More than a game, Second Life is a rich and immersive environment in which its residents can learn, build, conduct commerce, find support and healing and build deep and meaningful interpersonal relationships. We were intrigued in this new form of media as journalists, but also as scientists and students of the human experience. What is really going on here, we wondered, as people wander around this new virtual world in their new three-dimensional cartoon bodies? Critics of digital media have long warned of its potential for social fragmentation and isolation as we sit in our homes and offices cyber learning, cyber dating, cyber shopping even cyber dancing -- was this latest innovation, this virtual world, bringing people closer together, or farther apart? Join host John Hockenberry for a special three-part trip Through the Looking Glass! For our first episode, we'll speak with Philip Rosedale aka Philip Linden, the founder of Linden Lab and creator of Second Life. We'll talk with Dr. Thomas Malaby, a ethnologist who spent a year observing both the business and society of Second Life from inside the offices of Linden Lab. And we'll air part of our live interview with "Virtual Communities" pioneer Howard Rheingold, from inside Second Life. Plus Bill Lichtenstein, president of our parent company, Lichtenstein Creative Media, and Drew Stein CEO of Infinite Vision Media, tell us why a public radio show is moving into Second Life in the first place - the answers may surprise you! Go to Part two of Through the Looking Glass Go to Part three of Through the Looking Glass Go to Part four of Through the Looking Glass |
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