Author: Steffan Antonas
Graduation Year: 2004
Advisor: Kathleen Wallman
Reader: D. Linda Garcia
Date: 01 May 2004
Link to Thesis: SteffanAntonas.pdf
Currently, several million people around the globe have accounts in the virtual worlds of massively multiplayer online video games. The overall population of these virtual worlds has grown rapidly since 1996. This thesis offers an insight into interaction forms available in massively multiplayer online games by analyzing their communicative and social aspects.
The thesis aims to provide a deeper understanding of how virtual environments may be used in the future to overcome the limitations of current text-based communication, which are classified by a reduced set of intuitive non-verbal cues. The work is conducted using conceptual analysis, by applying a theoretical model that translates the perceivable interaction forms that human beings use in face-to-face interaction in the real world to virtual worlds.
This thesis will argue that that the richness of interaction within computer-mediated environments (CMEs) varies depending on the available medium, and that CMEs structure the processes of identity presentation and communication in significant ways. Additionally, it argues that the number of channels (e.g. speech, gesture or posture) and their dynamics (e.g. the simultaneous use of multiple channels) affect the overall level of richness of communication that takes place between users within computer-mediated environments that support communication. Finally, it will argue that the increased range of communicative channels that support interaction within massively multiplayer online video games can be used to overcome the limitations of current text-based communication in cyberspace, and that, as virtual worlds become an increasingly common phenomenon, they will influence the processes by which internet users communicate and present their identities online in the future.
To obtain a copy of this thesis, please email the author at steffaninboston@hotmail.com