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Full-Text Articles in Education

Your Second Selves: Avatar Designs And Identity Play, Y. B. Kafai, Deborah A. Fields, M. S. Cook Jan 2010

Your Second Selves: Avatar Designs And Identity Play, Y. B. Kafai, Deborah A. Fields, M. S. Cook

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Avatars in online games and worlds are seen as players’ key representations in interactions with each other. In this article, we investigate the avatar design and identity play within a large-scale tween virtual world called Whyville.net, with more than 1.5 million registered players of ages 816. One unique feature of Whyville is the players’ ability to customize their avatars with various face parts and accessories, all designed and sold by other players in Whyville. Our findings report on the expressive resources available for avatar construction, individual tween players’ choices and rationales in creating their avatars, and online postings about avatar …


Media And Youth Identity In Pakistan: Global-Local Dynamics And Disjuncture, Al-Karim Datoo Jan 2010

Media And Youth Identity In Pakistan: Global-Local Dynamics And Disjuncture, Al-Karim Datoo

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

The paper critically analyzes the engagement of a group of Pakistani urban youth with global cultural flows through media, and their responses to those flows. The discussion mainly centres around an analysis of a re-make of a drama-skit performed by a group of Pakistani urban high school youth during their school’s annual function which could be regarded as a kind of satire providing a cultural critique on the way cultural globalization, through media (especially cultural production through Indian Bollywood film/soap media-industry), is influencing urban Pakistani youth's perception of 'local' values, norms and identities. For the analysis, the paper draws upon …