Title:
Redefining the sacred in 3D virtual worlds: exploratory analysis of knowledge production and innovation through religious expression

dc.contributor.advisor Pearson, Willie
dc.contributor.author Atwaters, Sybrina Yvonne
dc.contributor.committeeMember Hess, Mary
dc.contributor.committeeMember Pearce, Celia
dc.contributor.committeeMember McDonald, Mary
dc.contributor.committeeMember Usselman, Steven W.
dc.contributor.department History, Technology and Society
dc.date.accessioned 2015-01-12T20:50:57Z
dc.date.available 2015-01-12T20:50:57Z
dc.date.created 2014-12
dc.date.issued 2014-10-30
dc.date.submitted December 2014
dc.date.updated 2015-01-12T20:50:57Z
dc.description.abstract This dissertation contributes to conversations regarding the impact of open user centered innovation on cultural production by focusing on the construction and production of religious products within one large-scale open user-centered technological environment, 3D virtual worlds. Particularly, this study examines how virtual world users construct (non-gaming) religious communities and practices and how the technology impacts the forms of religious expression these users create. Due to its existing religious sector and affordances for user-created content, Second Life (SL) was chosen as the context of study for this dissertation project. Building upon Von-Hippel's (2005) user-centered innovation theory, construction and production within three different user-centered religious communities in SL were explored. Using a comparative ethnographic approach over a 14-month period, involving participant observations, interviews and hyper-media techniques, the social construction of customized religious products amidst technical, social, and economic virtual/non-virtual structures were analyzed. Exploratory findings demonstrate that the democratizing of cultural innovation, that is the construction of heterogeneous cultural religious products by the everyday user, is a matter of patterned relational pathways. The greater possible patterned pathways the higher potential for democratized cultural innovation, an increasing number of users developing new ways of doing religion. The fewer patterned pathways the less the potential for democratize cultural innovation and the greater potential for reproducing within the virtual realm the same cultural frames that define the current social order in the non-virtual realm.
dc.description.degree Ph.D.
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/53048
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject Virtual worlds
dc.subject User-centered innovation
dc.subject Digital religion
dc.subject Online religious communities
dc.subject Open access
dc.subject Sociology of technology
dc.subject Second life
dc.title Redefining the sacred in 3D virtual worlds: exploratory analysis of knowledge production and innovation through religious expression
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Pearson, Willie
local.contributor.corporatename School of History and Sociology
local.contributor.corporatename Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication 0df9cfa1-e7a1-4bed-ac66-6a5ba311ada2
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 4a394044-f889-462e-bd25-ffd14ad5e9f3
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication b1049ff1-5166-442c-9e14-ad804b064e38
thesis.degree.level Doctoral
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
ATWATERS-DISSERTATION-2014.pdf
Size:
2.12 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
LICENSE.txt
Size:
3.87 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description: