Larry Johnson: Who’s Listening to the Avatars?
Filed at 6:20 pm on January 12, 2007 in Civic Engagement, Credibility, Identity • 9 comments
Recent online conversations revealed a great disparity of perceptions on questions of identity, credibility, and civic engagement between those who have spent time in virtual worlds, and those who haven’t. Is it right to reject virtual worlds as irrelevant before exploring them?
For its Series on Digital Media and Learning, a set of six edited volumes on the impact of digital media (in press), the MacArthur Foundation sponsored a group of online conversations for the authors of the volumes that took place between the initial drafts of each volume and the second draft as a way of opening dialog among the writers on issues of common concern or interest. A variety of approaches were encouraged, and the New Media Consortium, one of the two grantees for the series, chose a three-sided approach, targeting the volumes for credibility, civic engagement, and identity.
The venues for these dialogs included a 12-day symposium in a virtual world (Second Life), a 2-day online conference conducted via the web, and a series of substantive online dialogs with invited experts conducted in Google Groups. The 27 authors and editors who took part framed the discussions so they might serve to address gaps in the literature of their field or unanswered questions related to the overall work. The same sets of questions were posed to all three groups.
The three venues served to uncover a variety of perspectives, related in many ways to the backgrounds of the participants; attendees of the virtual symposium were very adept in digital media, for example, while the online conference attracted a more traditional academic audience. Interestingly, the technology was thought to be a barrier to the expert dialogs, and so a very simple medium - email - was chosen for that process.
For most of the questions posed in these dialogs, it was easy to find a bimodal pattern in the responses not really related to technology or adeptness with digital media, but more to the conservative or liberal biases of the participants.
As one might expect, the expert dialogs exhibited clear thinking and well-framed arguments, but so did those of the other forums, including the residents of Second Life. In only one case was there a great disparity in the dialogs, and that one was striking.
Clearly implications of massively multiplayer worlds on questions of identity, credibility, and civic engagement are not yet on the radar of leading authors and researchers. Questions related to gender-morphing, role-playing, and identity extension in virtual worlds and game spaces are much on the minds of the residents of such spaces, as one might imagine. Such themes were present only in the abstract in the “flat-web” online conference, and surprisingly rejected outright within two of the expert dialogs, and not considered at all in the third.
The experts in one group raised a question about the relevance of group action in virtual worlds, and deemed it not relevant to the topic. Similarly, questions related to formation of virtual identities and the expression of self through one’s avatar were also set aside by the identity experts. The implications of assessing the credibility of information conveyed in virtual worlds, where everything is a construct, was outside the scope of that volume.
At the same time, the dialog around these issues in Second Life was extremely rich and detailed. Due to the way invitations to the event were distributed, a great many of the participants in the Second Life Symposium were themselves scholars and academics, so the educational background of the participants in all three forums was similar. One can only conclude, even for those we regard as experts, that it is hard to conceptualize the impact of virtual worlds until one spends some time in them.
Interestingly, the number of participants in the Second Life Symposium greatly exceeded that of the other two approaches. More than 1300 people from 21 countries participated in the Second Life Symposium, while the online conference drew about 225. At the same time, the expert dialogs were one of the largest attempts ever to bring together thought leaders for collaborative reflection, and about 130 participated, generally from the US, but also Canada and Europe.
As a closing observation, these activities were undertaken not as a form of peer review but actually designed to be part of the writing process. While significant challenges remain before this sort of alternative to peer review is fully accepted, the process itself opened the door to reflection on how the boundaries of what we have traditionally thought of as scholarship might be expanded.
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Comments (9)
1: Mechelle De Craene from James Buchanan Middle School at 1:25 pm on Sunday, January 14, 2007
Hi Professor Johnson,
Thank you for writing such an interesting post and sharing about the project. I’m studying child development & ICT for my hopeful dissertation one day…Anyhow, as a middle school teacher, I was very surprised by this statement:
“The experts in one group raised a question about the relevance of group action in virtual worlds, and deemed it not relevant to the topic. Similarly, questions related to formation of virtual identities and the expression of self through one’s avatar were also set aside by the identity experts. The implications of assessing the credibility of information conveyed in virtual worlds, where everything is a construct, was outside the scope of that volume.”
I’m wondering what the demograhpics of the *experts* who deemed virtual worlds as irrelevant? Namely, I wonder which gender and generation are they (e.g. babyboomer, Gen X, Gen Y)and do they work with youth on a daily basis? Also, were there any K-12 teachers involved?
Thank you kindly for your time. Have a wonderful weekend.
Kind Regards,
Mechelle : )
2: Geoff McGovern from Binghamton University at 1:03 am on Thursday, January 18, 2007
What a promising line of research! The NMC event was fascinating, and I cannot wait to see what comes of this new medium. I know that work I have been doing with Harvard Law School has produced some great insight into different ways this new form of communicating can help us understand property rights, governance issues, and education. Keep up the good work!
3: Mechelle De Craene from James Buchanan Middle School at 2:20 am on Thursday, January 18, 2007
Hi Professor Johnson,
I suppose I should have clarified my question a little better. My apologies. I’m afraid that my comments may have come across as glib. I am genuinely interested in why:
“questions related to formation of virtual identities and the expression of self through one’s avatar were also set aside by the identity experts.”
Though I am not an expert, I believe that many of my middle schoolers are and I have found through watching them design their avatars there many fascinating things that teachers can discover by taking the time to consider the value of identity formation and expression of self through avatars. I think it’s time for teachers to welcome avatars in the classroom.
Kind Regards,
Mechelle : )
4: Joe Tojek from Capella University at 6:00 pm on Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Participating in Second Life as a live music performer has brought into sharp relief for me the current status of identity in education as the white elephant in the room that no one talks about.
Clearly each generational cohort engages in communal identity formation, creating unique languages in hair, clothes, media, verbal grammar and syntax, etc.
Yet, in education, that powerful uniting force is stripped away as we pretend that information and knowledge should be communicated and shared without reference to the social and communal spaces of its use.
As my skill and pleasure as a musician and entertainer in SL grows, I have found a parallel shift in my real life self-concept. Where SL first offered me a venue to demonstrate a previously under utilized talent, I have now grown to appreciate and seek RL outlets for that same talent and to push myself to grow those abilities and to help others achieve similar results by sharing the results of my independent and trial and error learning strategies.
Please get in touch if you are interested.
SL: Johnny99 Gumshoe
5: Margaret Corbit from SciCentr.org at 6:22 pm on Saturday, January 27, 2007
Virtual worlds are an exciting medium from my experience. I think a lot of what determines whether they have a positive impact is based on who is creating and hosting the environment. We use them for constructivist learning, others for supporting dialogues, hosting seminars…. When you set up a community of users, you can set guidelines for identity, etc. This can have some impact on the credibility of the avatars, certainly.
6: Evonne .inKenzo. from AMO at 6:40 am on Monday, January 29, 2007
There are many extraordinary topics that can be explored in virtual worlds. From this article it’s clear that there has needed to be great focus as we unpack these discussions in order to gain greater insight and depth into the nuances of identity. Since there are six volumes here I can only assume that some issues not deemed appropriate for one discussion likely found their way into another; issues of collaboration and truth of self in identity-forming are certainly relevant to this complex story, if only as a footnote on the vast landscape of educational media.
7: DJ Chandler, PhD from Chimera at 3:29 pm on Monday, February 5, 2007
Thank you for your well written and carefully thought out reviews. I have a scholarly interest in avatars and RPGs since I have found with my students that gaming, especially strategy games such as World of Warcraft spark motivation in unmotivated learners. The identities of the characters can me shaped and molded to the players’ skill and desires. I have several characters. They reflect my moral and ethical standards as a professor and a teacher. My students learn how to help others and develop compassion through online groups and chats as well as communications in the gaming den. I believe that those who do not have day-to-day contact with children have difficulty seeing the value of online gaming.
8: Geoff McGovern from Binghamton University at 11:11 am on Wednesday, March 21, 2007
These comments are wonderful. My only suggestion is that we all need a place (perhaps in SL) to continue to form the bonds of comminuty and exchange these ideas more routinely. Any thoughts?
9: John Torney from Article DB at 1:24 pm on Thursday, February 14, 2008
Maybe myspace?
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