Medium Choice

There are many different types of synchronous communication media that I could have used as the medium to examine in this study. However, I saw MOOs (MUD Object Oriented) as offering the most opportunity to break the hierarchies Gurak and Bayer see the internet as being able to break. MOOs are textual-based virtual realities because characters have the ability to change and move thorough a physical MOO space. Participants are also allowed to define the characters they play. They create the description of their character that others can "see" through look commands and can set up their own characters with whatever gender they choose. Unlike other synchronous chat media, MOOs have many different options for gender such as: neuter, male, female, either, spivak, splat, plural, egotistical, royal, or 2nd (options available on LinguaMOO). It is the ability for participants to define themselves and their gender that drew me towards MOOs in the first place. I see this flexibility as important in my research because the MOOers were not restrained to the "typical" genders of the "real world," but they can choose from a broader list. Also gender is less visible because people can only "see" gender through special look commands or though pronoun use. This allows people to experiment with gender, and perhaps make them more aware of gender when writing, which may encourage them to bend gendered rules or stick to stereotypes.