second life

I think there is something rather exciting about the fact that people are nowadays able to create an avatar for themselves and live a life of pure imagination. Personally, it is not something that I am interested in doing but looking at the number of people who part take in similar games I can see why it is important that we all pay attention to them. Perhaps the most interesting question is examining “ how, and if, our experience of virtual spaces allows us to rethink the experience of the mind and body relationship.” (Ensslin, A & Muse, E 2011)

Brian Massumi makes a very reasonable point that the imagination and virtual world make a great match! Looking at the length that people go with their creations, I really hope that it is just their imagination :)

Lets consider Second Life and its unlimited opportunities. For instance, there is probably no other platform where people can experience the life in Medieval Times with a group of people who are truly interested in the same subject. There is no harm in dressing the part, role playing and conversing with similar minded people, is there? But how do we feel when they start to get intimate or even have sex (which is very common!)

Axel Bruns points out:

'Collaborative spaces removes 'the real-world limitations placed on social and/ or collaborative behaviour by factors such as language, geography, background, financial status, etc.' by providing the tools for widespread ,equitable collaboration across large communities of users. It also compensates for human inadequacies in processing, maintaining or developing social and/ or collaborative mechanisms.' (Bruns 2006)

Maybe it is just too weird or we do not get it how people can spend so much time role playing a life that does not exist but I don't think it really matters. What second life does is that it adds another dimension of experience to people's lives. It really harms no one and it won't be long lasting. It'll take its place in history and will give birth to some other genius idea!

On the other hand, I find it really hard to forget the Korean couple who had spend so much time on second life raising a child that they had neglected their real life child! This we can not fully blame on the game, although it does raise concerns.

Still, Second Life was innovative and it probably deserved all the attention it received. Let's see what is next?

References

Bruns, A 2006, ' Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond', Peter Lang Publishing, New York

Ensslin, A & Muse, E 2011,'Creating second lives: community, identity and spatiality as constructions of virtual”, Routledge

OBAMA GIRL!

                                                               

There is no denying that the campaign video by John Edwards was a great indicator for what is to come in terms of the bond between Internet and Politics. However, he underestimated the importance of using Social Media such as you tube. Obama or McCain did not make the same mistake! They took internet more seriously and utilized it effectively for their campaign for fund-raising, persuasion and get out the vote mobilization. It was McCain campaign in late 2008 that captured the attention of observers by adding a entertaining twist to the Campaign and making fun of Obama. These certainly proved to be very successful for grabbing the attention of media and and hence the general public. McCain campaigner got even more creative when they launched the game called 'Pork Invaders' on Facebook! ( Dennis 2009, p.154) However, this was not all about grabbing attention. It was more about creating a large platform to raise money. Does it surprise you if I told you that Obama campaign raised 650 million and McCain campaign raised a comfortable 360 million. ( Dennis 2009, p.156)

The internet was not only used to collect votes and fund-raising by politicians. Also everyday people took it upon themselves to expose the weakness of politicians on sites like Accountability Project. This is one of my favorite concepts actually. It is not all pink for politicians any more, if they slip they get caught and they are responsible for it! I can not imagine how hard that would have made the job of politicians. There is no escaping this sort of public scrutiny. When I checked out the website first, I was astonished to find out how easy the process was to upload videos from public.

The study conducted by the Pew Research Centre gave interesting insights to the use of the internet in US midterm elections. Here are the summary of the some of the findings:

• 54% of adults used the internet for political purposes in the last cycle. They hold mixed views about the impact of the internet: It enables extremism, while helping the like-minded find each other. It provides diverse sources, but makes it harder to find truthful sources.
• 22% of online American adults used social network sites or Twitter for politics in the 2010 campaign, and that 22% of online American adults used their cell phones to learn about or participate in the campaign.
• One in five online adults (22%) used Twitter or a social networking site for political purposes in 2010.
• One quarter of all US adults (24%) got most of their news about the 2010 elections from the internet, and the proportion of Americans who get most of their midterm election campaign news from the internet has grown more than three-fold since the 2002 campaign.

So let me recap, Nowadays a political campaign can not ignore the use of internet. There are so many little tricks to success. Politicians can tidy up their image as much as they want but may still end up being scrutinized by the same Internet that helps them. The voters probably get the best of the deal. Politics  is not a boring subject anymore (according to me and some). Politics can be entertaining and cameras are out there to catch every single slip a politician may make. As a result. Politician's PR's jobs got million times more stressful!

REFERENCES

Johnson, D. W. 2009, Campaigning for president 2008, viewed 13 january, 2013, http://reader.eblib.com.au.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au

Smith, A 2011, The Internet and Campaign 2010, viewed 13 January 2013,http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/The-Internet-and-Campaign-2010/Summary.aspx