Intercultural Communication in Online Games: Obstacles and Opportunities
In: Multiculturalism: Critical and Inter-Disciplinary PerspectivesSearch for other papers by Raluca Maria Mihăilă in
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In a world where global games, such as international football championships or the Olympic Games, have become an essential product of the globalisation and of the media culture which constantly feeds the interest of millions of people, the emergence of global virtual games becomes natural, especially given the recent technological development. As a consequence, more and more players coming from different cultural backgrounds and nationalities are being involved in this worldwide phenomenon, giving birth to the so-called „synthetic worlds’. In this newly-created space we are facing with the advent of a new type of communication: the intercultural communication through online gaming. This study focuses on the role of virtual worlds in forging an online intercultural space where the shared interests of the players can help surpass the common barriers raised by intercultural interactions. The research was concentrated on a guild of World of Warcraft, one of the most popular MMORPGs, and has included 20 participants coming from 10 different countries playing on a European server. Using the Social Network Analysis method and with the help of the UCINET programme, I have been able to investigate the logics of cooperation within a multicultural group whose participants are united by a common mission. The results of the research indicate that, while a poor English knowledge or a different concept of time may constitute a problem, generally the players collaborate well within the game and, in some cases, they have also extended their relationship outside the boundaries of the game. This means that the common obstacles which emerge in intercultural communication situations can be more easily overcome within an online game, given the particularities of this virtual space. Ideally, these characteristics should be further analysed using a qualitative method such as participative observation, in order to deepen the understanding of this virtual yet multicultural space.