Online communities play an important role in positive global change not just because they bring crises to world attention, Hollywood celebrities are even better at doing this! More importantly, they bring together diverse aspects of the global community/polity to make human dignity and freedom a priority in a world seemingly dominated by global competition (see Chika Anyan Wu).
I have been focusing on “bridge blogging” and “virtual worlds” because I believe on-line communities, in general, and virtual worlds, in particular, will play a role in positive global change so big that we cannot fully imagine it yet.
A connection to the experience of others motivates the social and political actions that can make the world a better place. The potential of virtual worlds, in particular, to enhance and energize shared experience and human connection has been acknowledged by everyone I have met (who has actually explored them), educators, corporate marketers, gamers, and political activists.
Are Virtual Worlds just games?
On Tuesday, I went to visit Xerox Innovation Island on Second Life to hear panelists, from Xerox Innovation Group, Beta Technologies, Multiverse, IBM and Xerox (PARC) and others discuss, “A vision of what’s next for virtual worlds.”
The theme that came through strongly despite grid problems was the role of virtual worlds in enhancing and enriching the experience of communication and collaboration at work. And, while this of course can be debated, and it is not the main topic of this particular post (later), I will mention that “making work fun” came up a lot. The focus of the event was, “perspective and ideas for business.” But, there was food for thought on the potential role of virtual worlds in global development. And, an important factor will probably be the particularly engaging qualities of these environments.
I am sitting on the far right in a xerox T-shirt looking very prim and proper (no foxy face this day). I had actually stripped my avatar of my “fun” accessories like flames and a foxy face. Inappropriate, I thought, for a Xerox guest. So, I was a little jealous of Jonas Karlsson’s (prime mover of the Xerox Innovation Island project) cool skates, and Philip Linden style spiked hair.
Second Life is not a game!
There was a large press turnout for the Xerox event that was being watched by a Real Life Audience. At one point, I found myself sitting next to Ziggy Figaro of Information Week. And, I couldn’t resist telling him I had been tweaked by Cory Doctorow’s post and article, “Why Online Games Are Dictatorships in Information Week. Doctorow asks the question “Can you be a Citizen of a Virtual World.”
Doctorow argues that Second Life is just like World of Warcraft - a dictatorship because the control of wealth and property is ultimately in the hands of the Lindens. The debate continues from a gaming perspective on Raph Koster’s blog. Where Koster writes: “The core of his argument [Cory Ds] is that while democracy can be really fun, actually governing sure isn’t, and interactions with governments tend not to be either. And that this poses challenges for any world (just as it does for the real world!)
I asked Ziggy Figaro what he thought of Doctorow’s article. And, he told me he had edited it, adding:
I thought it was interesting, his idea that games might well have to be dictatorships. I think he’s right. Unlike Cory, though, I don’t think that’s a bad thing…..in a game, like many businesses, you’re the customer and you expect the business owner to RUN things……his essay convinces me that SL is not a game. Because it’s not a dictatorship.
Can you be a citizen in a virtual world that is not a game?
Issues of governance are debated in depth in some communities on Second Life, notably in the Neufreistadt (a topic for another post!). And, Second Life citizenship is discussed both in the sense of property rights, rights to participation, and as active citizenship.
Forms of “active citizenship” are very much a part of online culture. If you go to this link you will find a detailed argument for this, and many other relevant links. There are reasons to be skeptical of the potential of “cyberactivism” to result in real world change. See Mutant Palm’s, “Nailhouse Blues,” where it is pointed out that the “Nail House” cyberhype seems to have had little impact, so far, on the much “blogged about new property law.” But, there is plenty of evidence for a more optimistic view.
In particular, there is the role new media technologies have in questioning “the role of nation states as agents of change, public police and social monitor.” And, as the state of nations states is frequently corrupt, oppressive, impotent or defunct. And, the majority of successful political or social movements in the last few years do not reside in their country or society of opposition due to political pressure and intimidation (Wu), this role is pretty important. See this post, “Reporters Without Borders, has published The Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents.” (BBC Click)
Darfur - Giving Voice to a Crisis.
The on-going Darfur crisis in Sudan has caught the world’s attention (we are still waiting for global leaders to act) through a combination of celebrity activism - Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg - and the work of new communication networks. Working across a wide physical and cultural geography these new networks of communication and online organizations have found ways to give voice to the refugees, e.g. savedarfur.org, and bring attention to the crisis (see the Google Earth Darfur initiative).
The New York Times, reports on Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg’s efforts to put pressure on China. And, how in the new global politics, governments are more likely to listen to global threats to their interests than local protesters. A Senior Chinese official -
Mr. Zhai even went all the way to Darfur and toured three refugee camps, a rare event for a high-ranking official from China, which has extensive business and oil ties to Sudan and generally avoids telling other countries how to conduct their internal affairs.
Just when it seemed safe to buy a plane ticket to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games, nongovernmental organizations and other groups appear to have scored a surprising success in an effort to link the Olympics, which the Chinese government holds very dear, to the killings in Darfur, which, until recently, Beijing had not seemed too concerned about. (New York Times)
This picture and the drawing by a child from a Darfur camp at the beginning of this post are from Camilla Nielsson. Her film, “The Children of Darfur,” “tells the children’s version of what is happening in Darfur. Some of the strongest testimonies are told by the children and etched in drawings made in the support centres that have opened throughout Darfur.”
I talked with Camilla about her film, her experiences making it, and talking to people around the world about the situation in Darfur. Camilla stressed the necessity for people to have some experience of a situation, and to make a connection, for political motivation to arise. Her film by taking you into the day to day lives of children in the camps, as they draw, cook, duck their head against the sandstorms creates an opportunity for such a connection to be made.
Camp Darfur in Second Life is a trail blazing effort at trying to connect people, through a multi-dimensional experience in a virtual world, to a social crisis in the real world. This and other projects like it are the beginning of an exciting and crucial adventure in positive global development. But, as anyone who has tried knows, establishing a presence/experience in a virtual world, whether it is corporate, educational, or as an active citizen, is an on-going experiment - a process of trial and error as we learn how to engage the potentials of virtual worlds more fully and effectively. But, as we learn how to deepen the experience and link on line and off line worlds in more and more creative ways there will be an ever increasing ROA - Return On Awesome (ROA is from Jerry Paffendorf).
Tags: Second Life | Virtual Citizenship | Virtual Worlds | Virtual Reality | Metaverse | internet | Xerox Innovation | Xerox PARC | Beta Technologies | MMOGS | online games | bridge blogging | blogging | blogosphere | global development | Darfur | Cyberactivism | celebrity activism | Return On Awesome | Camp Darfur | Digital Democracy | active citizenship | xerox |
