Autoethnographies & journeys of the (virtual) self: students, sociology & second life

American Sociological Association Annual Meetings, August 11 2009. Session title: Social Science research in Virtual Worlds

I’ve been researching society & the internet since 1995.
In the last 14 years, I’ve investigated how people use the internet – from websites, email and blogging to games, gaming and virtual worlds - and how these have become integrated into our daily lives. I look at the social and cultural issues that surface as new technologies become more pervasive.

*Social Media
*Video Games
*Gaming
*Virtual Worlds

what’s the value of using virtual worlds – like second life –
for sociological research & teaching?

“… wherever there’s people, you can apply sociology…”
Dareth Denimore, sociology student at Cambridge University, UK

Examining virtual cultures -
As culture
As cultural artefact
Virtual Cultures - product of and producer of culture simultaneously

Not a Game
International
18+
Free
User Generated
~1.4 million have logged on in the last 60 days

A region = an area of 65536m² (16.2 acres)
27,483 regions in May 2009
710 square miles (or 1801 km²)
Still growing

100+ regions used for education
300+ universities using SL for teaching & research
Harvard’s Austin Hall in Second Life

"Education is not the filling of a bucket,
it is the lighting of a fire." (William Butler Yeats)

Traditional Didactic Mode of Learning:
Lecture styles with a top-down approach
Power relations between professor and student - hierarchies
Legitimates disciplinary discourses, knowledge & information

Information delivery is linear and static
Does not always allow for nor encourage constructive interaction between students, and between students and instructors

Presenting knowledge, theories & ideas
Interactive discussions
Allowing students to incorporate personal experiences, skills, knowledge & individual contexts
Learning & knowledge construction takes place inside and outside the classroom
Students take an active role in the learning process

“ Research is formalized curiosity.
It is poking and prying with a purpose.”
(Zora Neale Hurston)

Course readings may enhance topics of discussion but still ‘distant’ from student
Students may memorize theories but have trouble applying them to the real world (their own)
Students inexperienced with processes and meanings of research & results

Students take concepts, theories & ideas from class and explore them in virtual spaces
In-World Immersion: interacting with the environment & the people who inhabit these spaces
Ethnography – “To understand the social world of its residents by participating in and observing local cultural practices”.

autobiographical personal narrative that explores the writer's experience of life
focuses on the writer's subjective experience rather than the beliefs and practices of others
a reflexive account of one's own experiences situated in culture
describing and critiquing personal experiences; accounts of culture – linking to existing ideologies

“ Writing is an exploration.
You start from nothing and
learn as you go.”
(E. L. Doctorow)

Students create blogs on first day
First task: understanding biases, feelings or standpoints we have concerning the research one is about to conduct.

Guided tasks
Exploration – self & groups
Any writing style – as much as they want
Reflection
Analysis
Connecting to theories & readings

“ The Second Life Field trip was quite intriguing, it provided a great analysis on how avatars use the virtual world to showcase political and cultural ideologies. I learned that Second Life allows users to extend their political beliefs through creating groups for their particular cause.” Memphis Caproni

Students have commented that a lot of courses in the program can tend to be repetitive and that although you can look at the information from lots of different angles…it still always feels like the same information. Agape Avro

What I have come to realize however, is that what I would define as "pretty" is also what the culture industry would define. Am I just a cultural dupe as Horkheimer and Adorno stated? Perhaps. Catherine Ulderport (Chang 2008)

It’s really nice when you learn something new...actually new. Not just a new perspective or a new part of it but altogether completely new. It’s really neat to see different reactions and perspectives to something you’re trying to make sense of and figure out…. Since I’m not tech savvy, this wouldn’t have been something I would have done in my own time so I’m very grateful that I took this course and expanded my (second) world view. Agape Avro

In previous courses we have discussed culture industries in regards to a number of different media, but never virtual communities like SL. It was interesting to see how Adorno and Horkiemer’s theory of culture industries can still be so easily applied to technologies that were probably unimaginable to them. Rian Dasdardly

We really were able to apply the theories to which we had already been familiar with to SL. I think that that was a very informative part of the class, and for once, we were actually able to get a hands on example of how these theories are actually applicable to our life. For so long now, we hear about these theories, and how they affect us, yet we never get to directly witness it--- until this semester. Catherine Ulderport

Tech: Computers/laptops that run SL properly
Usability & skills -> hold labs to teach
Prep students for the world -> adult content, privacy & security, harassment etc
Ethics? University policies -> IRBs for in-world interviews?

As soon as I discovered what this course was about I was excited because I felt like I could be part of something that is on the cutting edge and quite possibly the future of education. I was amazed at how enriched presentations can be by teleporting to art galleries, exhibits and universities. It was a really unique experience because we got to know each other in RL and SL and got to bond over the fact that all of us were experiencing things that were completely new. Jennifa Schwade

New ways to:
engage students
facilitate learning
allow students to be actively engaged in their learning process:
investigate (research)
apply their knowledge (analysis)
contribute to the field (writing)

Tracy Kennedy
PhD Candidate
University of Toronto
Instructor
Brock University
[email_address]

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Autoethnographies & journeys of the (virtual) self: students, sociology & second life

by Tracy Kennedy on Aug 11, 2009

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Autoethnographies & journeys of the (virtual) self: students, sociology & second life — Presentation Transcript