Virtual Worlds and Metaverse Platforms: New Communication and Identity Paradigms

While metaverse platforms are no longer a novel topic, they still pose challenges for the adaption of conventional research methodologies and communication practices. Virtual Worlds and Metaverse Platforms: New Communication and Identity Paradigms presents foundational research, models, case studies and research results that researchers and scholars can port to their own environments to evolve their own research processes and studies. The chapters cover scenarios of intellectual disciplines and technological endeavors in which metaverse platforms are currently being used and will be used, including: computation, human-computer interaction, design, media and communication, anthropology, sociology, psychology, education, philosophy, theology, arts, and aesthetics.

Nelson Zagalo is Assistant Professor at the University of Minho (UM). He got his PhD in Communication Technology from the University of Aveiro about new interaction paradigms in virtual environments. He is member of the board of directors of the Master of Technology and Digital Art at UM and of the Center for Communication and Society Studies. He co-chairs the research group EngageLab at Computer Graphics Center and chairs the Portuguese Society of Videogame Sciences. He has more than forty peer-reviewed publications in the fields of film, videogames, interactive storytelling and emotion and has chaired the Digital Games 2008 - National Research Conference; the SLACTIONS 2009 International Conference: Life, imagination and work using metaverse platforms; and the ICIDS2009 - 2nd International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling. Nelson is the author of the book "Interactive Emotions, from Film to Videogames" (2009).

Leonel Morgado is an Assistant Professor at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, in Portugal, where he lectures on programming and the use of virtual worlds. His main research interest is the use of virtual worlds as tools for learning and business. Before pursuing an academic career, he was terminologist for a MS Office 97 localization team, a manager of Web-development and software-deployment teams, a business technical manager and a programmer.

Ana Boa-Ventura is a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. She has managed several international projects aiming at the design and promotion of virtual professional collaboration. Boa-Ventura has worked with digital storytelling (DST) in various contexts of practice research in the metaverse. Her research on virtual communities for tobacco cessation intersects with storytelling to the extent that stories are at the basis of community and trust building. Boa-Ventura designed two interactive platforms for the Portuguese Ministry of Health: for the promotion of breast-feeding and of tobacco cessation. In Portugal, she co-founded Media Shots, a Portuguese organization that works with corporations in the design and implementation of innovative programs in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR). These include strategic and community-oriented digital storytelling, as well as other social media driven solutions to leverage social intervention by ONGs and corporations in a time of recession.