The Social Ontology of Virtual Environments

This paper analyzes the ontological structure of institutional and other social entities in virtual environments. The emphasis is on institutional reality, which consists of entities (objects, events, etc.) like money, contracts, and chess pieces, which are constituted in part through collective agr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American journal of economics and sociology 2003-01, Vol.62 (1), p.269-282
Main Author: Brey, Philip
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chat rooms
Collective agreements
Communities
Criticisms and Reconstructions
Drivers licenses
Economics
Ontology
Philosophical object
Physical reality
Reality
Screwdrivers
Social construction
Social Constructionism
Social environment
Social facts
Social Institutions
Social interaction
Social Reality
Social research
Society
Sociology
Studies
Virtual Reality
Virtual worlds
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper analyzes the ontological structure of institutional and other social entities in virtual environments. The emphasis is on institutional reality, which consists of entities (objects, events, etc.) like money, contracts, and chess pieces, which are constituted in part through collective agreements. It is studied how institutional entities are constructed in virtual environments, how they relate to institutional entities in the real world, and how they are recognized by users.
ISSN:0002-9246
1536-7150
DOI:10.1111/1536-7150.t01-1-00011