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Virtual World Professionals and the Interloper Effect in 3D Virtual Worlds

Virtual World Professionals and the Interloper Effect in 3D Virtual Worlds

Victoria McArthur
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 16
ISBN13: 9781609608545|ISBN10: 1609608542|EISBN13: 9781609608552
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-854-5.ch021
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MLA

McArthur, Victoria. "Virtual World Professionals and the Interloper Effect in 3D Virtual Worlds." Virtual Worlds and Metaverse Platforms: New Communication and Identity Paradigms, edited by Nelson Zagalo, et al., IGI Global, 2012, pp. 321-336. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60960-854-5.ch021

APA

McArthur, V. (2012). Virtual World Professionals and the Interloper Effect in 3D Virtual Worlds. In N. Zagalo, L. Morgado, & A. Boa-Ventura (Eds.), Virtual Worlds and Metaverse Platforms: New Communication and Identity Paradigms (pp. 321-336). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60960-854-5.ch021

Chicago

McArthur, Victoria. "Virtual World Professionals and the Interloper Effect in 3D Virtual Worlds." In Virtual Worlds and Metaverse Platforms: New Communication and Identity Paradigms, edited by Nelson Zagalo, Leonel Morgado, and Ana Boa-Ventura, 321-336. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2012. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60960-854-5.ch021

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Abstract

In this chapter we discuss virtual world professionals: real world employees deployed in virtual worlds for the purpose of representing a company or organization there. We investigate the notions of belonging and community in 3D virtual worlds, and identify the ways in which “belonging” and “not belonging” are constructed and perceived, especially in relation to so-called employee avatars. We explore the dimension of social stigma in virtual worlds and discuss the utility of the separate categories of outsiders and interlopers for inhabitant characterization. Our motivation for doing so is to determine the degree to which corporate presence can be mediated through the specific mechanism of employee avatar appearance. In considering the possibility that some employee avatars may be perceived as interlopers, we propose three methods for investigating the effect of their presence in virtual worlds, called the “interloper effect.”

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