Coming of Age in Second Life

Author: Tom Boellstorff
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168342
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Book Description
Millions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second Life is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. The residents of Second Life create communities, buy property and build homes, go to concerts, meet in bars, attend weddings and religious services, buy and sell virtual goods and services, find friendship, fall in love--the possibilities are endless, and all encountered through a computer screen. At the time of its initial publication in 2008, Coming of Age in Second Life was the first book of anthropology to examine this thriving alternate universe. Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He conducted his research as the avatar "Tom Bukowski," and applied the rigorous methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group. Coming of Age in Second Life shows how virtual worlds can change ideas about identity and society. Bringing anthropology into territory never before studied, this book demonstrates that in some ways humans have always been virtual, and that virtual worlds in all their rich complexity build upon a human capacity for culture that is as old as humanity itself. Now with a new preface in which the author places his book in light of the most recent transformations in online culture, Coming of Age in Second Life remains the classic ethnography of virtual worlds.

My Second Life

Author: Faye Bird
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374348863
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Book Description
"Originally published in the United Kingdom by Usborne Publishing"--Title page verso.

The Second Life of Mirielle West

Author: Amanda Skenandore
Publisher: Kensington Books
ISBN: 1496726529
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 474

Book Description
The glamorous world of a silent film star’s wife abruptly crumbles when she’s forcibly quarantined at the Carville Lepers Home in this page-turning story of courage, resilience, and reinvention set in 1920s Louisiana and Los Angeles. Based on little-known history, this timely book will strike a chord with readers of Fiona Davis, Tracey Lange, and Marie Benedict. Based on the true story of America’s only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution known as Carville, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century. For Mirielle West, a 1920’s socialite married to a silent film star, the isolation and powerlessness of the Louisiana Leper Home is an unimaginable fall from her intoxicatingly chic life of bootlegged champagne and the star-studded parties of Hollywood’s Golden Age. When a doctor notices a pale patch of skin on her hand, she’s immediately branded a leper and carted hundreds of miles from home to Carville, taking a new name to spare her family and famous husband the shame that accompanies the disease. At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth while fighting an unchosen fate. As a registered nurse, Amanda Skenandore’s medical background adds layers of detail and authenticity to the experiences of patients and medical professionals at Carville – the isolation, stigma, experimental treatments, and disparate community. A tale of repulsion, resilience, and the Roaring ‘20s, The Second Life of Mirielle West is also the story of a health crisis in America’s past, made all the more poignant by the author’s experiences during another, all-too-recent crisis. PRAISE FOR AMANDA SKENANDORE’S BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY “Intensely emotional…Skenandore’s deeply introspective and moving novel will appeal to readers of American history.” —Publishers Weekly

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds

Author: Tom Boellstorff
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691264864
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Book Description
A practical guide to the ethnographic study of online cultures, and beyond Ethnography and Virtual Worlds is the only book of its kind—a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results. Provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongame Draws on research in a range of virtual worlds, including Everquest, Second Life, There.com, and World of Warcraft Provides suggestions for dealing with institutional review boards, human subjects protocols, and ethical issues Guides the reader through the full trajectory of ethnographic research, from research design to data collection, data analysis, and writing up and publishing research results Addresses myths and misunderstandings about ethnographic research, and argues for the scientific value of ethnography

Coming of Age in Second Life

Author: Tom Boellstorff
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400874106
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Women and Second Life

Author: Dianna Baldwin
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786470216
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Book Description
This collection of new essays explores issues of identity, work and play in the virtual world of Second Life (SL). Fourteen women discuss their experiences. Topics include teaching in Second Life, becoming an SL journalist, and using SL as a means to bring human rights to health care; exploring issues of identity and gender such as performing the role of digital geisha, playing with gender crossing, or determining how identity is formed virtually; examining how race is perceived; and investigating creativity such as poetry writing or quilting. The text is unique in that it represents only women and their experiences in a world that is most often viewed as a man's world.

Male Idols and Branding in Chinese Luxury

Author: Amanda Sikarskie
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350283320
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
Challenging the Western view of idols as objects of worship, this book explores the role that male idols play in fashion and cosmetics brand marketing in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau; including the role of the female gaze. It examines idols in the more modern, pan-Asian sense of the word - as objects of social devotion, worshipped by the adoring masses and, in China and Korea, as objects of social and moral uplift. The contemporary idol wields great power - the power to influence taste, and to sell - and Male Idols and Branding in Chinese Luxury focuses on their ability to arouse the consumer appetite to buy. In China, popular culture idols play a vital role in the luxury fashion and cosmetics industries as brand ambassadors and this volume fills a critical gap in the English-language literature on this key element of the marketing industry, bringing together authors from the United States and China, and featuring case studies on idols Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan. Through considering the subtleties of branding and marketing in China, Korea, and Japan, and the relationship of Chinese idols to fans and consumers in other Asian countries, the authors delve into brand-idol collaborations, particularly through lenses of brand image and toxic fan culture.

Online Communication and Collaboration

Author: Helen Donelan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136616055
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
Communication and collaboration via the Internet has risen to great prominence in recent years, especially with the rise of social networking, Web 2.0 and virtual worlds. Many interesting and worthwhile studies have been conducted on the technology involved and the way it is used and shaped by its user communities. From some of the more popular coverage of these interactions, it might be thought that these are new phenomena. However, they draw on a rich heritage of technologies and interactions. Online communication and collaboration presents a very timely set of articles that cover a range of different perspectives upon these themes, both classic and contemporary. It is unusually broad in the range of technologies it considers - many books on these topics cover only a few forms of collaboration technology - and in considering well-established technologies as well as recent ones. It blends academic and popular articles to combine scholarly rigour with readability. The book is divided into eight sections, covering the foundations of online communication and collaboration, together with current collaboration technologies such as wikis, instant messaging, virtual worlds and social network sites. These modern communication tools are considered in terms of their interactions but also looking back at lessons to be learnt from their technological 'ancestors'. The book also contains an extended case study of online collaboration, taking open-source software as its example. Online communication and collaboration will be of relevance in a wide range of higher education courses in fields related to soft computing, information systems, cultural and media studies, and communications theory.

Architectural Agents

Author: Annabel Jane Wharton
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452943397
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
Buildings are not benign; rather, they commonly manipulate and abuse their human users. Architectural Agents makes the case that buildings act in the world independently of their makers, patrons, owners, or occupants. And often they act badly. Treating buildings as bodies, Annabel Jane Wharton writes biographies of symptomatic structures in order to diagnose their pathologies. The violence of some sites is rooted in historical trauma; the unhealthy spatial behaviors of other spaces stem from political and economic ruthlessness. The places examined range from the Cloisters Museum in New York City and the Palestine Archaeological Museum (renamed the Rockefeller Museum) in Jerusalem to the grand Hostal de los Reyes Católicos in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and Las Vegas casino resorts. Recognizing that a study of pathological spaces would not be complete without an investigation of digital structures, Wharton integrates into her argument an original consideration of the powerful architectures of video games and immersive worlds. Her work mounts a persuasive critique of popular phenomenological treatments of architecture. Architectural Agents advances an alternative theorization of buildings’ agency—one rooted in buildings’ essential materiality and historical formation—as the basis for her significant intervention in current debates over the boundaries separating humans, animals, and machines.

Being Ethnographic

Author: Raymond Madden
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1526416832
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 213

Book Description
Being Ethnographic is an essential introductory guidebook to the methods and applications of doing fieldwork in real-world settings. It discusses the future of ethnography, explores how we understand identity, and sets out the role of technology in a global, networked society. Driven by classic and anecdotal case studies, Being Ethnographic highlights the challenges introduced by the ethnographers′ own interests, biases and ideologies and demonstrates the importance of methodological reflexivity. Addressing both the why and how questions of doing ethnography well, Madden demonstrates how both theory and practice can work together to produce insights into the human condition. This fully updated second edition includes: New material on intersubjectivity Information on digital inscription tools A practical guide to qualitative analysis software New coverage of cyberethnography and social media Expanded information on ethnographic possibilities with animals Filled with invaluable advice for applying ethnographic principles in the field, it will give researchers across social sciences everything they need to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.