[Air-l] hanging out and mushes - performatively masculine still?

[James Howison]

On Mar 24, 2005, at 12:47 PM, Kendall, Lori wrote:

> I'm also interested in what people have found on this issue.  It is 
> worth noting that the mud I studied was more male-dominated (in both 
> numbers and culture) than many, if not most, existing at that time.  
> That group still exists online (with some loss of original members and 
> some new participants) and remains as male-dominated as ever.  But it 
> has never been typical.
>
> As for the young generation of mush-ers, how active and big is it?  
> Even among my most online-active students, only a very few even know 
> what a mud/moo/etc. is.  They participate on message boards, blogs, 
> IM, but don't mud.

 From your analytical perspective would the MMPORGs (eg Sims online, 
World of Warcraft, Second Life and so on) be the same as MUDs?  I'd say 
that there would be plenty of people that don't know a MUD from a MOO 
but are active MMPORGers.

Do you think that the non-text based and unarchived nature of the games 
might make them harder to study?

--
James Howison
PhD Student
School of Information Studies, Syracuse University
+1 315 395 4056
http://james.howison.name
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