Being There Together Social Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments

by Schroeder, Ralph

• ISBN13: 9780195371284
• ISBN10: 0195371283
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-04
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Virtual environments provide places for 'being there together', for avatars to interact with each other in computer-generated spaces. They range from immersive systems in which people have life-size tracked avatar bodies to large-scale spaces such as Second Life where populations of users socialize in persistent virtual worlds. This book draws together research on how people interact in virtual environments: What difference does avatar appearance make? How do avatars collaborate and play together? How do the type of system and the space affect how people engage with each other? How does interaction between avatars differ from face-to-face interaction? What can social scientists learn from experiments and other studies of how people interact in virtual environments? What are the ethical and social issues in doing this research, and in the uses of this technology? And how do virtual environments differ from other communication technologies such as videoconferencing systems and other new media? This book is a state-of-the art survey of research on these topics, and offers a framework for understanding this technology and its future implications.

Author Biography

Ralph Schroeder is a senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford.

Table of Contents

Figures and Tables	p. ix
Abbreviations Used	p. xi
Virtual Environments and the Changing Landscape of Information and Communication Technologies	p. 3
Definitions and Overview	p. 3
The Development of Shared Virtual Environments Technology	p. 11
Two Technological End-States	p. 14
The Varieties of Experiences of Being There Together	p. 21
The Range of MUVE Settings	p. 22
The Range of Experiences in MUVEs	p. 29
The Components of MUVE Experiences	p. 45
The Phenomenology of MUVE Experiences in Context	p. 53
Summary	p. 57
Avatar Bodies and Virtual Spaces	p. 61
Virtual Spaces	p. 61
Avatar Appearance and Realism	p. 83
Collaboration	p. 95
Distributed Work-Distributed Research-Distributed Collaboration	p. 95
Tasks, Collaboration, and Systems	p. 109
Long-Term Collaboration	p. 131
Summary	p. 137
Social Life in Online Worlds	p. 141
The History of Virtual Worlds	p. 142
Roles and Frames	p. 144
Governance, Economies, and Trust in Virtual Worlds	p. 153
Limits of Online Worlds, Limits of Offline Perceptions	p. 168
Modalities of Communication	p. 177
Research on Communication in MUVEs	p. 179
Face-to-Face versus MUVE Encounters	p. 181
Common Ground in Immersive and Nonimmersive Spaces	p. 183
Language Encounters in MUVEs	p. 186
OnLive Traveler and Second Life	p. 191
Text versus Voice, Videoconferences versus MUVEs, Face-to-Face versus Online	p. 193
Research Uses of Multiuser Virtual Environments	p. 205
The Varieties of Social Research in Virtual Environments	p. 206
Research on Small Group Interaction	p. 209
Research on Large Group Interaction	p. 212
Analysing Interaction in MUVEs	p. 217
Ethical and Social Issues in Multiuser Virtual Environments	p. 231
Research Ethics	p. 231
Ethical and Social Issues in MUVEs	p. 240
Summary	p. 246
Multiuser Virtual Environments and Other Technologies for Being There Together	p. 249
Other Technologies for Being There Together	p. 250
Multiple Modalities, Multiple Networks	p. 267
The Future of Being There Together	p. 275
Multiuser Virtual Environments as an End-State	p. 275
The Future of Two End-States	p. 289
References	p. 293
Index	p. 311
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