And the ringleaders were banned: an examination of protest in virtual worlds

Abstract

Protest has made the jump between the offline and the online spaces and is frequently used in most virtual worlds available today. Despite the frequency of these protest actions in virtual worlds, and their similarities to offline protest actions, further research is needed to see how the adaptation to a virtual environment changes the protest. This research uses case studies to examine several major protest actions that have occurred in several different virtual worlds over the last 10 years. The author finds that the use of the technology in virtual world enables very different methods of protest. She makes the argument that these differences are large enough that they require a deeper exploration and grounding in theoretical models for the field to grow into its potential.