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Placeworlds: Using Virtual Worlds to Foster Civic Engagement

Emerson College

Gene Koo

Harvard Law School

This article describes a pilot program in Boston, Massachusetts, that incorporates virtual worlds into the urban planning process. The authors argue that the immersive, playful, and social qualities of the virtual world Second Life are uniquely appropriate to engage people in dialogue about their communities. By sharing experiences of a planned space and having the opportunity to deliberate over, comment on, and alter that space, previously disempowered individuals are able to form politically powerful groups. This takes place through the formation of what the authors call placeworlds, a subgroup of the Habermasian lifeworld that is organized around the shared understanding of place. Second Life and similar virtual world platforms offer profound possibilities for how local communities can imagine themselves as political actors in the face of global and homogenizing political systems.

Key Words: virtual worlds • civic engagement • urban planning • participatory media • Boston • Habermas • lifeworld • Second Life

Space and Culture, Vol. 11, No. 3, 204-221 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1206331208319743


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