Virtual vision quest: second life and the digital self

Abstract

Master of Arts

Department of Communications

Timothy R. Steffensmeier

This thesis examines the production of identity within post web 2.0 virtual communities. Second Life, the community which this study focuses on, is a growing home of educational institutions. To better understand the process of constructing identity and community in the hyper-mediated future, this thesis grapples with the complicated process of creating oneself through analyzing the avatar as self and the home as community. Identity appears to continue to be both a liberating and constraining force, and creating oneself is not as simple as buying a new skin. Through a self-reflexive post-colonial virtual ethnographic exploration of the thesis writers experiences in the virtual world, light will be shed on the ways that identity is being shaped in relation to race and gender.