Online Worlds Convergence Of The Real And The Virtual

Author : William Sims Bainbridge
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 184882825X
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual written by William Sims Bainbridge and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-12-08 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Sims Bainbridge Virtual worlds are persistent online computer-generated environments where people can interact, whether for work or play, in a manner comparable to the real world. The most prominent current example is World of Warcraft (Corneliussen and Rettberg 2008), a massively multiplayer online game with 11 million s- scribers. Some other virtual worlds, notably Second Life (Rymaszewski et al. 2007), are not games at all, but Internet-based collaboration contexts in which people can create virtual objects, simulated architecture, and working groups. Although interest in virtual worlds has been growing for at least a dozen years, only today it is possible to bring together an international team of highly acc- plished authors to examine them with both care and excitement, employing a range of theories and methodologies to discover the principles that are making virtual worlds increasingly popular and may in future establish them as a major sector of human-centered computing.

Author : William Sims Bainbridge
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319330209
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Virtual Sociocultural Convergence written by William Sims Bainbridge and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-07-06 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the remarkable sociocultural convergence in multiplayer online games and other virtual worlds, through the unification of computer science, social science, and the humanities. The emergence of online media provides not only new methods for collecting social science data, but also contexts for developing theory and conducting education in the arts as well as technology. Notably, role-playing games and virtual worlds naturally demonstrate many classical concepts about human behaviour, in ways that encourage innovative thinking. The inspiration derives from the internationally shared values developed in a fifteen-year series of conferences on science and technology convergence. The primary methodology is focused on sending avatars, representing classical social theorists or schools of thought, into online gameworlds that harmonize with, or challenge, their fundamental ideas, including technological determinism, urban sociology, group formation, freedom versus control, class stratification, linguistic variation, functional equivalence across cultures, behavioural psychology, civilization collapse, and ethnic pluralism. Researchers and students in the social and behavioural sciences will benefit from the many diverse examples of how both qualitative and quantitative science of culture and society can be performed in online communities of many kinds, even as artists and gamers learn styles and skills they may apply in their own work and play.

Author : Dudley, Alfreda
Publisher : IGI Global
ISBN 13 : 1613501331
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Investigating Cyber Law and Cyber Ethics: Issues, Impacts and Practices written by Dudley, Alfreda and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2011-09-30 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ethical values in computing are essential for understanding and maintaining the relationship between computing professionals and researchers and the users of their applications and programs. While concerns about cyber ethics and cyber law are constantly changing as technology changes, the intersections of cyber ethics and cyber law are still underexplored. Investigating Cyber Law and Cyber Ethics: Issues, Impacts and Practices discusses the impact of cyber ethics and cyber law on information technologies and society. Featuring current research, theoretical frameworks, and case studies, the book will highlight the ethical and legal practices used in computing technologies, increase the effectiveness of computing students and professionals in applying ethical values and legal statues, and provide insight on ethical and legal discussions of real-world applications.

Author : Robert M. Geraci
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199379971
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Virtually Sacred written by Robert M. Geraci and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millions of users have taken up residence in virtual worlds, and in those worlds they find opportunities to revisit and rewrite their religious lives. Robert M. Geraci argues that virtual worlds and video games have become a locus for the satisfaction of religious needs, providing many users with devoted communities, opportunities for ethical reflection, a meaningful experience of history and human activity, and a sense of transcendence. Using interviews, surveys, and his own first-hand experience within the virtual worlds, Geraci shows how World of Warcraft and Second Life provide participants with the opportunity to rethink what it means to be religious in the contemporary world. Not all participants use virtual worlds for religious purposes, but many online residents use them to rearrange or replace religious practice as designers and users collaborate in the production of a new spiritual marketplace. Using World of Warcraft and Second Life as case studies, this book shows that many residents now use virtual worlds to re-imagine their traditions and work to restore them to "authentic" sanctity, or else replace religious institutions with virtual communities that provide meaning and purpose to human life. For some online residents, virtual worlds are even keys to a post-human future where technology can help us transcend mortal life. Geraci argues that World of Warcraft and Second Life are "virtually sacred" because they do religious work. They often do such work without regard for-and frequently in conflict with-traditional religious institutions and practices; ultimately they participate in our sacred landscape as outsiders, competitors, and collaborators.

Author : Paul Jerry
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 1848882343
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Riding the Hype Cycle: The Resurgence of Virtual Worlds written by Paul Jerry and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-01-04 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : William Sims Bainbridge
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199935815
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book EGods written by William Sims Bainbridge and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-04 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Bainbridge contends that the worlds of massively multiplayer online roleplaying games provide a new perspective on the human quest, one that combines the arts and simulates most aspects of real life. The quests in gameworlds also provide meaning for human action, in terms of narratives about achieving goals by overcoming obstacles.

Author : Louise Phillips
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136250514
Total Pages : 197 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Researching Virtual Worlds written by Louise Phillips and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-11 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a wide range of methodological strategies that are designed to take into account the complex, emergent, and continually shifting character of virtual worlds. It interrogates how virtual worlds emerge as objects of study through the development and application of various methodological strategies. Virtual worlds are not considered objects that exist as entities with fixed attributes independent of our continuous engagement with them and interpretation of them. Instead, they are conceived of as complex ensembles of technology, humans, symbols, discourses, and economic structures, ensembles that emerge in ongoing practices and specific situations. A broad spectrum of perspectives and methodologies is presented: Actor-Network-Theory and post-Actor-Network-Theory, performativity theory, ethnography, discourse analysis, Sense-Making Methodology, visual ethnography, multi-sited ethnography, and Social Network Analysis.

Author : William Sims Bainbridge
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9783319814247
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Virtual Sociocultural Convergence written by William Sims Bainbridge and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the remarkable sociocultural convergence in multiplayer online games and other virtual worlds, through the unification of computer science, social science, and the humanities. The emergence of online media provides not only new methods for collecting social science data, but also contexts for developing theory and conducting education in the arts as well as technology. Notably, role-playing games and virtual worlds naturally demonstrate many classical concepts about human behaviour, in ways that encourage innovative thinking. The inspiration derives from the internationally shared values developed in a fifteen-year series of conferences on science and technology convergence. The primary methodology is focused on sending avatars, representing classical social theorists or schools of thought, into online gameworlds that harmonize with, or challenge, their fundamental ideas, including technological determinism, urban sociology, group formation, freedom versus control, class stratification, linguistic variation, functional equivalence across cultures, behavioural psychology, civilization collapse, and ethnic pluralism. Researchers and students in the social and behavioural sciences will benefit from the many diverse examples of how both qualitative and quantitative science of culture and society can be performed in online communities of many kinds, even as artists and gamers learn styles and skills they may apply in their own work and play.

Author : Garry Young
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317547225
Total Pages : 166 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ethics in the Virtual World written by Garry Young and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-11 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ethics in the Virtual World examines the gamer's enactment of taboo activities in the context of both traditional and contemporary philosophical approaches to morality. The book argues that it is more productive to consider what individuals are able to cope with psychologically than to determine whether a virtual act or representation is necessarily good or bad. The book raises pertinent questions about one of the most rapidly expanding leisure pursuits in western culture: should virtual enactments warrant moral interest? Should there be a limit to what can be enacted or represented within these games? Or, is it all just a game?

Author : Tom Boellstorff
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691264864
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ethnography and Virtual Worlds written by Tom Boellstorff and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical guide to the ethnographic study of online cultures, and beyond Ethnography and Virtual Worlds is the only book of its kind—a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results. Provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongame Draws on research in a range of virtual worlds, including Everquest, Second Life, There.com, and World of Warcraft Provides suggestions for dealing with institutional review boards, human subjects protocols, and ethical issues Guides the reader through the full trajectory of ethnographic research, from research design to data collection, data analysis, and writing up and publishing research results Addresses myths and misunderstandings about ethnographic research, and argues for the scientific value of ethnography