The Social Life of Avatars
The Social Life of Avatars

Author: Ralph Schroeder

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1447102770

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Virtual reality (VR) technology has been developed commercially since the early 1990s [1]. Yet it is only with the growth of the Internet and other high-bandwidth links that VR systems have increasingly become networked to allow users to share the same virtual environment (VE). Shared YEs raise a number of interesting questions: what is the difference between face-to-face interaction and interaction between persons inside YEs? How does the appearance of the "avatar" - as the graphical representation of the user has become known - change the nature of interaction? And what governs the formation of virtual communities? This volume brings together contributions from social scientists and computer scientists who have conducted research on social interaction in various types of YEs. Two previous volumes in this CSCW book series [2, 3] have examined related aspects of research on YEs - social navigation and collaboration - although they do not always deal with VRIVEs in the sense that it is used here (see the definition in Chapter 1). The aim of this volume is to explore how people interact with each other in computer-generated virtual worlds.

Coming of Age in Second Life
Coming of Age in Second Life

Author: Tom Boellstorff

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2015-08-25

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 0691168342

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Millions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second Life is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. The residents of Second Life create communities, buy property and build homes, go to concerts, meet in bars, attend weddings and religious services, buy and sell virtual goods and services, find friendship, fall in love--the possibilities are endless, and all encountered through a computer screen. At the time of its initial publication in 2008, Coming of Age in Second Life was the first book of anthropology to examine this thriving alternate universe. Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He conducted his research as the avatar "Tom Bukowski," and applied the rigorous methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group. Coming of Age in Second Life shows how virtual worlds can change ideas about identity and society. Bringing anthropology into territory never before studied, this book demonstrates that in some ways humans have always been virtual, and that virtual worlds in all their rich complexity build upon a human capacity for culture that is as old as humanity itself. Now with a new preface in which the author places his book in light of the most recent transformations in online culture, Coming of Age in Second Life remains the classic ethnography of virtual worlds.

Avatars at Work and Play
Avatars at Work and Play

Author: Ralph Schroeder

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-07-08

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1402038984

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Avatars at Work and Play brings together contributions from leading social scientists and computer scientists who have conducted research on virtual environments used for collaboration and online gaming. They present a well-rounded and state-of-the-art overview of current applications of multi-user virtual environments, ranging from highly immersive virtual reality systems to internet-based virtual environments on personal computers. The volume is a follow-up to a previous essay collection, ‘The Social Life of Avatars’, which explored general issues in this field. This collection goes further, examining uses of shared virtual environments in practical settings such as scientific collaboration, distributed meetings, building models together, and others. It also covers online gaming in virtual environments, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of users and presents an opportunity for studying a myriad of social issues. Covering both ‘work’ and ‘play’, the volume brings together issues common to the two areas, including: What kind of avatar appearance is suitable for different kinds of interaction? How best to foster collaboration and promote usable shared virtual spaces? What kinds of activities work well in different types of virtual environments and systems?

I, Avatar
I, Avatar

Author: Mark Stephen Meadows

Publisher: New Riders

Published: 2007-12-27

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0132704862

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What is an avatar? Why are there nearly a billion of them, and who is using them? Do avatars impact our real lives, or are they just video game conceits? Is an avatar an inspired rendering of its creator’s inner self, or is it just one among millions of anonymous vehicles clogging the online freeways? Can we use our avatars to really connect with people, or do they just isolate us? And as we become more like our avatars do they become more like us? In I, Avata r, Mark Stephen Meadows answers some of these questions, but more importantly, he raises hundreds of others in his exploration of avatars and the fascinating possibilities they hold. His examination of avatars through the lenses of sociology, psychology, politics, history, and art, he will change the way you look at even a simple online profile and revolutionize the idea of avatars as part of our lives, whether first or second.

Avatars at Work and Play
Avatars at Work and Play

Author: Ralph Schroeder

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-02-06

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 9781402038839

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Avatars at Work and Play brings together contributions from leading social scientists and computer scientists who have conducted research on virtual environments used for collaboration and online gaming. They present a well-rounded and state-of-the-art overview of current applications of multi-user virtual environments, ranging from highly immersive virtual reality systems to internet-based virtual environments on personal computers. The volume is a follow-up to a previous essay collection, ‘The Social Life of Avatars’, which explored general issues in this field. This collection goes further, examining uses of shared virtual environments in practical settings such as scientific collaboration, distributed meetings, building models together, and others. It also covers online gaming in virtual environments, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of users and presents an opportunity for studying a myriad of social issues. Covering both ‘work’ and ‘play’, the volume brings together issues common to the two areas, including: What kind of avatar appearance is suitable for different kinds of interaction? How best to foster collaboration and promote usable shared virtual spaces? What kinds of activities work well in different types of virtual environments and systems?

Hello Avatar
Hello Avatar

Author: B. Coleman

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2011-11-04

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 026230273X

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An examination of our many modes of online identity and how we live on the continuum between the virtual and the real. Hello Avatar! Or, {llSay(0, "Hello, Avatar!"); is a tiny piece of user-friendly code that allows us to program our virtual selves. In Hello Avatar, B. Coleman examines a crucial aspect of our cultural shift from analog to digital: the continuum between online and off-, what she calls the “x-reality” that crosses between the virtual and the real. She looks at the emergence of a world that is neither virtual nor real but encompasses a multiplicity of network combinations. And she argues that it is the role of the avatar to help us express our new agency—our new power to customize our networked life. By avatar, Coleman means not just the animated figures that populate our screens but the gestalt of images, text, and multimedia that make up our online identities—in virtual worlds like Second Life and in the form of email, video chat, and other digital artifacts. Exploring such network activities as embodiment, extreme (virtual) violence, and the work in virtual reality labs, and offering sidebar interviews with designers and practitioners, she argues that what is new is real-time collaboration and copresence, the way we make connections using networked media and the cultures we have created around this. The star of this drama of expanded horizons is the networked subject—all of us who represent aspects of ourselves and our work across the mediascape.

Avatars!
Avatars!

Author: Bruce Damer

Publisher: Addison Wesley Longman

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 604

ISBN-13: 9780201688405

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With "Avatars!", readers can grab their avatar (a digital representation of themselves) and run to the nearest virtual world where they can experience the Internet. "Avatars!" focuses on what people do inside virtual worlds, such as building three-dimensional structures, navigating through the worlds, and learning digital etiquette and social interaction skills. A CD-ROM provides readers with ready-to-run worlds that connect them with thousands of other people on the Internet, and which are referenced in a companion Web site.

The Social Life of Avatars
The Social Life of Avatars

Author: Ralph Schroeder

Publisher:

Published: 2002-01-10

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 9781447102786

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Virtual reality technology has been developed commercially since the early 1990s but it is only recently, with the popularity of the internet, that it has become feasible to link many users simultaneously in shared virtual environments. This raises a number of interesting questions such as: what is the difference between face-to-face and avatar-to-avatar interaction? What patterns govern the formation of virtual communities? How does the appearance of the avatar change the nature of the communication? There has been much speculation about issues such as these but research is still at a relatively early stage. This is the first book to bring together work from relevant disciplines to form a reference guide for practitioners, students and researchers interested in how we interact in computer-generated environments. It contains contributions from most of the key people in this area (including Microsoft Research's Virtual Worlds Group) and presents their findings in a way which is accessible to readers who are new to this field or who come from related areas. It is divided into 2 parts; chapters 2-6 deal with internet-based virtual worlds which have been widely used by the public; chapters 7-10 deal with networked VR systems which have been primarily used in pilot studies and research. Some chapters take the viewpoint of a participant observer, whilst others take a more experimental approach and assess the results of relevant trials. This book will be essential reading for anyone involved in developing, using or researching virtual worlds, and will also be of interest to students on courses such as VR and Computer-mediated communication.

Mobile Technologies
Mobile Technologies

Author: Gerard Goggin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-01-13

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1135856672

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In light of emerging forms of software, interfaces, cultures of uses, and media practices associated with mobile media, this collection investigates the various ways in which mobile media is developing in different cultural, linguistic, social, and national settings. Specifically, contributors consider the promises and politics of mobile media and its role in the dynamic social and gender relations configured in the boundaries between public and private spheres. The collection is genuinely interdisciplinary, as well as international in its range, with contributors and studies from China, Japan, Korea, Italy, Norway, France, Belgium, Britain, and Australia.

Avatar
Avatar

Author: Maria Wilhelm

Publisher: HarperCollins UK

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0007342446

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Describes the world of the Avatar film, written as a manual.