Title :
An Online Community as a New Tribalism: The World of Warcraft
Author :
Brignall, Thomas W., III ; Van Valey, Thomas L.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Sociology, Fisk Univ., Nashville, TN
Abstract :
Massive, multiplayer online role-playing games foster rich social environments. Within the game, players can interact with other players, make friends, create and cultivate new online forms of community. Using participant observation and content analysis approaches, this study examines the World of Warcraft as an online community, and investigates the degree to which it exhibits characteristics of a new tribalism
Keywords :
Internet; computer games; computer mediated communication; groupware; World of Warcraft; content analysis; multiplayer online role-playing games; online community; social environments; tribalism; Art; Cities and towns; Ecosystems; Humans; Internet; Marketing and sales; Postal services; Power system modeling; Sociology; Testing;
Conference_Titel :
System Sciences, 2007. HICSS 2007. 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Waikoloa, HI
Electronic_ISBN :
1530-1605
DOI :
10.1109/HICSS.2007.71
