Second Life Redux

Wanted to post some random observations from Thursday’s class meeting in Second Life. That was my first time interacting in a serious way in SL, and a few things struck me.

I was intrigued by the different ways people presented themselves and their avatars. SL is a world where you can literally look however you want to look; you have control over minor details: the fullness of your lips, the shape of your head. You can give yourself the breasts or pecs you’ve always wanted; guys can even manipulate (sorry) the appearance of their … ahem … banana hammocks. And if you want to look like a walking Coke can or a buxom, bipedal Easter bunny, that’s no big problem, either.

Even though Second Life is only two years old and most of its inhabitants have been there nowhere near that long, firm social conventions have already taken hold regarding dress. In a world that could be populated by conventionally beautiful avatars, there seem to be relatively few – and those few are immediately recognizable as newbies. Veteran SL residents seem to go for more far-out trappings, with wings, tails and other accoutrements distinguishing them from lesser beings.

It’s interesting that in SL you can see all sorts of fantastical, chimerical beings wandering around, interacting, shopping, etc. They often wearing clothes that would drop jaws in 1stL, but don’t cause an eye to bat in SL. It seems like the only fashion crime you can commit in SL is to dress like you would in the real world.

As an experiment, I had my avatar disrobe during class. Surely if I could walk into class in a virtual leather S&M outfit with a squirrel’s tail and bat’s wings, this would seem tame. (The limited screen resolution limits just how graphic this striptease would get.) I stopped myself when I was down to my tighty whities, not knowing myself, in truth, what would be found underneath. However, the more-outrageous-the-better ethic in SL does not appear to extend to virtual nudity. I apologize to anyone I might have offended.

By the way, lots of folks have had the archetypal dream about showing up to class in their underwear; now I can say I’ve actually done it.

As far as the interactive aspect of the class experience, it strikes me as basically a failure. SL is pretty good for one-on-one conversations but group talk is messy. One problem is that despite the rich visuals, we’re still using IM. If someone asks a question, it takes some time to respond; during that interval other questions can arise, rendering your answer obsolete or irrelevant. It’s hard to follow the messages while you’re typing. People end up not talking to each other as much as at each other. I noticed that Dr. Halavais’ attempts to direct the conversation wound up dissolving into chaos.

You really need a wider vocabulary of visual and audial cues to hold a group conversation successfully — on SL it’s hard to tell when it’s appropriate to talk and when you need to shut up. I think that would still be a problem even if we were all speaking through microphones — people use lots of subtle signals to convey their intentions: “I plan to talk”; “You need to shut up”; “I have something more to say.”

Release the spiders

Technorati Profile

Third World Man

Stop Borat! And, start your own country.

Time out of mind

Slashdot offers a chance to interview experts about the future of journalism. Meanwhile, Time sees a bleak outlook for newspapers.

Fire in the hole

Dude, it wasn’t even a Dell, but it assploded anyway. Also, posting on weekends and other tips for boosting traffic to your blog. Finally, here’s a special treat for fans of Rube Goldberg, courtesy of Honda.

Safe and Sound?

Sad news on the Long Island Sound today makes me think about the increasing conflict between recreational uses and the industrialization of this wonderful body of water.

On an unrelated note, the big scoop in the Hartford Courant today struck me as kind of familiar.

Opportunity Lost (response paper No. 3)

Opportunity Lost: Interactivity and the News Media
Ed Crowder
ICM 501, Dr. Alexander Halavais
Sept. 19, 2006

Newspapers and other traditional media have good reasons to proceed cautiously as they explore the interactive possibilities of the Internet and other forms of computer-mediated communications. But they may be squandering their best opportunity to exploit these technologies to build a dynamic and dedicated online readership, while adhering to their role as honest mediators among diverse, competing voices in society.

Nicholas Jankowski and Martine van Selm (2001) note that the Internet offers robust features that seem ideally suited to news media. For example, online newspapers can update stories as new developments break. They can employ video and audio to enliven static words and images. Television and radio Web sites can expand the relatively shallow coverage for which broadcast media are so often criticized. The online format offers virtually unlimited archival “space” at a trivial price. And there’s great potential for interactivity, in a way that allows users to become participants in the news process. Hyperlinks can direct users to original sources and documents, and discussion groups provide ideal fora for users to deliberate over the events of the day, replacing the coffee-shop talk that has so largely been lost in the rush of modern society.

Research by Sheizaf Rafaeli (1996) and Fay Sudweeks suggests there may be distinct benefits for organizations that fully embrace interactive technologies. They found support for their thesis that “interactivity is associated with those message qualities which [sic] invite people and make people gravitate to groups on the net. Interactivity may be a mechanism through which netting occurs on the net.” Less interactive online groups

… are less likely to see stable relationships. Individuals may come, but they will not tarry. While less interactive groups may be or even grow, they may be doomed to a rotating-door, shifting existence. (1996, p. 11)

Despite the advantages of interactive media, in a review of seven online newspaper and six television station Web sites in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands, Janowski and van Selm found evidence that many of the interactive features possible on the Internet “are not fully utilized” (2001, p. 1). For example, while most of the newspapers studied provided some sort of discussion platform, “the sites differ considerably in terms of openness for and involvement of readers”; only one of the television stations hosted an unmoderated discussion group (p. 7). They noted that, of the newspapers they examined, most “seem to be reflections of the print products in terms of design and content” (2001, p. 8 ).

Donald Matheson (2004) found a similar conservative bent in a case study of the Guardian of London’s Web log (“blog”), a medium that is unique to the Internet and well suited to take advantage of its interactive capabilities. While Matheson found significant differences in terms of voice and authority between the Guardian and its blog, he concluded

[t]here is much about the Guardian that is ‘old media’. Predominantly, it links to established news institutions. It preserves the role of gatekeeper. It constructs a journalistic claim to authority and does not let the user talk. It is not in any way revolutionary and despite what popular commentary on weblogs might lead us to expect, it does not provide a new personalized democratic space in which the mainstream media are held to account. (2004, p. 460)

Judging from my own experience as a newspaper reporter and editor, this is still largely the case online among traditional media, although there are notable exceptions. Many news Web sites still offer few outside links, provide only regimented discussion platforms, and allow few opportunities for users to help shape the news. Matheson suggests this may in part trace to an authoritarian strain in news media: news is traditionally a one-way process, which “rarely addresses its audiences directly or invites participation in assessing the value of news items,” which are often presented as “self-evidently newsworthy” (2004, p. 454). He argues that inviting greater public participation in the process, beyond mere reaction, threatens the news organization’s claim to authority.

Moreover, news media have traditionally viewed themselves as society’s only objective and reliable providers of the information that citizens need to participate in a democracy, offering readers and viewers a breadth of stories that challenge their preconceptions and expand their horizons. Cass R. Sunstein (2004) raises the concern that any erosion of this role could lead news consumers employ new technologies to limit their exposure to news stories they find unpleasant, distasteful, or with which they simply disagree. “In fact, a risk with a system of perfect individual control is that it can reduce the importance of the ‘public sphere’ …” (2004) Similarly, Jankowski and Selm (2001) raise the question of whether the “added values” offered by online news sites “actually contribute to increased citizen engagement” (p. 11).

There’s a certain patronizing illogic about the notion that relaxing the traditional media’s monopoly over the news process – and putting it in the hands of the unruly public – somehow presents a “danger to democracy” (Sunstein, 2004, p. 59). In fact, it’s worth exploring to what extent non-mainstream news sites on the Web foster vigorous debate on a wide variety of topics.

One such news site is “Fark.com, a news aggregator site that relies entirely on linked news and entertainment stories culled from elsewhere on the Web and submitted by members. A typical collection of Fark stories includes breaking news, political comment, pop-culture news, “news of the weird,” and non-news items such as contests and polls. Stories are presented in reverse chronology, as submitted, and the (hilariously irreverent) headlines are written by the contributing members themselves. To the right of each post is a link for discussion – a hugely popular feature. Typical discussions attract scores of comments, or hundreds for hot-button issues. Contrary to the predictions of Rafaeli and Sudweeks, these are characterized by raw and heated debate, particularly relating to political items; however, sarcasm, insider jokes, and tongue-in-cheek humor leaven the hostilites and may in fact foster the sense of online community Rafaeli and Sudweeks observed (1996).

Fark.com is noteworthy because, in contrast to Sunstein’s (2003) concerns about the shrinking public sphere, its formula actually guarantees exposure to a wide variety of types of news, made palatable by the humorous headlines. And judging from the comments, its members represent a healthy range of thinking. What’s more, as a user-directed news site, it offers a participatory experience lacking in the Web efforts of the traditional news media. In a few words, Fark.com and sites like it are fun and engaging. The hidebound traditional media may need both of those qualities in spades if they hope to maintain a dynamic online presence into the future.

Reference list:
Jankowski, Nicholas W. & van Selm, Martine (2001). Traditional News Media online: An Examination of Added Values (pp. 375-392). In K. Renckstorf, D. McQuail & N. Jankowski, Television news research: Recent European approaches and findings. Berlin: Quintessense. (The authors request that all citations refer to the published version; however the article as referred to here is temporarily available online at http://loc8ted.com/library/jankowski-2001.pdf, pp. 1-10).

Matheson, Donald (2004). Weblogs and the epistemology of the news: some trends in online journalism. New Media & Society, 6(4). 443-468.

Rafaeli, Sheizaf (1997). Networked interactivity. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 2(4). 1-16. Retrieved Sept. 16, 2006 from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol2/issue4/rafaeli.sudweeks.html

Sunstein, Cass R (2004). Democracy and filtering. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), 57-59.

Can’t buy a thrill

So my wife walks in on me while I’m playing (using?) Second Life and looks over my shoulder.

“What are you doing,” she asks. She always gets suspicious when I’m doing something new on the computer. I can’t imagine why.

I hear her breath suddenly catch. She’s spied my avatar, Eddie Sutter. (I hate being called Eddie in person, but for some reason I always use it as a screen name.) Eddie looks a lot like me, although he’s taller and better looking; he also dresses the way I like to dress when I’m not at work.

“Is that … is that you?”

I grunt in the affirmative without looking up. She’s momentarily transfixed.

“That’s freaking me out. Turn it off.”

I don’t. She continues to watch over my shoulder as I fly aimlessly around Linden. I’m not very good at this. I keep bumping into invisible security barriers and stumbling over stuff. When I first logged in, I imagined myself as Hiro Protagonist in “Snow Crash,” proudly ruling the metaverse with a samurai sword and a really bad attitude. But apparently you have to make your own samurai swords in Second World — or buy them.

I have no money.

So after orienting myself and wearing out the novelty of being able to fly, I set about looking for work. I run into some people who are burning a cow in a fountain. They invite me into their flying machine (best description I can offer) and we take off, but I lose my signal and get shut out before I can engage them in serious conversation. I log back in and walk around some more, hoping to relocate my new friends. No luck.

I soon find something called “camping chairs” that promise to pay you for sitting in them. I sit in one and wait. There’s a little ticker sitting over my head, reading “L$0″; I sit for a while, until I get bored (which doesn’t take very long). The ticker still reads “L$0.” I search through the gestures list for the ability to sigh.

I check the map for areas where there are lots of people. (Have I mentioned that it’s like 4 in the morning and I have to be at work the next day? Gee, thanks, Dr. Halavais, for introducing me to this incredible waste of time!) There’s this spot where there are people all piled up on top of each other and I teleport there. Turns out to be the local mall (go figure).

So I mill about. One guy (girl?) looks like a Transformer and I stay away from him/her, not because I’m afraid, but because I have this gut feeling s/he’ll be abnoxiously haughty if I ask him/her a dumb question like, “How do I get some money?” But there are other folks there who seem cool, and they prove helpful, explaining that there’s not much a guy can do to earn money in Linden, but I could work as a bodyguard or sit in a camping chair. I realize with horror that not only is sexism alive and well in the metaverse (which I can live with), but that I’m on the wrong side of it (which I can’t).

I thank them for their help. I’m tempted to explore the mall, but I’m broke, so why bother? In Linden, as in the real world, if you don’t have any money there’s just not that much to do.

Show biz kids

Video sharing site YouTube teams up with Warner music to provide music videos online. Now, all they need to do is forge an alliance with a hardware manufacturer and they could try an end-run around the market Goliath.

Bot or not?

Another attempt at the Turing Test. Read about it, or try it yourself.