Orientation in an online social space: the example of a game

This study of the social space formed around Mountyhall, an online game, takes as starting point not the distinction between 'real' and 'virtual' but the concrete circulation of participants. Focus is placed on the 'cosmopolitanism' of social webspaces and the alternati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSociologie du travail (Paris) Vol. 50; no. 4; pp. 447 - 470
Main Author Boutet, M
Format Journal Article
LanguageFrench
Published 01.10.2008
Subjects
Boundaries
Cosmopolitanism
Games
Geography
Internet
Participation
Sociability
Social space
Virtual reality
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Summary:This study of the social space formed around Mountyhall, an online game, takes as starting point not the distinction between 'real' and 'virtual' but the concrete circulation of participants. Focus is placed on the 'cosmopolitanism' of social webspaces and the alternation between connected/unconnected. Crossing this case study with an analysis of statistics and graphs leads to formulating the notion of 'orientation principle' for explaining how participants themselves draw boundaries and label activities. Two 'orientation principles' are analyzed: the first one about time in relation to the game and the other about the geography of this online social space. All rights reserved, Elsevier
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ISSN:0038-0296
DOI:10.1016/j.soctra.2008.09.005