Imaginary Self: Virtual Women Personae in Second Life (SL) (original) (raw)
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Digital games are cultural representations that convey the gender system. The narratives of gender that have shaped the gaming industry since the 1980s were influenced by gender stereotypes. The representation of the female, although based on stereotypes, has evolved hand in hand with the representation of women in other media. But what happens when players are given the opportunity to develop their digital representatives? Virtual worlds are among the online games that allow a higher degree of personalization of the avatar and, in order to contribute to a better understanding of how gender identities are being performed within these environments, this paper will present a case study of Second Life. A qualitative methodology was used based on netnographic research. The data collection methods included participant observation and auto-netnography. The researchers would like to propose that to examine how gender is represented in games that enable the creation of the avatar allows to ...
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What do interactions in virtual spaces suggest about everyday life in the digital age? How do interactions in virtual spaces shape everyday life in the digital age? Guided by hypermodern theory, I conduct participant observation in the social virtual world Second Life to provide tentative answers to those questions. I suggest that Second Life is both a social psychological playground where participants enjoy individualistic fantasies and a virtual community where they collaborate on collective projects. When people define the virtual as real, it is real in its consequences. Accordingly, social virtual spaces such as Second Life offer sociologists unique opportunities for research, education, intervention, and hence, the development of a virtual imagination.
THE PRESENTATION OF AVATARS IN SECOND LIFE: SELF AND INTERACTION IN SOCIAL VIRTUAL SPACES
What do interactions in virtual spaces suggest about everyday life in the digital age? How do interactions in virtual spaces shape everyday life in the digital age? Guided by hypermodern theory, I conduct participant observation in the social virtual world Second Life to provide tentative answers to those questions. I suggest that Second Life is both a social psychological playground where participants enjoy individualistic fantasies and a virtual community where they collaborate on collective projects. When people define the virtual as real, it is real in its consequences. Accordingly, social virtual spaces such as Second Life offer sociologists unique opportunities for research, education, intervention, and hence, the development of a virtual imagination.
Virtual Bodies: Representations of Gender & Sexuality in the Virtual Space
Virtual reality (VR) is a term that identifies computer generated environments that involves various forms and levels of interaction and immersion with the users’ position and surroundings. Originally inspired by science fiction, today virtual reality is commonly used in entertainment industry, in tactical combat stimulations, medicine, psychology and aviation. With a revenue of products that is expected to reach 5.2 billion USD in 2018 and a dramatic rise of users from 6.7 Million in 2015 to 43 Million user in 2016 (Statista, 2016) VR platforms manifests themselves as a mecca for a wide range of users from teenagers to 40+ users where everyone can exist in their own forms (a.k.a Avatars or Aliases). VR and Augmented Reality (AR) applications form a type of Heterotopia that Foucault described as seemingly open spaces, where the only initiated body can access (Vidler; Foucault; Johnston, 2014, p.22). From gaming, chat rooms, to artworks; initiation options vary in hardware from PCs (46% of users in 2016), to Gaming Consoles (28% of users in 2016) to Mobile (26% of users in 2016). Its projection also extend to real world communities, real life relationships, and a separate virtual economy; VR and AR are topics that raises many questions on the political, economic, social and theoretical level, that deserves analysis and study. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) as the founding fields that creates VR has long been dominated by males, Cyberfeminism and Cyborg feminism were theories that revolutionized the way we see gender in technology; Cyberfeminism emerged out of the awareness to the male dominance of technology, and encouraged ‘women’ to engage more with technology. It had two opinions within: One that favored existing outside the label of feminisms seeking the push for more knowledge of new media technologies as is, and the other that saw critical participation that surpasses the call for “all girls need modems” (Consalvo, 2003, p.2) as crucial to not only be an active participant of decision and policy making, but also to be able to utilize the mediums and tools we have to help everyone outside the Western, White, Technologically Privileged population online and offline (Consalvo, 2012). On another side stood Cyborg Feminism with the foundational work “A Cyborg Manifesto” (Haraway, 1991), that discussed the human-machine symbiosis, abolishing all boundaries of sex and gender, to establish the multi-gendered, multi-sexed, and non-binary “Cyborg”. This also opens the door for the role of corporeality and gender by Judith Butler (Butler, 1990), and the similarity between the fluid geographic nature of VR and fluid representations of its inhabitants. The paper the debates and previous discussion a topic that is relatively new in theoretical discussions; this paper tries to explore various gender theories and technology with focus on virtual realm, it explores various forms of virtual spaces, various gender and sexuality representations in them, and whether or not they are manifested in the same way real life is. It argues that virtual reality as a realm of parallel existence, as a heterotopic realm can be as space of amplifying the sexual representational norms that exists in real life, and yet also manage to create its own rule of the game. It uses the world of “Second life” as a focus of study, both by the author of the paper, or by other studies conducted on Second Life population.
This is an autoethnographic study of one person's experience performing across gender lines in Second Life. Although there is a rich literature on gender crossing in virtual worlds, dating back to the text-only days, there are few ethnographic reports and fewer still from the vantage point of the performer. The paper is presented as a narrative recounting, alternating voice between the performed female persona in the virtual world and the author's performed male identity in real life. Taking the perspective of Queer Theory, the paper problematizes gender performance in any world, and takes tentative steps toward expanding the notion of identity queering to nonsexual aspects of the individual as well as the prospect of "queering reality" itself.
Communication of self and cyberlife through avatars in Second Life online communities
2015
Virtual worlds are becoming more and more recognized for its social capabilities. It's making a splash on the global scale as the use for virtual worlds is surpassing the expected means of the creators. The purpose of this study is to investigate how users in the virtual world of Second Life identify themselves with fellow users through their Avatars through the theory of narrative identity. In the virtual world of Second Life, there are many different avenues that users can express themselves, through the narrative plot analysis these avenues will show the relation to the users and self. .