Category: Virtual Worlds

• Virtual World Fandom Quasi-Autoethnography

  This post contains my reflections on trying to express my Star Wars fandom in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. These reflections are based on the Twitter thread I ran in the summer and fall of 2020, which can be found here. I tried to reconstruct it chronologically to show the progression of events and my thoughts […]

  CarrieLynn D. Reinhard

  November 7, 2020

  Audience/Reception Studies, Digital Games, Fandom, Virtual Worlds

  Animal Crossing, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, autoethnography, fan performance, fan studies, Fandom, Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Star Wars, virtual world fandom, Virtual worlds

• Transjective Media Studies and Reciprocal Determinism

  

  Yep, that’s right — I’m being one of those academics. Engaging in neologisms to make a name for myself. But what I am working through here is an idea for a book project, and I’d love peoples’ comments to help me to do so. Redefining Media Studies A medium is a technology for the storage, […]

  CarrieLynn D. Reinhard

  May 23, 2020

  Audience/Reception Studies, Communication Studies, Critical/Cultural Studies, Fandom, Film Studies, Industry Analysis Studies, Internet Studies, pop culture studies, Television Studies, Virtual Worlds

  Brenda Dervin, media engagings, Media products, media studies, media theory, reciprocal determinism, Sense-Making Methodology, transjective

• Virtual World Television as Interactive Television Published

  

  The work that Pooky Amsterdam and I have done on virtual world television has come to a close with the publication of the project’s second journal article in the latest issue of Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies. The article is titled “A Community of Televised Avatars: Interactivities in virtual world television promoting and acknowledging […]

  CarrieLynn D. Reinhard

  May 18, 2017

  Television Studies, Virtual Worlds

  Interactive television, interactivity, Second Life, Television, virtual world television, Virtual worlds

• Reviewing the Virtual Worlds Entertainment Study

  

  These thoughts were produced at the end of my time on this project, in May of 2012, for the Virtual Worlds Research Group at Roskilde University. These thoughts involve my reflection on the project that I completed as part of the research group, and do not reflect the thoughts of anyone else involved with the […]

  CarrieLynn D. Reinhard

  April 5, 2016

  Audience/Reception Studies, Virtual Worlds

  City of Heroes, digital games, gaming virtual worlds, interactivity, interface, interpretive, interpretive interactivity, media content, media product, media technology, metaphors, physical interactivity, Second Life, Sense-Making Methodology, sense-making strategies, social virtual words, Superheroes, Virtual worlds, Wii

• Virtual World Television and Interactive Television

  

  This is the end result of the work I have been doing with Pooky Amsterdam. This paper is the write-up of the presentation Avatars, Audiences and Interactive Television. I do not think there is enough in this paper to make pursuing publication worthwhile, but I do hope to use the categorizations of the three types […]

  CarrieLynn D. Reinhard

  March 16, 2016

  Audience/Reception Studies, Television Studies, Virtual Worlds

  “television-as-content”, “television-as-technology”, access interactivity, agency, audiences, broadcasting, content interactivity, Interactive television, interactivity, Internet, power, prosumers, social interactivity, Television, User-generated content, virtual world television, Virtual worlds

• Sense-Making and Avatars Research Proposal

  

  This post contains a research proposal I wrote in 2008 for a project to involve virtual worlds that I never completed. This proposal would be changed to become the main experiment I did with the Roskilde University Virtual Worlds Research Group. If anyone is interested in building off this proposal, then please contact me. Sense-making […]

  CarrieLynn D. Reinhard

  March 7, 2016

  Audience/Reception Studies, Gendering Robots, Virtual Worlds

  avatars, experiments, focus groups, information-seeking, interviews, Sense-making, Sense-Making Methodology, tasks, Virtual worlds, Virtual Worlds Research Group

• Conversations of GamerGate and Fractured Fandom

  

  One of the things I have been doing this year (i.e. 2015) is trying to better understand what I mean when I say “fractured fandom” and how it manifests in the world. I’ve been writing about it for a couple years now, I have done an online interview study to gather people’s stories, I have […]

  CarrieLynn D. Reinhard

  July 18, 2015

  Digital Games, Fandom, Virtual Worlds

  anti-GG, context, conversations, damselling, dialogue, doxxing, Fandom, fans, feminists, fractured fandom, gamer, GamerGate, harassment, identity, Men’s Rights Movement, Mens’ Rights Activists, positioning, positioning theory, pro-GG, sealionning, understanding

• Ghost Whisperer’s Ghost in the Machine

  

  This essay was originally posted as part of my work for the Virtual Worlds Research Group at Roskilde University. This essay reflects my interest in how pop culture represents new media technologies, such as virtual worlds, as part of the process whereby a society / culture comes to determine what will be the acceptable and […]

  CarrieLynn D. Reinhard

  February 10, 2015

  Critical/Cultural Studies, Digital Games, Internet Studies, Virtual Worlds

  arcades, Blade Runner, cyberpunk, cyberstalking, games, Ghost Whisperer, ghosts, identity theft, Jennifer Love Hewitt, MMO, MUVE, new media, normalization, online predators, Pop culture, Second Life, supernatural, The Matrix, Virtual worlds

• Metaphors for making sense of virtual worlds

  

  The following paper comes from a presentation given at ECREA in 2010 and at NCA in 2011 (the version of which can be found here on the blog). I submitted this paper to a journal, but never did anything with it after it was rejected. I still think there are interesting ideas in the paper, […]

  CarrieLynn D. Reinhard

  January 21, 2015

  Virtual Worlds

  City of Heroes, design, meaning-making, metaphors, MMORPGs, MMOs, Roskilde University, RPGs, Second Life, Sense-making, Sense-Making Methodology, Virtual worlds

• Avatars, Audiences and Interactive Television

  

  This presentation was given at the 100th National Communication Association Conference in Chicago on November 21, 2014. This presentation reflects the work I have done with Pooky Amsterdam to understand the nature and potential of virtual world television as reported in the Journal of Virtual World Research. This presentation was awarded one of the Top […]

  CarrieLynn D. Reinhard

  November 22, 2014

  Audience/Reception Studies, Internet Studies, Virtual Worlds

  “television-as-content”, “television-as-technology”, access interactivity, avatars, communal, Community, content interactivity, Giant Snail Racing, Interactive television, interactivity, Metanomics, Relationships, Second Life, social interactivity, social media, Television, The 1st Question, Virtual worlds, Winky Dink