danielskog.se

For several years I’ve been interested in the notion of third places online. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg introduced the third place as a concept. In his book The Great Good Place he argues that every society is in need of third places, separate from home and work (first and second place), that can serve as informal public gathering places. Oldenburg declares that the occurrences of third places have decreased in western society in recent years. As these public meeting places disappears, the community dependent on them also is weakened. Many of the arguments made by Oldenburg are also echoed by Putnam, when describing the threats against social capital in American society.

Many scholars have suggested that virtual community spaces could be regarded as being similar to the third places as described by Oldenburg – and one example of such an attempt is a paper from 2006 by Steinkuehler & Williams; Where everybody knows your (screen) name: online games as “Third places”. I recently reread this article and remembered writing about it on my old blog (no longer online), so here comes some new thoughts for my new blog…

The paper by Steinkuehler & Williams is well-written and the authors basically map the characteristics of Oldenburg’s third place on MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games). The arguments are that 1) the MMOG’s under study can be viewed as third places, and 2) the participation in such virtual places generates the formation of bridging social capital rather than bonding capital.

The first argument is perhaps what you would expect from this kind of study. The second one is more novel since it implies that as relationships associated with bridging over time develops into deeper relationships, the function of MMOG‘s as third places fades. The authors write:

“It is worth noting, however, that as gamers become more involved in long-term social networks such as guilds and their activities become more “hardcore” (e.g., marked by participation in large-scale collaborative problem-solving endeavors such as “raids” into difficult territories or castle sieges), the function of MMOs as “third places” begins to wane. Not all MMO players make this transition, but those who do are likely to experience relationships closer to bonding ones than bridging ones. It may be, then, that the structure and function of MMOs as third places is one part of the “life cycle” for some gamers in a given title. As complex, long-term collaborative activities become increasingly prevalent, the game becomes increasingly more entangling, time-consuming, and work-like.”

For me, highlighting this pattern appears to be the main contribution of this paper. I think it is a relevant observation that to some extent also is valid in the context of my own work.