Brief history of the 'Virtual'
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Transcript of Brief history of the 'Virtual'
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