Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper proposes an empirical test of whether aggregate economic behavior maps from the real to the virtual. Internal transaction data from a large commercial virtual world – indeed the first such data set provided to outside researchers of virtual worlds – is used to calculate aggregate metrics for production, consumption, and money supply based on real-world definitions. Movements in these metrics over time were then examined for consistency with common theories of macroeconomic change, specifically the Quantity Theory of Money. Results indicated that the virtual world data could indeed be sensibly aggregated using real-world methods, and the resulting statistics were indeed interpretable by macroeconomic theory. Thus, the study suggests that aggregate economic behavior in this large virtual world follows what we would expect to see in the real world. Moreover, a natural experiment was examined for evidence that social behaviors in virtual worlds are strongly a product of the system in which they are placed. A new version of the virtual world, with the same rules, came online during the study. It was found that the new world’s macroeconomic aggregates quickly grew to be nearly exact replicas of those of the existing environment. This is consistent with the Code is Law concept: macroeconomic outcomes in a virtual world may be explained largely by its design structure.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Based on primary research with 17 prisoners engaged on “real work” projects at HMPs Coldingley, Send and Springhill; interviews with three external employers of these prisoners, and some eight prison staff including Governors, Heads of Learning and Skills, prison Workshop Managers and other prison staff; and contextualised within a content analysis of the reports of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons in 2005, this research investigates the place of work in prison generally, and the development of “real work” projects specifically. Against the background of the Government Green Paper – Reducing Re-Offending Through Skills and Employment, it attempts to discover what is happening “on the ground” about “real work” projects. Uniquely, the ethnographic focus of the research uses the voices of prisoners and others to describe what “real work” is like, how this differs from other prison work experiences, and the contribution that “real work” might make towards desistance from crime. Through the research a definition of “real work” is developed and the research suggests that there is a general absence of work in most prisons, and where it does exist it is often mundane, repetitive and boring. So too where an external employer wants to work with a prison, there are often a number of obstacles that have to be overcome – not least of which is the culture of the penal system itself. However, it is suggested that the opportunities for “real work” in prison are great, and the advantages of overcoming these obstacles - as has been achieved at HMPs Coldingley, Send and Springhill, will be beneficial not just for the prisoners, but also more widely for the communities into which they will be re-settled.

Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: Crime Investigation Programmes are one of the oldest and one of the most emphatic forms of reality programming. Having been first developed in West Germany in the late 1960s, shows like the German “Aktenzeichen XY. ungelöst”, the British “Crimewatch UK” or “America’s Most Wanted” in the US show so called re-enactments of real crimes with the declared aim to solve these crimes with the help of their viewers. Giving a voice to victims of crime one could think that these programmes offer possibilities for non-hegemonic readings. But instead, it will be argued, Criminal Investigation Programmes use techniques of producing authenticity for immunising hegemonic discourse. Thereby, the current social order is legitimised as natural and not shown as a result of social struggles of groups with conflicting interest. Since these programmes use quite a few strategies of producing authenticity, the viewer is rarely able to distance her/himself from the fact that the crime really has happened and therefore an oppositional reading is barely possible.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: In an effort to serve community, national, and even international interests, colleges and universities in the twenty-first century are increasingly committed to “engagement.” Engagement initiatives seek a productive coupling of the academy’s intellectual resources with the larger enterprise of generating solutions to real-world challenges. This essay contends that engagement objectives can best be achieved through the application of rhetorical perspectivism, a particular theory of rhetoric grounded in realist philosophical assumptions. We contend that rhetorical perspectivism contributes to two concomitant goals: First, it offers the academy a useful tool for bringing together disparate fields whose particular specialization and unique discourse communities often act to inhibit interdisciplinary cooperation and problem solving. Second, it provides a mechanism for the invention and disposition of a rhetoric of social amelioration, that is, discourse capable of motivating populations to effect solutions.

Publication Type: Poster Sessions
Abstract: Can middle school students prepare for state mandated tests while addressing important environmental issues? Using the real world issue of "Exotic and Native Species", participants will experience standards based activities that develop students' critical thinking skills and incorporate service learning.