Reimagining The Avatar Dream: Modelling Social Identity In Digital Media (Annotated Bibliography)
[1] Harrell & Chong-U (2017) investigate the means by which users self-represent themselves via online avatars in gaming and other platforms such as social media networks. The research intends to pinpoint ‘box-effects’—ie stereotypes, social biases, discrimination…—in both the preset categories in games allowing for avatar customisation, such as race, height and strength, as well as our own underlying box-effects that we use to represent our online identity. The methodology used combines the authors’ AIRvatar system with real-life participants to study individual choices in personalised attributes. As well as this, using Chimeria, the authors firstly built users’ social media personalities by using their musical preferences, and thusly affiliating the user with others with similar tastes. Secondly, they crafted an AI-system in which users had to ‘pretend to be something I’m not’ in order to convince a guard that they are worthy of entering a castle.
This in-depth study of the potential of online identification covers a wide range of platforms and fits well with my groups chosen topic of ‘online identity’. The research is however limited in lack of prior, valid studies in the same field. The study also withholds some information on male users, suggesting inadequacy in results, considering the full disclosure of the female participants’ results. Harrell and Chong-U conclude by recommending further research on relationships between virtual identities and sociocultural identity phenomenon. I will be using this article in my collaborative essay as I feel it furthers my existing knowledge on online identities and digital media studies as a whole.
References[edit]
- ↑ Harrell, D. F. & Chong-U, L. 2017. Reimagining The Avatar Dream: Modeling Social Identity in Digital Media. Communications of the ACM, 60 (7). Pp. 50-61. DOI: 10.1145/3098342.
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