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Avatopia: a cross-media community for societal action

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Abstract

A cross-media platform was designed for a community of young teenagers oriented towards societal change. The platform involved an interactive web-forum featuring creative and communicative collaborative tools in a 3D avatar environment, and a weekly show in national public-service television. Informal assessment of the work indicated that (1) an integrated spiral of production and consumption across the two media channels involved is a viable design concept to support community building, (2) off-the-shelf avatar technology and consumer-grade Internet connectivity can form a feasible infrastructure for collaborative storytelling tools, and (3) a participatory design process wherein participants transition into the role of mentors and norm carriers upon deployment can be a feasible way to support subcultural community building towards “difficult” topics, even though it entails considerable resource demands. All of these findings are potentially transferable to other design domains and audiences.

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Acknowledgments

The following people (in alphabetical order) made crucial contributions to the Avatopia project: Andreas Carlsson, Marie Denward, Marcus Gårdman, Fredrika Narheim, Andreas Nilsson, Johannes Nyholm, and Johanna Wallin. The Avatopia project was funded in part by Ungdomsstyrelsen and Stiftelsen Framtidens Kultur.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arts and Communication, Malmö University, 205 06, Malmö, Sweden

    Ylva Gislén & Jonas Löwgren

  2. Swedish Television, 350 33, Växjö, Sweden

    Ulf Myrestam

Authors
  1. Ylva Gislén
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  2. Jonas Löwgren
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  3. Ulf Myrestam
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonas Löwgren.

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Gislén, Y., Löwgren, J. & Myrestam, U. Avatopia: a cross-media community for societal action. Pers Ubiquit Comput 12, 289–297 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-007-0152-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-007-0152-5

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