Power Games Platform Second Life Perform Social As Well As Especially in Terms of the Boundary Between Be- Dramatic Roles Within Their Community
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Rule Powe S A ABSTRACT R nd Role G This study investigates how the members of four Jakobsson. In this dissertation my focus is the re- A different role-playing communities on the online lationship of the role-player to their chosen role me PoweR GAmeS platform Second Life perform social as well as especially in terms of the boundary between be- S S dramatic roles within their community. The tra- ing in character, and as such removed from ”re- in Se RuleS And RoleS in SeCond life jectories of power influencing these roles are ality,” and the popping out of character, which my main focus. Theoretically I am relying pri- instead highlights the negotiations of the social, C marily on performance studies scholar Richard sometimes make-belief, roles. Destabilising and ond Schechner, sociologist Erving Goffman, and post- problematising the dichotomy between the no- structuralists Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze tion of the online as virtual and the offline as l ife and Felìx Guattari. My methodological stance real, as well as the idea that everything is ”real” has its origin primarily within literature studies regardless of context, my aim is to understand using text analysis as my preferred method, but role-play in a digital realm in a new way, in which I also draw on the (cyber)ethnographical works two modes of performance, dramatic and social, of primarily T.L. Taylor, Celia Pearce, and Mikael take place in a digital context online. Maria Bäcke Maria Bäcke Blekinge Institute of Technology Doctoral Dissertation Series No. 2011:09 2011:09 ISSN 1653-2090 School of Planning and Media Design 2011:09 ISBN 978-91-7295-209-6 Power Games Rules and Roles in Second Life Maria Bäcke 3 4 Blekinge Institute of Technology Doctorial Dissertation Series No 2011:09 ISSN 1653-2090 ISBN 978-91-7295-209-6 Power Games Rules and Roles in Second Life Maria Bäcke School of Planning and Media Design Department of Technology and Aestetics Blekinge Institute of Technology Sweden 5 Blekinge Institute of Technology Blekinge Institute of Technology, situated on the southeast coast of Sweden, started in 1989 and in 1999 gained the right to run Ph.D programmes in technology. Research programmes have been started in the following areas: Applied Signal Processing Computer Science Computer Systems Technology Development of Digital Games Human Work Science with a special Focus on IT Interaction Design Mechanical Engineering Software Engineering Spatial Planning Technoscience Studies Telecommunication Systems Research studies are carried out in faculties and about a third of the annual budget is dedicated to research. Blekinge Institute of Technology S-371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden www.bth.se © Maria Bäcke 2011 Department of Technology and Aestetics School of Planning and Media Design Graphic Design and Typesettning: Maria Bäcke Publisher: Blekinge Institute of Technology Printed by Printfabriken, Karlskrona, Sweden 2011 ISBN: 978-91-7295-209-6 urn:nbn:se:bth-00496 6 Acknowledgements This PhD thesis would not exist had not a series of digital and face-to-face encounters with a large number of people taken place, and it is therefore appropriate as well as necessary for me to acknowledge the influence of these people upon my writing and my thinking. First and foremost I would like to thank my supervisors, professor Jay David Bolter at the Georgia Institute of Technology and associate professor Mikael Jakobsson at Malmö Högskola, for tireless input, support and inspiring discussions. My most heartfelt gratitude. I would also like to express my gratitude to professor Lena Trojer at the Blekinge Institute of Technology, who, in the role of examiner, has helped me with many practical issues. Bjarke Liboriussen, who gloriously took on the role of mock defence opponent, Mark Troy, Mikala Hansbøl, and Lissa Holloway-Attaway have all helped me immensely by going through my text and urge me to articulate my thoughts more clearly. Thank you! Additionally, I would like to say ”thank you” to the Second Life residents I have interviewed in my empirical studies, especially to the people behind the avatars Stacia Villota and Auntie, both of whom I have admittedly pestered with questions over and over again. Colleagues and former colleagues at the Blekinge Institute of Technology have been equally important: Teri Schamp-Bjerede, Åse Nygren, Vicky Johnson Gatzouras, Ulrica Skagert, Gösta Viberg, Lissa Holloway-Attaway, Lina Berglund Snodgrass, Lennart Nacke, Andreas Jakobsson, Niklas Lavesson, Marie Persson, Martin Boldt, Peter Ekdahl, Anita Carlsson, Kalle Bergman, Madeleine Persson, Therese Nilsson, Pelle Gunnarsson, Anna Zedig, and Ann-Katrin Strand. Thank you for your support, understanding, and friendship. I would never hesitate to acknowledge my debt to my former colleagues at Karlstad University. During my years there I was encouraged by for instance Mark Troy, Elisabeth Wennö and Reine Lundin to explore my interest in how people perceive, write and think 7 about information and communication technologies. I’m very grateful for their support and encouragement as I, in my own mind, struggled to merge the fields of English literature, new media and information and communication technologies. I’m likewise grateful to Andreas Kitzmann, who battled similar interdisciplinary issues and introduced me to new media theories. They all encouraged me to move on to graduate studies. Furthermore I would like to thank Owen Kelly and Roni Linser, who, in 2005, began exploring and analysing the, at that point, not so well-known online world Second Life with me. Both of them were instrumental in moving my ideas about new digital environments forward. I would also like to express my gratitude to people at various conferences, workshops and courses for the thought-provoking feedback they have given me. Likewise am I grateful to my students over the years, who have asked me all types of ”impossible” questions which encouraged me to go one step further in my thoughts. For their support, understanding and encouragement I feel extremely obliged to the Bäcke and Jensen families as well as to my two wonderful sons, Marc and Leo. Last, but not least, my immense gratitude to Thomas for your love and our discussions. 8 Contents Introduction: Structures, Rules and Norms Affecting the Role-Play in Second Life............11 Chapter One: The Role of Power and the Power of Roles...................................................39 Chapter Two: Reading, Analysing, and Exploring: Methodological Approaches...............68 Chapter Three: Being or Performing Neko?..........................................................................84 Chapter Four: Negotiating the Roles in Midian City.........................................................110 Chapter Five: Second Life Gor from the Outside................................................................142 Chapter Six: Power Games in the Independent State of Caledon.....................................171 Conclusion: Make-Believe and Make-Belief Performances...............................................199 Sources................................................................................................................................214 9 10 Introduction: Structures, Rules and Norms Affecting the Role-Play in Second Life Described by the role-players as a relaxing, lighthearted pastime as well as a completely and totally immersive endeavour, simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting, the role- play communities in an online 3D worlds such as Second Life (often abbreviated SL) draw a large number of people from all over the world. In interviews, blog posts, forum discussions, and articles many of the role-players describe the make-believe web of stories that emerges as the most important aspect, and for some of the participants the role-play becomes the very reason for them to log in on a regular basis. Collaboratively these role- players create an ongoing and emergent live performance filled with individual quirks and unexpected twists and turns. Second Life, from which all four examples — the Nekos in Second Life forum, the Midian city community, the Second Life Gor groups, and the Independent State of Caledon — of role-play communities in this dissertation are taken, provides its residents (as the “inhabitants” in SL are called) with a virtually empty playground, on which they can be creative in almost any way they want. Some people log in to design and build, others prefer to use it primarily as a social platform, yet others are using it as a work tool in various ways.1 Role-play might be the most popular activity, however, and the number of active role-play communities inside Second Life is high. In his 2009 list, Salvatore Otoro counts 73 different ones and he divides them into five categories: dark RP2, Gor RP, Superhero, Science Fiction, and other types of role-play. Only three of the role-play groups in which I have gathered3 the empirical material are represented in Otoro’s list, however. Gor can be described as a typical role-play environment, as can the dark play communities Midian City. My findings among the 1 I will not go into any detail about what it is like for a beginner to enter Second Life. More about this can for instance be found in Tom Boellstorff’s excellent Coming of Age in Second Life. 2 RP is an often used abbreviation for the word role-play. 3 The methodology I have chosen will be discussed in further detail in chapter two. 11 Nekos was taken from the more casual discussion and playful bantering on the Second Life Nekos forum. The fourth group, Caledon, cannot be found on Otoro’s list, but it provides an example of a comparatively old social/role-play environment in Second Life, which adds significantly to the diversity of the role-play environments in general and is therefore included in my dissertation. Theoretically I am relying primarily on performance theorist Richard Schechner, sociologist Erving Goffman, as well as post-structuralists Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felìx Guattari. My methodological stance has its origin primarily within literature studies as text analysis is my preferred method, but I also draw on the (cyber)ethnographical works of T.L. Taylor, Celia Pearce, and Mikael Jakobsson.