A short history of

“the virtual”

1975 MUD

1978 BBS

Anonymity

>JK Jacobus: Hi…

Anonymity

Avatars

Identity

Academics

• Psychology of online gaming, BBSs and workplace email

• Social psychology of Computer mediated communication (CMC)– Reduced Cues theories etc– Enhanced social cues– Effects on communities and decision making

• Identity in MUDs (e.g. Turkle)

Virtual Community

1990s Community threats

Putman – Bowling Alone, social capital argumentTrust, social cohesion, social exclusionKraut et al 1997 – reduction in community

participationWellman et al 1998 – Reverse. networked

individualismSocial network analysis. Weak tie/strong tie‘Glocalism’Imagined Communities, Third SpacesCommunity online or online community

Cyberspace

Where the banks ‘keep’ your money

Virtual Worlds

Information Society theories• Surveillance Society• Digital Economy• Virtual organisations• Post-industrial society• Post-modern society• Virtual Community• Post-nation-state• Space of Flows• Flexible, non-hierarchical• Death of Distance• Simulations

2000s Use of internet• USA 76% of adults (Pew May 08) 24%• UK 67% (OxII 2007) 33% non-users

Gossip

Participation

• Posting to the Internet

• OIS 2005

Dense communications: multi-modality

New Virtual

• Data trails become a shadow of reality

• ‘Real’ virtual spaces, Simulations of ‘reality’• e,.g. Maps, databases

How is real world modelled, controlled, virtual world linked to ‘real’ world?

Virtual Presence

Pure virtual -Mixed reality

• No longer a minority interest – core to all social, economic and political activities

• Mediated sociality. IT appropriated to facilitate forms of symbolic interaction

• New forms of community, new structures of society

Concerns• Dangers – esp children, policy for

this. Stalking, bullying• Relationships between children and

parents• Transferable social capital from

purely online domains.• Generation issues in participation• Building trust – experience of trust• Digital exclusion• Microsocial habits• How do communities work in age of

network individualism, CMC etc• Global subcultures• Criminality• Migration – international networks• Privacy – changing concepts of

privacy

• Privatisation of public space• Networked organisation of work• ‘Flexiblity’• telework• New forms of interactions and

communities• New roles for virtual objects and

exchanges• Intimacy and the net• Memory that never dies• Future of neighbourhood• New politics

Implications for methods

• Stage 1 – study how people interact using electronic media

• Stage 2 – study of ‘virtual’ spaces and relationships

• Stage 3 – electronic comms, organisation, community and identity in everyday life – look at the interactions

• Stage 4 – Normalisation of CMC – any social research includes virtual spaces, sources and relationships

Sources• Email exchanges• Blog posts• Mailing lists and discussion

groups• Chat and ‘realtime’ online logs• Video and audio

communocations – prerecorded and ‘live’

• Social network sites• Microblogging – twitter etc• Realtime recording of

everything• PO at a distance.

• Huge datasets• Crowdsourcing• Mobile logging• Real-time questionnaires

• Transparent communities• Status of texts• Ethics of PO