Comparing situated sense-making processes in virtual worlds

Abstract

What happens when a person engages with a virtual world? Are there unique processes of engagings that occur? One approach to understanding how a person makes sense of a virtual world is to compare the engaging processes with other media technologies, focusing on situated performative and interpretive sense-makings. This article reports on a study conducted to compare how novices make sense of four media technologies: film, console videogames, massively multiplayer online role-playing games, and social virtual worlds. Using Dervin’s Sense-Making Methodology (SMM) and our conceptualization of media reception situations, we extracted five potential overlapping sense-making concepts to make comparisons that do not presume a priori the influences of characteristics of technologies and other structures. The five comparative concepts all focus on situated sense-making processes. Our purpose in this article is not to present a full study report but rather to illustrate the methodological approach used in the data collection/production and analysis of the study. Results of our analyses indicate the complexity of media reception situations, how they converged and diverged, and how they involve multiple potential influences on media reception outcomes.