Can avatars save Darfur?
Blogged by: Mark H Jones
Avatar models Camp Darfur T-shirt
Last month, Unicef Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow spoke about Darfur. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think.
Nothing apart from the fact that both she and her audience were discussing this most serious of issues while portrayed as animated cartoon avatars in the online ‘game’ of Second Life
In an event hosted by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Mia Farrow highlighted the existence of a virtual refugee camp within Second Life – Camp Darfur – which was set up this time last year.
You need to be registered with Second Life to see the camp but it’s like an online exhibition with a lot of photographs from Darfur, a mock-up of relief tents and supplies, and kiosks run by various advocacy groups.
You can get free t-shirts and wristbands for your avatar, sign an online petition and find links to more information sources.
The underlying idea is to use the intense, highly personal interactivity of Second Life to raise awareness of conditions in Darfur.
An increasing number of public figures and organisations are conducting similar experiments. They’re exploring what can be done with a model that some predict is the fore-runner of a richer, three-dimensional Web.
In the past few months, organisations including France’s Front National, the Swedish embassy and leading U.S. politicians have all established a presence.
So what’s the attraction? I’m a novice barely able to walk around the place let alone fly. But Reuters has its own reporter in Second Life – Adam Reuters – who told me how the greater degree to which you can personalise your ‘presence’ within Second Life and the fact that you can communicate one-to-one with people you meet there makes users much more polite and much more involved than they are in the ‘blogosphere’.
But not always. With a fast-growing base numbering more than four million ‘residents’ there’s a fair share of real-world bad behaviour including, over the past few weeks, the first political riots and even acts of terrorism.
In fact, the history of Camp Darfur has uncanny parallels with the real Darfur. Set up to show how refugees lived, it was attacked by ‘griefers’ -- online vandals – before humanitarians came to the rescue.
And it should be said that opinion is divided on Second Life’s merits. Some hard-core bloggers dismiss it as ‘Loser Life’ – a place for people who can’t hack it in their first life. Others like Ethan Zuckerman, one of the founders of Global Voices (which is part-sponsored by Reuters), see it as a minority interest where the barriers to entry – in terms of connectivity and web-savviness -- are high.
So can and should this be a place where humanitarians hang out? I’ve talked to a number of U.N. officials over the past few weeks about the Reuters experience in Second Life. Several have told me they can see the scope for creating virtual emergency relief co-ordination centres. Online information exchanges like UN OCHA’s Virtual OSOCC exist, but no-one pretends that these have anything approaching the sophistication or appeal to take over from on-the-ground meetings any day soon.
Meanwhile, if you get a chance to explore Camp Darfur you’ll get an idea of why educators are so excited about the scope to provide interesting interactive learning tools for young people who have grown up with computer games.
And then there's fund-raising. With the economy of Second Life already rivalling that of several developing nations, online donations look like a natural fit.
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11 responses to “Can avatars save Darfur?”
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Mark Jones is Global Community Editor for Reuters and has run AlertNet for nearly five years. He's interested in what makes media reporting of humanitarian crises so inconsistent and whether bloggers can fill the gap.
18 Mar 2007 10:47:22 GMT
I'm still a bit confused about the role of the curvy avatar in the ripped t-shirt...
18 Mar 2007 13:03:12 GMT
Ruth, think the idea must be that altruism makes you sexy. This might even be true. Studies show collaborative behaviour stimulates dopamine -- the chemical associated with sex. See Shel Israel's mention of research by Dr Gregory S Berns at http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2005/04/draft_chapter_3.html
19 Mar 2007 10:29:07 GMT
You can see the Mia Farrow event on Darfur in Second Life at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1156309363278144913&q=farrow+darfur
19 Mar 2007 10:30:33 GMT
I think the idea works like this: many people are online anyway, in most cities, with most urban populations being related to knowledge work or work online in some capacity. And many people spend their leisure hours playing games, or socializing online, or going to virtual worlds anyway. They don't watch TV or read books anymore. So this is the new media, and the place where you go if you have a human rights message. You go anywhere and pound on any door when you are trying to wake people up to something like the tragedy of Darfur. Sometimes it means reaching people where they live, and in this case, a lot of them are in virtual worlds of one sort of another; indeed the entire way in which Darfur gets dealt with in real life has so much of the virtual about it; why not try virtual media to try to get people thinking and talking about it and reaching their leaders and those closest to the situation to effect change, the great powers! of the world, whose citizens are now all represented in Second Life?
19 Mar 2007 10:30:54 GMT
Are we stuck in an adolescent fantasy!? I found the cartoon drawing to be incongruent with the gravity of the subject.
On altruism: an excerpt from Dr. Paul Valent's book, 'Trauma and Fulfillment Therapy, A Wholistic Framework' can be found here. www.trauma-pages.com/a/valent9819 Mar 2007 14:13:20 GMT
People need to consider things more openly. This is another channel to get the word out, just like sending emails, just like posting fliers, just like blogs, just like demonstrations in the public square. Lets not get in a huff about the medium just because its not something one participates in oneself. A person in Second Life might not know about, or care about, a particular book, but might be motivated to learn more about how they can help in the Real World because of the curvy torn-shirt avatar (probably controlled by a less-curvy, torn shirt 20-year-old guy...).
People assign priority to issues in their own ways, and many might be just as inclined to consider YOUR (as a general you, not intended to specify any particular individual) ways as childish or perhaps elitists, smug and even boorish. Remember, the lens of cultural relativism should always be applied even to the things you don't agree with -- it doesn't stop at the door of your university, or your ISP.19 Mar 2007 18:27:29 GMT
Camp Darfur is one of many amazing places to plug into international aid work in Second Life. Zeke Poutine, the avatar pictured in the Camp Darfur shirt, is one of the Better World Scouts building interactive education and outreach centers on Better World Island in Second Life, one of many dedicated spaces for grassroots and growing groups to come together and collaborate.
The deeper value in working in Second Life comes in the networks and interactions forming beyond the platform; relationships form and spin into new works just as Camp Darfur exists in cities around the world as a live demonstration of the life in displacement that millions are currently facing in the Sudan and neighboring countries. As for the curvyness of the model, she's a friend from both real life and Second Life and she's got the curves in both worlds, along with the real Camp Darfur t-shirt from traveling around the world educating people and sharing their stories. She was featured in the Camp Darfur Comix, a 12 page comic book created for youth and adults experiencing this story of genocide and displacement for the first time. Genocide should never be a sexy subject, but it does require millions of REAL PEOPLE willing to dialogue and engage their communities in every possible way.20 Mar 2007 10:18:17 GMT
Earth to Second Life associates. When I looked at the comic drawing, the photo accompanying March 08/07 Tim Large's AlertNet blog, 'Highlighting the "epidemic' of sexual violence in war', flew back into mind. The photo is from the front cover of the book, 'The Shame of War' published by IRIN. The photoâs caption: 2 victims of rape in Darfur comfort each other.
The photo can be found by clicking Mediawatch then his name. The book with its photo essay, a free download. On a more personal note, the curves and coverings of a young woman's body transformed into a 'sexual hook' do not quicken my humanitarian pulse. I look through the eyes, mind and experience of a woman living on this planet. The previous decades have given the opportunity to view countless images in print, television, film, and now via computer technology most of which were generated by the male mind. In essence, it has given me the opportunity to see through others eyes. My words are not being spoken to dampen your ardour, your spirit of giving or your desire to make the necessary changes and adjustments in this world. My point and conclusion is the female body has been used enough to sell and to hook; the almost constant stream of similar images is presenting an overall image and message that in the world of today may be having a far reaching subtle yet detrimental effect. Like a boomerang. What do you think, for example, a janjaweed would distill from viewing this stream of images stemming from the western/industrialized mind? Bear in your own mind he is visual, the foreign language just sounds therefore functioning in a non-verbal mode. I am suggesting caution, and more an expanded preventive/protective state of mind than the secondary phase- inventive and running after the fact. At some point we [universal] begin to understand that what we support adds to or subtracts from another's life, misery, rape, torture, death. The lightning speed of the Internet has accelerated this math, and simultaneously widening paths, narrowing others. Connecting the dots becomes simpler, easier when one unplugs, backtracks a bit, cools off now and then. Thank you for considering these thoughts, position, and interpretation.21 Mar 2007 13:22:47 GMT
Michael said: ... but might be motivated to learn more about how they can help in the Real World because of the curvy torn-shirt avatar (probably controlled by a less-curvy, torn shirt 20-year-old guy...).
Actually a curvy, Humanity Before Politics/Camp Darfur t-shirt wearin' 47 year old. (As a matter of fact, I was wearing that t-shirt today at an Accounting Software Convention and with that as an ice-breaker seized the opportunity to spread the word about Darfur quite a number of times.) If what it takes is curves and a t-shirt for some people to take notice and hear the message about the atrocities and crisis in this world (not one of the people that asked me about the t-shirt today had even heard about Darfur let alone what is happening there) then I'm not above doing just that ... in both worlds. Some of you may choose to be preoccupied with the methods; me, I just try to stay above that fray and keep my eye on the prize ... awareness and peace for Darfur.21 Mar 2007 18:04:52 GMT
How tragic that the seriousness of the issue has been turned into a discussion on a pixelated 'toon and her shirt.
Because of the physics in SL, most shirts hug the body. While shadowing can be added to the texture to create depth, simple t-shirts -do- hug the body. As for the Camp in SL, the true issue here, I applaud those that can see new opporunities for awareness.27 Mar 2007 17:39:33 GMT
The various peace and ecological groups participating on Second Life are some of the best uses of the virtual community.
Comments about the look of the avatars lack the information that when you attempt to create fat avatars with billowly clothes in SL, your arms regularly go through your hips rendering standard animations. That becomes tiresome. I'm sure it's possible to get around that problem but most of us elect to stay with variations on the standard models. Kate Miranda, Better Island Scout