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Friday Forum | "Surveillance of Virtual Worlds" »

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Online games such as World of Warcraft allow users to summon lightning from the skies, mount an enormous tiger and wield weapons bigger than they are. Online games have drawn tens of millions of people in the past half-decade alone, showcasing a trend that doesn’t seem to be slowing soon. Though these fantastic worlds provide an element of cheerful escapism, they also act as a unique way to interact and communicate with others.

Many parallels emerge between the fantasy realms of online games and the real world, specifically class, race and economic distinctions. Dozens, if not hundreds, of Web sites revolve around these games. Some simply facilitate general communication about the game outside of it and others communicate about far more specific elements — even as far as tracking the market trends of auctions and the economy of World of Warcraft.

Though it may seem as though these games can be alienating, there is a certain kinship and community that is forged within them. Within World of Warcraft, for example, a group of players can come together to form what is called a guild. The focus of these guilds is usually to conquer dungeons or accomplish certain difficult tasks impossible to tackle solo. Others, however, create guilds for different purposes. For instance, there is a gay and gay-support guild that spans not only World of Warcraft but stretches across many other games online.

Professor Lisa Nakamura of the Department of Media Studies will be examining the history of digital profiling in virtual worlds and discussing the possible impacts of it and similar programs upon users and upon cultural diversity. Examining the parallels between the real world and digital ones may seem like staring at a societal reflection in a warped, fun house mirror, but the reflection is a very real entity and one worth exploring.