Reconstructing Power in Second Life®: Controlling the Virtual Mayhem

摘要

Often described as the ultimate refuge from the rules of “real life”, the online multi‐user environment Second Life® is actually a highly structured community with explicit and implicit normative dictates about proper behavior and very specific consequences for those who transgress. Using five forms of power/capital — intellectual, economic, temporal, social, and cultural — as an overlay, this article outlines the ways in which control is clearly reinscribed in the “chaos”. This suggests, therefore, that there is really very little difference between one's real and second life, and that sites of behavior control are a highly evocative, socially constructed reflection of dominant culture.View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2011.525103