This project explores the ways in which massively-multiparticipant online interactions provide experiences of meaningful accomplishment and how this engagement may portend the social use of digital technology for mass persuasion and motivation. Use of distributed network gaming technology has expanded rapidly in all age and ethnic demographics over the past decade, and current predictions conclude that growth will continue. As many of these online engagements and computationally produced virtual worlds explore idealistic themes or enable experiences of fulfillment, they could powerfully reshape the mores of modern life , especially given that it is the experiences made possible which account for much of their appeal. The principal investigator and four undergraduate students will examine a variety of such virtual worlds for the significant themes within them, such as the conflict between good and evil, a system of principles and adherents, development of personal meaning or character development, and individual identity expressed in heroic terms. All researchers will conduct fieldwork, interviewing users within the virtual worlds, and surveys will be conducted online for the residents of one or more virtual worlds. While shedding light upon the appropriation and modification of such experiences in virtual worlds, the project will also help clarify the ways in which cultural beliefs interact with technological development and, more importantly, the influence of technology on the public.
The results of this research will be disseminated through several publication efforts. The principal investigator will mentor the students through the authorship of academic papers, which they will submit for presentation or publication. The students will thereby learn to carry out long-term research projects and develop their insights for an academic audience. An additional paper co-authored with the students will assess all of the findings and draw broad-based conclusions from the comparisons. The various publications will help the project reshape public and academic understandings of how digital technologies operate in public life, especially in their reconfiguration of ideas and practices.
In the Virtually Meaningful project, we 1) identified key ways in which online worlds provide meaningful experiences for their users, 2) investigated how those experiences are brought about, and 3) revealed how those meaningful experiences might take on valuable roles in social amelioration through education and entertainment. In order to accomplish these goals, the principal investigator (PI) worked with several undergraduate students, training them in research methods and assisting them as they developed new skills and authored or co-authored work worthy of academic and popular publication. Each student worked within at least one virtual world, learning how to be a participant-observer and, eventually, how to acquire empirical data that would reveal important elements in virtual world participation. The student researchers engaged in four massively-multiplayer online environments: Guild Wars, Requiem: Momento Mori, DayZ, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. The project team identified and worked with three key themes: the mechanics and meaning of dying in game (Guild Wars), the role of survival-horror themes (Requiem and DayZ), and the role of politics and morality in game (Star Wars). The findings of the first research area indicate that players recognize how death mechanics play a role in their learning processes and their community building efforts. As such, these results could and should be leveraged in the production of software learning environments and could advance online and software education through an appreciation of how players respond to questions of player-character death. The second research area indicates that residents of survival-horror worlds actively pursue frightening experiences online and benefit from them as cathartic. In this, such online worlds are part of a long tradition of religious and folk culture but indicate clear and substantive gains for the emotional status of the players. This has clear ramifications for questions of psychological health in contemporary life. In the third area, two primary results emerged. First, participants in the Star Wars universe recognized and appreciated the philosophical underpinnings of the political conflicts in the online world and they could use that awareness both to reflect on political conflict in general and as a way of engaging real world political issues. Second, we found that players use their experiences in virtual worlds as springboards for ethical reflection on weighty political and moral concerns. In particular, we found that, not only do players experience powerful ethical responses to their activities in the game worlds, but they also leverage these to reflect upon (and reject) torture and collateral damage as elements of real war. The inclusion of political and moral concerns in games, therefore, could provide an opportunity to advance civic learning and just public policy. Our results, based upon quantitative survey data and qualitative interview data and survey comments, have already begun being disseminated via academic presentation and publication channels. In addition, however, some results have been written up for a general audience and the data gathered under the grant will be made publicly available online shortly after the end of the project. In this way, the results will be available for other researchers, for students, for journalists, and for other interested parties, and will thus advance our collective knowledge of online worlds and their role in our culture.
