Spotlight MacArthur Foundation

Pop Cosmopolitanism in Virtual Worlds, or How Second Life Can Save the World

Filed at 7:40 pm on June 26, 2007 in Civic Engagement, Games • Leave a comment

[Editor’s note: we’re especially excited to have Constance’s comments below given MacArthur’s recent announcement of activities in virtual worlds.]

My research investigates the intellectual work that goes on within massively multiplayer games and the cultures of participation that emerge both within their virtual worlds and beyond. The possibility of virtual worlds for philanthropy begins with the observation that the social lives of these worlds are entirely created by us: The guilds, the friendship networks, the social ties, values and mores are constructed by participants in conversation with the designed virtual spaces we are given. Virtual worlds can introduce us the notion that others matter, even others who are vastly different from ourselves, and that their well-being isn’t so different from our own. My and others’ research in these areas suggests how many users take away from these experiences new desires and abilities to actively reshape their “offline” worlds.

We know that virtual world communities can foster important skills such as collaboration, inquiry, argumentation, and computational literacy. And we know that such skills are crucial to successful participation in a twenty first century democracy. Yet all too often we ignore the most obvious and important function virtual worlds play in the everyday lives of those who inhabit them: a social one.

Virtual worlds provide spaces for social interaction and informal relationships beyond the workplace/school and home, functioning as “third places” much like the pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts of old. And in so doing they help us build informal social relationships with individuals who are outside the typical swath of folks we might normally share a coffee and conversation with. In a world increasingly divided into niche markets, where the deluge of information online and off can sometimes result in people all too often choosing to engage with only those points of view they already hold, this kind of informal socializing with diverse crowds is important. Without it, we run the risk of slipping into personal forms of fundamentalism, mistaking confirmation bias in our choice of media outlets, colleagues, and friends as evidence of fidelity between our view of the world and the world itself.

Virtual worlds are a breeding ground for a new form of pop cosmopolitanism. And this new form of pop cosmopolitanism may very well be the shot in the arm philanthropy on the grassroots level needs most.

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