Patrick Williams

So these are the two books by Patrick Williams that Steve talked about last week. Williams is a sociologist and has written quite a fair bit on symbolic interactionism. He teaches on Sociological Psychology (Symbolic Interactionism), Sociology of Youth Subcultures, Qualitative Research Methods, and Cultural Sociology

I hope GPR allows me to take some of his modules next semester.

Why looking into superstitions in MMOG is important?

Dr M has asked me to include in my abstract why looking into superstitions in MMOG is important in the first place. There are no scholarly work on superstitions on MMOG to date and only Nick Yee, in his blog above, has started the conversation after getting players to share superstitions they seen in MMOG.

How can we benefit from knowing more about superstitions in MMOG? The first of the two video clips below makes claim that we are all superstitions animal just like the pigeons experimented by Skinner (as told by Yee above). How far have we bring our real world superstitions into the virtual world of games. Are the attributes of and our experiences in virtual worlds so comparable to our real world that we share similar fear, suspicious, rational, etc.

Said that, Yee says there are more basis not to believe superstitions in real world because of the presence of omnipotent, omniscient God whom we have no idea how He works but in MMOG there are the game developers who reign supreme. They are humans like us whom we can second guess their intentions, motives and moves. Further, I feel anything humankind creates is nothing near perfection. So they may claim to "use a random number generator throughout... but it’s also true that it takes just several lines of code to increase the chances of all rare drops" (Yee, above). So if this is the case can superstitions in MMOG be seen as scientific endeavours, testing out hypothesis to determine possible mathematical formula in game design (even for instances deem to be randomized).



Or perhaps superstitions in MMOG are at best a science of hunches and suspicious like how superstitions in real world sports (see below). Because of the need to have an edge over the opponents, even mystic are sought - like having a lucky charm in our inventory to increase the chances of rare drops.



Anyway, back to my paper, I guess what I am trying to established is whether superstitions in MMOGs, while primarily motivated by the need to be successful in gameplay, can they possibly be seen either as scientific and cognitive endeavours to establish mathematical functionings of some aspects of game design or as pursuits shape by socio-cultural forces and situated as part of the practices and culture of gamers. If superstitions in MMOGs are scientific and cognitive endeavours, then they have potential for learning that warrant more investigations to uncover the links. If they are the latter, then they are another avenue for game researchers to understand more of the meaning-making and enculturation process of players into the cultures of gamers in MMOGs.

The burden of writing

The burden of writing is not just to complete an assignment but to ensure what gets communicated is clear and readers don't take away a message but THE MESSAGE that you want them to. Dr M spent half of his lesson last Wednesday teaching us how to organise our ideas in ways that a reader can understand everything by just reading our abstract, goes to our intro or chapter one then skip everything else and read our conclusion. He said that everything in the body is implied in the intro and conclusion. I was glad that he brought us through this because so far there isn't a module that teach us how to write research paper or dissertation.

Anyway, the outline that I had prepared earlier is good as rubbish. Will work on one soon. Good news is I got my first version abstract out. Here it is...

Superstitions in MMORPG:
Identifying suitable epistemological frame for analysis

Superstitions in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game (MMORPG) is a phenomenon that has received rare mention in present literature on game research. In this paper, I present an analysis of two superstitious practices found in a MMORPG called Granado Espada concerning enchantment and chipping of weapons and armours. For the analysis, I view the phenomenon from two epistemological frames - cognitive and social constructivism, to argue [will find out what come out from the analysis]. To substantiate my claim, I draw from [need more reading and thinking through].

Any comments?

Superstitions in MMORPG: An outline

I'm thinking about a possible outline for my Superstitions in MMORPG paper for Dr M's class.

Introduction
I will possibly start with a brief history to show that humankind has held numerous epistemological and ontological assumptions since the dawn of time. I'll talk about the forces that shape belief. I would divide this brief history into "Long view" and "Short view". Long view will cover everything before to the advent of positivism philosophy and modern science. Short view will concern with post-positivism and social sciences. I feel this brief history is important and will help me situate nicely my introduction to social scientific inquiry in MMORPG.

Theoretical framework
So I'll talk next about MMORPG and social science research in MMORPG. Here I will argue why epistemology has to be seen from social constructivism lens. I will take symbolic interactionism and Lave and Wenger's Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP)as theoretical perspectives. I will highlight research from the literature that make use of these perspectives.

Now I am not sure whether to bring in here cognitive constructivism as the other epistemology lens to understand social phenomenon in MMORPG. Or should I complete my analysis using social constructivism first before moving on to cognitive constructivism. I'll ask Dr M what he thinks. Anyway, if I decide to bring in cognitive constructivism here, I will talk about cognitive psychology (theoretical perspective), phenomenology (methodology) and discourse analysis (method) which go well with cognitive constructivism as epistemology.

Literature review
So far I only know Nick Yee has written or talked about superstitions in MMORPG. While the focus is on MMORPG, I will also look at this phenomenon broadly and beyond MMORPG and discuss how it is studied by other researchers. I may also adopt, if deem appropriate, coding found in the literature for my discourse analysis.

Data
The artifact I will analysis is a short interview data. I will describe the context of the interview (including the background of the player while not compromising his identity) and how the phenomenon is situated in the larger MMORPG environment and the player real-life.

Data Analysis
I will start analysis the data from social constructivism lens. I will add input from other interview I have with the research subject and from my own observation while playing the game. Then I analysis the data from cognitive constructivism lens through discourse analysis. I will look at cognition as mental process that can be separated from socio-cultural influences.

Results
I will compare and contrast results from both analysis.

Conclusion
MMORPG is a social world and social scientific inquiry in MMORPG needs to view social constructivism as THE EPISTEMOLOGY in order to fully understand how social phenomenon is impact by complex social relations, cultural and practices, historical and political workings found no only in MMORPG, but also around it (the practices players engage in outside the game world like fanfiction, cheats, etc). And finally, real world socio-cultural influences where game playing is situated.

This ought to do it. I got a quarter of the paper done already and will continue working on it this weekend.

Symbolic Interactionism and Ethnography (Rock, 2001)

I can't shrugg off this image of Paul Rock looking like a character in CSI because of his work in criminology. He is an academic in Mannheim Centre for Criminology, an educational institution that provides undergraduate and postgraduate courses related to criminology. I guess if you want to do the work CSI people do, this is THE PLACE you need to go.

Anyway, his paper entitled Symbolic Interactionism and Ethnography (2001) is cited in 21 papers/books. I list below those resources which I can get access to and share how his paper is cited by others.

1. Rosenblum, L. F., (2008) "The ArXiv as a model for open Access: An Anthropoligical Analysis"
Rosenblum argues of the need to look into the cultural practices of users in order to better design, in this case, an institutional repository that will meet their needs and attract them to use it. I find this interesting because I know of a committee whose work is to look into facilitating internal communication in an organization but in their discussion, no one talks about culture and practices within each section (micro level) and in the organization at large (macro level).

2. Tan, T. K., Wang, X. W., & Zhu, L., "Symbolic interactionist ethnography: Implications for information systems (IS) research and practice"
Tan et al. posit that taking symbolic interactionism as theoretical framework will help researchers to look at a phenomenon in IS from a larger perspective that include complex social relations found in the scope of research. They also talk about adopting contant comparison approach in grounded theory will allow for greater focus in structuring data collection and data analysis process.

3. Carlsson, C. S. (2006). "Culture of practice of Ministry of Education, special education occupational therapist and physiotherapists" Master thesis. Auckland University of Technology
This paper reinforces the need to adopt constant comparison approach technique (highlighted by Tan et al. - see no 2) so that researchers do not walk away at the end of an ethnography journey feeling that they have not cover everything.

4. Tianinen, T., & Koivunen, E. -R. (2006). "Exploring forms of triangulation to facilitate collaborative research practice: Reflections from a multidisciplinary research group". Journal of Research Practice, 2(2), Article M2.
Tianimen and Koivunen discuss about triangulation in ethnography research using at least 2 comparable process to "enhance the comprehensiveness of data, to contextualise the interpretations and to explore a variety of similar and dissimilar viewpoints". They cite Rock here to say that triangulation would mean that researcher have to look into many social setting and analyse many persons assuming different roles. At another point they agree with Rock that information given by an informat may not be comprehensive and representing the view of the entire community. These information are context specific to the informant's experience. Further, they see no reason preventing an informant from lying.

5. Keezhangatte, J. J. (2006). "Transnational migration, resilience and family relationship: Indian household workers in Hong Kong" PhD dissertation. University of Hong Kong
The author introduces Natasha who was his informant and who Rock would call deus ex machina (fairy godmother who will come and help the forlorn ethnographer) - an informant, helper, a source of introductions and so on.

6. Thomas, M. L., (2008). "Faith-based organizations and legislative advocacy: A qualitative inquiry" PhD dissertation. Virginia Commonwealth University.
Thomas makes use of symbolic interactionism as theoretical perspective and social constructionism as epistemology and argues that both are congruent to each other. Also symbolic interactionism is in congruent with ethnography because methods employed in ethnography afford researchers understanding of their research subjects' context and their (research subjects) understanding of the context. Quoting Crotty (1998), ethnography using symbolic interactionism as theoretical perspective can be structured in many ways including grounded theory.

7. O'Reilly, K. (2005). "Ethnographic methods".
Quoting Rock (2001), (1) there is definitely be a topic of interest to pursue in social science research using ethnography, (2) ethnography is iterative-inductive and so researchers need to know a fair bit of their study before going down to the "field", (3) be prepared that people may not be open to be observed, (4) someone will appear "like fairy godmother to help the forlorn ethnographer", (5) tension between writing down everything observed to being selective for fieldnotes in interest of time, and (6) knowing background information first so that interview does not have to be long, repeated (to the annoyance of the interviewee).

In brief, key themes I find here are (1) symbolic interactionism as theoretical perspective allows understanding a phenomenon from a larger scope encompassing cultural practices, (2) ethnography using symbolic interactionism as theoretical perspective can be structured in many ways including grounded theory - for example, enhancing ethnography with constant comparison from grounded theory will ensure all grounds are covered, and (3) key features of ethnography research are discussed.

Reimagining Community (Mohan, 2004)

Dia Mohan or now she is known as Dia Da Costa is a faculty member of Queen's University in Kingston, Canada.

Her paper Reimagining Community (Mohan, 2004) is cited in 5 papers (4 of which are written or co-written by her). I would like to thank both Da Costa and Ruwanpura for providing me access to their papers.

1. Da Costa, D. and Philip McMichael, (2007) "The Poverty of the Global Order" Globalizations 4(4): 588-602.
Da Costa talks about institutional mandates and one's action may not run congruent, especially when poverty comes knocking. She cites an example where institution mandates that a father should invest in their children education but often in reality this may not be possible when the family runs into poverty and both parents' lack of success in securing a job. Hence when this happens, they turn to their children to work to help ends meet. The institution judges both parents for not caring for their children's future and parents do not have the institution to empathize with them. Da Costa calls this representational inequality between institution and self and makes people stricken with poverty believe that they befitting a less dignified place in the economic order. Jana Sanskriti Theater performance allows them to speak out what they feel and engage the communtiy in social dialog about the issues they face.

2. Da Costa, D, (2008) "'Spoiled Sons' and 'Sincere Daughters': Schooling, Security, and Empowerment in rural West Bengal, India" in Signs: Journal of Women and Culture 33(2): 283-308.
Da Costa shares that there are men who are comfortable intervening in Jana Sanskriti Theater performances taking the role of female characters. She feels that such enagement has potential to transform social norms (men recognize the rights of women who are often discriminated in a patriarchic society) . Some anecdotes from this intervention was when men voiced their objection about dowry and lack of opportunity given to girls to advance their education.

3. Da Costa, D, (2008) "Tensions of Neo-liberal Development: State Discourse and Dramatic Oppositions in West Bengal" in Contributions to Indian Sociology 41 (3): 287-320.
Da Costa talks about Jana Sanskriti Theater Group's activities and she in the view that they have potential to be the catalyst to get the local community (where the group carries out its activities) to engage in rich social dialog about social issues through its performances and fieldwork activities.

4. Caron, Cynthia M. and Dia Da Costa, (2007) "There’s a Devil on Wayamba Beach: Social Dramas of Development and Citizenship in Northwest Sri Lanka" Journal of Asian and African Studies 42(5): 415-445.
Da Costa talks about legitimacy that it is not determined by one person or institution because the power to determine meaning rests upon every individuals in a society. She see the potential of getting audience to intervene in stage play (what she term as "social drama") to shape the outcome of a performance as a way to encourage them to make meaning not based on what society or institution imposed of them but that reflects more of their inner voice.

5. Ruwanpura, K. N., (2007) "Awareness and action: the ethno-gender dynamics of Sri Lankan NGOs" Gender, Place and Culture - Journal of Feminist Geography 14(3): 317-333.
Ruwanpura talks about NGO activities and in particular theater work where she feels to have the potential to be the engine for social transformation and change. When given the opportunity to script plays on issues central to their lives, women in a patriarchal society see this as a social space for them to create real life realities in a way that will empower them to be active agents to initiate change to their daily lives and thus enhancing their self-worth.

In brief, the common theme I see here is that representations in cultural play have potential to enhance individual self-worth and transform society where participants make commitment to their off-stage lives through their scriptwriting and on-stage experiences in shaping alternative outcomes to the performances.