| Description: | The proliferation of the Internet and online-based social interactions has become an increasingly popular topic with communication scholars. The goal of this study was to explore how massively multi-player online role playing game (MMORPG) players make sense of and negotiate their online social interactions. This study (N = 292) examined how players of SecondLife and World of Warcraft evaluated their online relationships compared to their offline relationships and investigated how different levels of realism within different MMORPGs effected player's online experiences. The results indicated that players of SecondLife placed higher values of emotional closeness to their online relationships when compared to players of World of Warcraft and SecondLife was rated more real by its players than World of Warcraft. Results further indicated that players of SecondLife had higher levels of perceived online emotional closeness when compared to perceived offline emotional closeness. Implications of this study focus on developing a bottom up holistic profile of online game players as opposed to the current top down research model. |
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| Creator(s): | Tran, Chris |
| Creation Date: | May 2009 |
| Partner(s): |
UNT Libraries
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| Collection(s): |
UNT Theses and Dissertations
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| Usage: |
Total Uses: 622
Past 30 days: 13
Yesterday: 0
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| Publisher Info: |
Publisher Name: University of North Texas
Place of Publication: Denton, Texas
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| Original Creation Date: | May 2009 | |
| Description: | The proliferation of the Internet and online-based social interactions has become an increasingly popular topic with communication scholars. The goal of this study was to explore how massively multi-player online role playing game (MMORPG) players make sense of and negotiate their online social interactions. This study (N = 292) examined how players of SecondLife and World of Warcraft evaluated their online relationships compared to their offline relationships and investigated how different levels of realism within different MMORPGs effected player's online experiences. The results indicated that players of SecondLife placed higher values of emotional closeness to their online relationships when compared to players of World of Warcraft and SecondLife was rated more real by its players than World of Warcraft. Results further indicated that players of SecondLife had higher levels of perceived online emotional closeness when compared to perceived offline emotional closeness. Implications of this study focus on developing a bottom up holistic profile of online game players as opposed to the current top down research model. |
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| Degree: |
Name:
Master of Science
Level:
Master's
Discipline:
Communication Studies
Department:
Department of Communication Studies
Grantor:
University of North Texas
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| Keyword(s): | CMS | communication | video games | Warcraft | SecondLife | MMORPG | |
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| Partner: |
UNT Libraries
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| Collection: |
UNT Theses and Dissertations
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| Resource Type: | Thesis or Dissertation | |
| Format: | Text | |
| Rights: |
Access:
Public
License:
Copyright
Holder:
Tran, Chris
Statement:
Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
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