples engineers
  (wozniak) chosed to be open about design and
  documentation, hence, making it easy for everyone
  with the abilities to develop software that
  worked with their hardware. In other words, much
  like SL innovators.

7
LITERARY INFLUENCE

• Like many other virtual worlds or massively
  multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGS),
  Second Life owes much of its existence to the
  imagination of great authors, but rather than
  medieval fantasy writers like J.R.R Tolkien,
  which has influenced online games such as World
  of Warcraft and Everquest. Second life takes its
  inspiration from the science fiction genre, that
  is from the cyberpunk and the so-called
  post-cyberpunk genre.
• Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab and the
  inventor of Second Life has publicly recognized
  the cyberpunk novel Snow Crash as of great
  inspiration for him when he created SL, and that
  Snow Crash has the closest practical
  resemblance to Second Life as it exists today a
  parallel, immersive world which simulates an
  alternate universe, which thousands of people
  inhabit simultaneously for communication, play
  and work, at various levels and variations of
  role playing with their avatars.

8
(No Transcript)