Abstract
Research into how online avatars are used has mostly concentrated on the agentic user controlling the passive avatar. With the proliferation, variety, and increasing uptake of online representations now available to individuals, however, we might more productively examine the relationship between what I call the avatar-persona and the user as one in which the avatar-persona also plays a part. Due to the affordances of parasociality and self-presence, a dialectic interaction develops between the user and the avatar as extended and extraordinary self. This dialectic enables the avatar-persona to express a certain degree of influence over the user in some circumstances. My discussion of these dynamics is illustrated from observations made during an extended participant observation in a multi-user virtual environment Second Life.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
