PhD Defense: Power Games: Rules and Roles in Second Life

Doctoral student Maria Bäcke of Blekinge Institute of Technology will defend her doctoral thesis in Technoscience studies, Power Games: Rules and Roles in Second Life.

Time: Friday, May 27, 2011 at 10:00 CET / 1:00 am SLT
Place: Room Rio Grande, Campus Karlshamn, Karlshamn, Sweden AND in Second Life on the Stockholm School of Economics Island

Thesis Title: Power Games: Rules and Roles in Second Life

Principal Supervisor: Professor Jay Bolter, BTH / Georgia Institute of Technology
Supervisor: Senior Lecturer Mikael Jakobsson, Malmö University
Examiner: Professor Lena Trojer, BTH
Faculty Examiner: Associate Professor Robin Teigland, Stockholm School of Economics
Examining Committee:

• Professor Sisse Siggaard Jensen, Roskilde University
• Professor Susan Kozel, Malmö University
• Associate Professor Lisbeth Klastrup, IT University of Copenhagen

Deputy member: Professor Abdellah Abarkan, BTH

Link to doctoral thesis

After the public defense of Maria Bäcke’s doctoral thesis, refreshments will be served in the staff room at Campus Karlshamn. Please inform Ulrika Magnusson no later than May 24 if you intend to participate physically.

Abstract

This study investigates how the members of four different role-playing communities on the online platform Second Life perform social as well as dramatic roles within their  community. The trajectories of power influencing these roles are my main focus. Theoretically I am relying primarily on performance studies scholar Richard Schechner, sociologist Erving Goffman, and post-structuralists Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felìx Guattari. My methodological stance has its origin primarily within literature studies using text analysis as my preferred method, but I also draw on the (cyber)ethnographical works of primarily T.L. Taylor, Celia Pearce, and Mikael Jakobsson. In this dissertation my focus is the relationship of the role-player to their chosen role especially in terms of the boundary between being in character, and as such removed from “reality”, and the popping out of character, which instead highlights the negotiations of the social, sometimes make-belief, roles. Destabilising and problematising the dichotomy between the notion of the online as virtual and the offline as real, as well as the idea that everything is “real” regardless of context, my aim is to understand role-play in a digital realm in a new way, in which two modes of performance, dramatic and social, take place in a digital context online – or inworld as many SL residents call it.

Looking forward to seeing you! /Robin

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Here is a picture from the defense:

About Robin Teigland

Robin Teigland is an Associate Professor at the Center for Strategy and Competitiveness at the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), as well as the caretaker of SSE’s island in Second Life. Robin’s research interests revolve around the creation and diffusion of knowledge in social networks and the impact on a firm’s competitive advantage. The focus of her current research is on investigating how virtual worlds and social media are enabling firms to create value outside the boundaries of the firm. She has published numerous articles in international books and academic journals, and in 2008 she received the “Researcher of the Year” award at the Stockholm School of Economics. In addition, she is a reviewer for the US National Science Foundation as well as a globally sought after speaker. Robin really enjoys teaching students at the Stockholm School of Economics and lecturing for executives. In March 2010, she started the NVWN a pan-Nordic project financed by the Nordic Innovation Center investigating innovation and entrepreneurship in virtual worlds.

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