The CPM in Second Life

The Centre for Policy Modelling now has a location in Second Life: the location is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hyperborea/108/166/22/

The CPM location in SL and wata Klata

In world, you can contact me, "wata Klata", a.k.a. Bruce Edmonds (shown in the picture) or just drop by.  There is a list of interesting places in SL is available here, places in SL to learn about SL.

You have to subscribe to use Second Life and install their software but this is free.  You can subscribe using this link.

About Second Life

For more information about Second Life see their webiste at http://secondlife.com

Why Second Life is Interesting to Social Researchers

Several reasons:
  1. It is real social interaction resulting in real communities, furthermore these are (largely) new real communities forming and developing.
  2. As a contrasting case with respect to real life.  Some things (e.g. the strength of some social norms, topologies of interaction, effective annonymity) are different in Second Life, as compared to real life, so it is interesting to see how this results in different social styles/forms/institutions.
  3. Features of Second Life make social research easier including: the ease of logging data, the anonymity of people, interest in the virtual world...

For sociological introductions to these issues see:

Krotoski, A. (2005). The Social Life of Virtual Worlds. Intersection: Journal of Contemporary Screen Studies.
          William Sims Bainbridge, et al. (2007) The Scientific Research Potential of Virtual Worlds. Science 317:472-476.

Norm Watch

The CPM is conducting research into social norms in Second Life.  For more details see the NormWatch page at http://cfpm.org/sl/normwatch.html.

Workshop on Simulation and Second Life

This is a worshop co-organised by Bruce Edmonds of CPM and Aleks Krotoski of the University of Surrey that was held on 7th September 2007 in Hyperborea in Second Life.  For more details see its web page at http://cfpm.org/sl/sim-sl.html


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