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Researching Virtual Worlds

Methodologies for Studying Emergent Practices

Edited by Louise Phillips, Ursula Plesner

To Be Published July 8th 2013 by Routledge – 192 pages

Series: Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture

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Description

This volume presents a wide range of qualitative methodological strategies which are designed to tackle and take into account the complex, emergent, and continually shifting character of Virtual Worlds. The book concentrates on the theme of emergence and phenomena in flux – on how objects are brought into being, and transformed in, co-construction processes in social interaction. In addition, these methodological strategies also provide a foundation for the study of other complex, emergent phenomena.

A broad spectrum of qualitative methodologies is presented: Sense-Making Methodology, Actor-Network-Theory, IT praxiography, virtual ethnography, visual ethnography, multi-sited ethnography, discourse analysis, narrative analysis, social semiotics, and dialogic communication theory. These methodologies straddle the fields of media and communication studies, sociology, science and technology studies, design studies, and IT studies.

Contents

1. Introduction: Approaching the study of virtual worlds Ursula Plesner and Louise Phillips 2. Virtual Worlds as emerging cyber-hybrids: Accounting for the travel between research sites with Actor-Network-Theory Ursula Plesner 3. Presence in Virtual Worlds: Mediating a Distributed, Assembled and Emergent Object of Study Dixi Louise Strand 4. Understanding Cyborgism: Using Photo-Diary Interviews to Study Performative Identity in Second Life Ulrike Schultze 5. Designing Childhoods: Ethnographic Engagements in and Around of Virtual Worlds Minna Ruckenstein 6. A Situated Video Interview Method: Understanding the Interplay between Human Engagement and the Power of Scripted Animations of a Virtual World Sisse Siggaard Jensen 7. Comparing Novice Users’ Sense-Making Processes in Virtual Worlds: An Application of Dervin's Sense-Making Methodology CarrieLynn D. Reinhard and Brenda Dervin 8. Exploring Stakeholders of Open Source Virtual Worlds through a Multi-method Approach Zeynep Yetis, Robin Teigland and Paul M. Di Gangi

Author Bio

Louise Phillips is Associate Professor in Communication Studies at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies, Roskilde University, Denmark.

Ursula Plesner is Assistant Professor in the Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.

Name: Researching Virtual Worlds: Methodologies for Studying Emergent Practices (Hardback) – Routledge 
Description: Edited by Louise Phillips, Ursula Plesner. This volume presents a wide range of qualitative methodological strategies which are designed to tackle and take into account the complex, emergent, and continually shifting character of Virtual Worlds. The book concentrates on the theme of emergence and...
Categories: New Media, Media Research Methods, Communication Research Methods, New Media, Media Theory, Communication Theory, Information Technology, Sociology of Science & Technology, Video Games