Virtual Democracy

From Headstar's eGovernment newsletter:

+03: Virtual Worlds 'Emerging as Tool for Democracy'.

Virtual online worlds and videogames could play a key part in engaging young people and others in the democratic process, a discussion meeting hosted by the New Statesman magazine heard this week.

Jo Twist, newly-appointed head of the digital society and media programme at the Institute of Public Policy Research, said virtual worlds and online games are "emerging as very graphically-rich places where younger people - future voters and citizens - are spending a lot of their time. They are giving up time watching TV and looking at other media to play games."

With so many people engaged in these environments - 26.5 million in the UK alone - there are major emerging opportunities to develop educational or democratic spaces within them, Twist said.

"Gaming has been used as a tool for education and policy: the History Channel used [the game] Brothers in Arms to help educate people about World War II," she said. And during the last presidential election race in the US, political campaign offices were set up within the virtual world 'Second Life' (http://secondlife.com/), home to more than 100,000 virtual residents or 'avatars' controlled by real people. "It has also been used as a base for government research, and academic lectures have taken place there."

When one delegate objected that most young people play games purely to have fun and shoot things, Twist said modern gaming was far more sophisticated than many realised. Virtual worlds were entered by real people with real social issues that could be played out online, she said. Real money could even be raised in a virtual world, with a campaign in Second Life for hurricane Katrina victims raising thousands of dollars.

After the meeting Twist told E-Government Bulletin she intends to initiate research into e-democracy and gaming at the IPPR. In the meantime, the leading work in this field is being carried out in a project run by New York Law School entitled 'Democracy Island,' a three-dimensional virtual democratic space. (http://dotank.nyls.edu/DemocracyIsland.html ).