Creating Second Lives: Community Identity and Spatiality as Constructions of the Virtual

This book aims to provide insights into how ‘second lives’ in the sense of virtual identities and communities are constructed textually, semiotically and discursively, specifically in the online environment Second Life and Massively Multiplayer Online Games such as World of Warcraft. The book’s philosophy is multi-disciplinary and its goal is to explore the question of how we as gamers and residents of virtual worlds construct alternative online realities in a variety of ways. Of particular significance to this endeavour are conceptions of the body in cyberspace and of spatiality, which manifests itself in ‘natural’ and built environments as well as the triad of space, place and landscape. The contributors’ disciplinary backgrounds include media, communication, cultural and literary studies, and they examine issues of reception and production, identity, community, gender, spatiality, natural and built environments using a plethora of methodological approaches ranging from theoretical and philosophical contemplation through social semiotics to corpus-based discourse analysis.Additional ISBNs0415884209, 1136809279, 9780415884204, 9781136809279, 661315136X, 1136809287, 1283151367, 1136809236, 0203828577, 9786613151360, 9781136809286, 9781283151368, 9781136809231, 9780203828571Creating Second Lives: Community, Identity and Spatiality as Constructions of the Virtual 1st Edition and published by Routledge. ISBNs for Creating Second Lives are 9781136809279, 1136809279 and the print ISBNs are 9781138243217, 1138243213. Additional ISBNs include 0415884209, 1136809279, 9780415884204, 9781136809279, 661315136X, 1136809287, 1283151367, 1136809236, 0203828577, 9786613151360, 9781136809286, 9781283151368, 9781136809231, 9780203828571.