Researchers: Lilly Irani, Gillian Hayes, and Paul Dourish

Project: Online communities like second life can be a great place for people to develop relationships, and explore who they are and who they want to be, even when faced with labels, diagnoses, and other challenges in the offline world.  This project focuses on the ways identity, privacy, self-presentation, and interaction all interplay in online communities.

A recent paper from this work was presented at CSCW 2008:

Irani, L., Hayes, G.R., Dourish, P., Situated Practices of Looking: Visual Practice in an Online World. To appear in the Proceedings of CSCW 2008. San Diego, CA. November 2008.

Situated Practices of Looking:  Visual Practice in an Online World
Lilly Irani, Gillian R. Hayes, and Paul Dourish

Abstract: Graphical virtual worlds are increasingly significant sites of collaborative interaction. Many argue that the simulation of the everyday environment makes them particularly effective for collaboration. Based on a study of visual practice in Second Life, we argue: first, that the practice of looking is more varied than it might at first seem; second, that we need to look beyond the virtual in understanding virtual worlds; and third, that implementations blend interactional practice. We suggest that the value of virtual worlds as sites of collaboration might lie more in their richness and openness to appropriation than in their simulation of everyday interaction.