Rhizome Experiment, Fall 2015

Congregation of the Mass in Second Life

Raymond Williams and Brian Larkin discussed the evolution of early broadcasting systems like the radio. As these technologies helped bring together a sense of community within individuals, they created a new social space. This social space created a mass within individuals, so people can discuss similar ideas. Larkin says, “This medium was aimed at listeners addressed not by ethnicity or religion, but who were, in principle, equivalent members of a public” (Larkin 52). Though there are social and economic levels that differentiate people of society, this transmittance of information through a single device helps create an equal playing field.  Despite the fact that there are still race and gender stereotypes, this creation of a social space in the virtual also shows how ideas of the real transfer into the social. With everyone listening to the same information, it gives a common ground for all individuals to interact with. Even if people are not physically near each other, this system of broadcasting brought each other to the same mindset. Williams says, “Sound radio and television…by its definition as ‘mass communication’: an abstraction to its most general characteristic, that it went to many people ‘the masses’” (Tech & Society 7).  Similarly, the virtual space in Second Life has the same impact. All the users will be within the same social space and interact based on what happens inside the virtual world. They are able to communicate, build relationships, and trade virtual property that gives all users a common goal outside of the real.  When the radio brings common news and shows in the real, Second Life characters create a community with others in the game, and share the social impacts of real life broadcasting.

Larkin, Brian. "Unstable Objects." Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria. Durham: Duke UP, 2008. N. pag. Print.
 
Williams, Raymond. "The Technology and the Society." In Television: Technology and Cultural Form. New York: Schocken Books, 1975. 
 

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