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

[Radhika Gajjala]

>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.


I agree - they follow similar logics - but several players dont 
necessarily know this.

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


I would say you can study this -  a triangulation of some particular 
methodologies would be useful - self-observation (actually playing 
and making notes), participant observation, reading manuals, and 
doing an observation of other players while they are playing and you 
are not, doing interviews...

available static text transcripts are not necessarily the best way 
even with text based moos really.

r

>
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>James Howison
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-- 
Radhika Gajjala
Associate Professor
School of Communication Studies
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH 43403

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik