Gender Identity in Second Life

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this chance for thanking my research facilitator, friends & family for support they provided & their belief in me as well as guidance they provided without which I would have never been able to do this research.



DECLARATION

I, (Your name), would like to declare that all contents included in this thesis/dissertation stand for my individual work without any aid, & this thesis/dissertation has not been submitted for any examination at academic as well as professional level previously. It is also representing my very own views & not essentially which are associated with university.

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Table of contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

CHAPTER 01: INTRODUCTION5

Back ground of the Study5

Problem Statement6

Rational of the Study7

Aims and Objectives of the Study8

Research Questions8

CHAPTER 02: LITERATURE REVIEW9

Avatar Selection10

Para Authentic Avatar11

Alter Self Avatar12

Single Player Games13

Massively Multiplayer Online Games14

CHAPTER 03: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY18

Research Methods18

Qualitative Research Method18

Quantitative Research Method19

Comparisons of the Qualitative and Quantitative Methods of Research20

Research Design21

Search Technique23

CHAPTER 04: DISCUSSION25

CHAPTER 05: CONCLUSION29

REFERENCES32

CHAPTER 01: INTRODUCTION

Back ground of the Study

Computers have promised a host of transformative abilities since their inception and integration into society. They have no doubt changed the way people work, play, and communicate. However, are these machines capable of changing people themselves? Some have argued that computers have at least changed the way people think about themselves and the way they reveal themselves to others. Turkle has argued that computers, and especially the Internet, have afforded certain impermanence to identity and have even allowed for multiple identities or multiplicity. Even if average Internet users are not looking to reinvent themselves, there are opportunities to tweak their identities in the online realm that are not possible in the real world. Some have argued that the identity control offered by computers could even serve as a means of levelling the playing field for those groups who feel marginalized by society.

One area of computing that seems to be particularly salient to discussions of identity is that of the avatar. An avatar is the graphical representation of the self within computer mediated environments. Avatars have their theoretical basis in Goffman's (1959) theory of self presentation, the idea that people communicate an expression of themselves to others, who then interpret those expressions. Several researchers have argued that immersive computer mediated environments, such as video games, are ideal for research into identity and the presentation or representation of the self particularly given that attributes, such as race and gender, can be experimentally controlled within such environments. Additionally, avatars seem to be particularly ideal for investigations into Turkle's (1995) concept of multiplicity, because they offer people the ability to change an avatar's appearance and behaviour. Recent research found that people do use avatars to assess who is on the other side of the computer. Given the ubiquitous nature of avatars and avatar selection tools within massively multiplayer online (MMO) games and their predecessor, the multi user dungeon or MUD, such computer mediated environments seem to be the perfect realm in which to study the avatar phenomenon. Goffman (1959) noted that the appearance of ...