Share Paper: World of Warcraft as a Social Media Space: The Role of Game Chat

  1. Chareen Snelson, Boise State University, Department of Educational Technology, United States

Abstract: This paper presents findings from a first-stage analysis of live public chat extracted from the World of Warcraft as part of a larger virtual ethnography study in progress. Chat logs were collected during a one-month period coinciding with the launch of new game content. Qualitative coding was conducted to identify an initial framework of themes that define the functional role of live chat within the massive multiplayer online game. Results indicate that live chat serves as a real time social media space characterized by an ongoing series of brief conversations related to aspects of gameplay and also real world topics ...