About the author
Elizabeth Mary Reid (emr@rmit.edu.au) completed her Bachelors and Masters degrees at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Both her Honours and Masters theses addressed aspects of Internet culture, and are available on the Internet. She is now a doctoral student in the Department of Communication Studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and a Postgraduate Fellow of the Telecom Australia Research Laboratories, where she is associated with the Human Communication Section. She is currently writing a history of the Internet, with particular emphasis on tracing the evolution of its fractionated social structure and attendant lack of centralised and hierarchized control.Abstract
Hierarchies and power on MUDs-the text-based multi-player virtual reality games found on the Internet-rely on the control of players' abilities to manipulate the virtual environment. Social status on a MUD is linked to a player's ability to manipulate the virtual components of the system; rewards consist of increased access to such world-manipulating tools. In Power/Knowledge Foucault described an effective form of power as one that enables the powerful to "gain access to the bodies of individuals, to their acts, attitudes and modes of everyday behaviour." On a MUD, where the physical body is not present, but the virtual body is at the absolute mercy of those who control the system, such power exists. The theatre of authority in a MUD is one which demands and facilitates a strongly dramaturgical element. Underlying each MUD system are cohesive social structures which centre on control and the manipulation of game elements. Every piece of information a player integrates into the MUD universe permits and assures the exercise of power. Speaking and writing-transmitting knowledge-are acts of literal power in the virtual reality of a MUD, and permit the creation of hierarchies of social control.
Back to the Communities
in Cyberspace Page Comments to the editors.
Last modified: 4 September, 1995