From AMY in 561:
There is something I would like to get opinions from the class on and the topic may be appropriate for the blog. The question stems from self-interest -it has to do with a project I am currently working on- but it also relates to the readings.
My question relates to the Wright chapter. Beginning on page 7 of the chapter, Wright outlines characteristics of mass communication. I would like to use Wright's description (and maybe other definitions too) to determine if Second Life counts as mass communication.
This has been troubling for me. Of course the internet is mass communication. But when it comes to Second Life it gets sticky for me. Especially when studying certain spaces of Second Life- such as a store. The stores are businesses with actual customers. When moving through SL, a store seems to be more like a place than a medium of mass communication. But, the owner of the store does not interact with everyone who consumes their "messages", the recipients are largely unknown and heterogeneous, and the audience could be potentially very large. The store is public, but it is not rapid or transient (but much of the internet is not transient). And it may be easy to answer the question by equating Second Life to video and computer games, but Second Life is so much more than a game. Real life businesses and governmental organizations are using SL to communicate with their consumers and citizens!
So, could Second Life be considered mass communication? What about specific places within Second Life? Where should the line be drawn?
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2 comments:
In concordance with Wright's views, Second Life would be an instrument of mass communication, not necessarily an instance of it in itself. As you said, Amy, it is aimed at a largely heterogeneous audience. Of course, Second Life is like a largely interactive video game. But aren't video games mass media? SL is more interesting in that it connects people perhaps on a more personal level than do video games, even ones where you can go "live" and interact with others.
However, also like with video games, there are messages that are being sent from a small group of people to a large group of people. You can shop at certain stores - the businesses are real, but not every business is there, so there must be marketing and advertising ploys at work, as well as a money exchange. As a result, what we see in SL and what we are capable of doing there is very mediated, which goes along with the "Press Effect" reading for this week - SL exists in a frame, to use the authors' metaphor, and we see only what exists within the confines of the frame, which has been carefully structured by the media, or the creators of Second Life.
-Abby R.
I think the focus for this question is 'what' is being communicated - direct messages or the digital information/data of the world itself, of which SL is clearly the latter. Taking Wright's terms, SL is public(if you can afford to get connected), rapid(if you have broadband), transient(each experience is one-time) and organized. Most of all, everything in SL is all about communicating symbolic meanings including the appearance of your character that you assembled with items purchased with your cyber money.
The question remains whether it is 'mass' communication as we normally would consider as being all passive and same-for-all. But it is natural to get personal experiences on the user/audience side and even personalize some portions of it, while the media itself is intended to be consumed by a unspecified mass. You have you own unique custom recommendation list, but still one of the millions of users of Amazon.com. However, in the case of SL, I think of SL as both mass communication in itself and at the same time a tool to facilitate other forms of mass communication as well as 'personal' communication. But then again, it was the same case with Internet itself in the first place.
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