The Inclusion of a Hybrid Type of Interaction in Everyday Practices: the Example of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG)
Student: Kony`sheva Dar`ya
Supervisor: Svetlana Bankovskaya
Faculty: Faculty of Sociology
Educational Programme: Master
Final Grade: 9
Year of Graduation: 2014
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Keywords:</em> hybrid, hybridization, hybrid type of interaction, hybrid identity, the mmorpg (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), the triangulation method.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The past two decades, due to the processes of global computerization, we have almost every day dive and implement interaction in a hybrid environment, namely, to oscillate between off-line and on-line practices. These practices are becoming regular and as a result – the boundaries between the virtual and the everyday become relative, a new hybrid type of interaction. As an illustration of such a mixed or hybrid type of interaction on- and off-line, we took one of the most ancient human practices – game. Feature of our study is to use a new approach to the study of complex, mixed phenomena such as the combination of virtual and everyday practices. To describe them, we introduce the concept of «hybrid». In this paper, we give their own definition of «hybrid type of interaction» and «hybrid identity» as a result of such interaction. Due to the fact that in the literature on social hybrids material presented in separate theories and presented in the form of system, we propose a typology of virtual own hybrids. The novelty of our work lies in the application of the method of triangulation, that is the combination of three methods to gain a deeper empirical material, in this case semi-formalized interview, the method of video surveillance and analysis of statistical data on mmorpg in Russia.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The aim of our study was to determine the characteristics of the construction of a hybrid type of interaction in computer games (on-line reality) and everyday practices (off-line), the formation of a hybrid identity. To achieve the stated purpose, we have set the following objectives, which systematically solved in the work. First, we describe examples of social hybrids and went on to identify two interpretations of «hybrid»: 1. as a combination of separate or mixture and 2. as the creation of absolutely new, «third». Hybrid type of interaction – is a contact between two or more parties (actors) in two (or more) of communication media (on-/off-line), the result of which is their mixing or combining and the formation of hybrid object (process or a particular phenomenon). Secondly, we found that a lot of social hybrids, in the focus on the learning of everyday life and virtuality, therefore, the virtual environment, give examples of theories of society and offer virtualization own typology of virtual hybrids, one of which was the practice game mmorpg. Third, we describe in detail mmorpg as hybrid’s type. One of the most important components of the gaming units becomes hybrid identity, so we offer another definition – «hybrid identity». Fourth, we demonstrate the use of «hybrid methodology of research» for the study of a hybrid object. In this paper, we refer to the method of triangulation N. Denzin, which combines qualitative (in our case, the method of «hybrid research work», G. Garfinkel and video surveillance method) and quantitative methodology – a secondary analysis of statistical data of the company Mail.ru Group. Thus, we managed through a combination of three methods to achieve our research goals and show the hybrid nature of the interaction in a virtual (on-line) and daily (off-line) environments. Both hypotheses were confirmed: the first – in the theoretical study, the analysis of characteristics of hybrid phenomena, and the second – through the analysis of different kinds of empirical data. During the semi-formalized interview respondents described specific examples of the influence of the world game (on-line) real life (off-line), talked about personal experience. In the video we have been able to fix interest to us the details that are sometimes missed the respondents. With the third method, we show quantitative data on the popularity of the game in mmorpg among different population groups, and added descriptions characterizing the studied group of gamers. As a result, the hybrid type of interaction is manifested in a mutual, two-way effect of the studied environments.</p>
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