Young Children's Literacy Practices in A Virtual World - Establishing An Online Interaction Order

Young Children's Literacy Practices in a Virtual World: Establishing an Online Interaction
Order
Author(s): Jackie Marsh
Source: Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 2 (April/May/June 2011), pp. 101-118
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading Association
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Young
Children's
Literacy
Practices
in a Virtual World:
Establishing
an Online Interaction Order
Jackie
Marsh
University
of
Sheffield,
UK
This
study
examined the
literacy practices
of children
ages
5-11 as
they engaged
in out-of-school use of virtual worlds.
The
purpose
of the
study
was to
explore
the
nature,
purpose,
and role of
literacy
in children's use of a virtual world. In this
article,
I reflect on how children's use of
literacy practices
in the virtual world constructed and maintained an online social
order. One hundred
seventy-five
children in an
English primary
school
completed
an online
survey
from which their use
of virtual worlds was examined. Individual and
group
interviews were then conducted with 26 children across the
year.
The interviews established that children used the virtual worlds to extend contact with
peers they
had
regular
interaction
with in the offline world.
Further,
three 11
-year-old
children were filmed at home as
they
used the virtual world Club
Penguin.
Additional interviews were conducted with the three children and their
parents.
Data
analysis
focused on the
ways
in which children drew on
specific literacy practices
to construct and maintain an interaction order. A
key finding
is that
literacy operates
as a means of
developing
online social
cohesion,
but the
literacy practices
that serve this function
are located within the
social, material,
and cultural structures in which the children
operate
in the offline world and thus
cannot be viewed in isolation from these wider discourses.
article focuses on
young
children's
(i.e., ages
5-11)
use of one virtual world and
explores
the
ways
in which
literacy
is embedded within the
use of the site. The article
reports
on an
in-depth study
aimed at
generating grounded
theoretical constructs re-
lating
to children's uses of
literacy
in the virtual world.
Although
studies of
literacy practices
in virtual worlds
are limited in
number,
emergent
work in this area has
indicated that
literacy
is central to online interactions
in these
spaces
and that there are numerous
opportuni-
ties for
reading
and
writing
in the worlds
(Gillen, 2009;
Merchant, 2009).
The aim of the article is to further
understanding
of the contribution that
engagement
in
literacy practices
makes to the construction and mainte-
nance of an online social order in a virtual world aimed
at
young
children.
The article
develops
the theoretical construct that
literacy operates
as a
key
means of
developing
online
social
cohesion,
and the
literacy practices
that serve this
function are located within the
social, material,
and cul-
tural structures in which the children
operate
in the of-
fline world and thus cannot be viewed in isolation from
these wider discourses. To do
this,
using
children's en-
gagement
in one
popular
virtual
world,
Club
Penguin,
as a
telling
case
(Mitchell, 1984),
I draw on Goffman's
microsociological
work to understand how and in what
ways
children construct social webs of
meaning
in this
virtual environment. I then consider the
power dynam-
ics that inflected the children's
literacy practices
in
virtual
worlds,
thus
extending
Goffman's notion of an
interaction order to outline how
parallel
orders were at
work in such encounters in online
spaces.
The
key
theo-
retical thrust of the
article, therefore,
is to
suggest
that in
this
seemingly
chaotic virtual
world,
literacy operates
to
index
normality,
and this
indexicality
is framed
ecologi-
cally
across offline and online social
systems.
The
conceptualization
of
literacy
drawn
upon
in
this article is one embedded within the new
literacy
studies,
which
emphasizes
the
way
in which
literacy
is
a social
practice (Gee, 1996; Street, 2001).
The work of
Lankshear and Knobel
(2006)
has extended the initial
framework of the new
literacy
studies school to em-
body
new
literacy practices,
which includes
practices
that are mediated
by
new
technologies.
These activi-
ties and texts have been described
variously
as new
literacies or
digital literacy,
and work in this area has
acknowledged
the
multimodal,
multimedia nature of
communicative
practices
in
contemporary
societies
Reading
Research
Quarterly

46(2)

pp.
101-118

dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.46.2.1

2011 International
Reading
Association 101
(Carrington
&
Robinson, 2009; Kress, 2010). Herein,
I focus
primarily
on children's
reading
and
writing
of
words, letters,
and
symbols,
as well as their communi-
cative
practices using
other
modes,
such as visual im-
ages,
to outline how
young
children use
literacy
in the
development
of a social order in what would otherwise
appear
to be a chaotic online world. In the next sec-
tion,
I outline the theoretical framework for this
study,
which considers the nature of
literacy
in the construc-
tion of a social order.
Literacy
and the Social Order
The notion of a social order is one that has a
long
his-
tory
in
philosophical
and
sociological thought,
and al-
though
it is Hobbes's reflections on a social contract in
Leviathan, published
in
1651,
that are deemed to be a
precursor
to 19th- and
20th-century
reflections on the
topic,
deliberations
regarding
the nature of the social
order can be found in the works of Plato and Aristotle.
It was
during
the late 19th and
early
20th
centuries,
however,
when
philosophers
and
sociologists
such as
Marx, Durkheim,
and Weber
developed
the
concepts
that
underpin
much
contemporary thinking
on the na-
ture of the social order. Durkheim
(1893/1964)
was one
of the founders of structural
functionalism,
a
philoso-
phy
which
emphasized
that societies were
systems
with
interrelated elements.
Social order is constructed
through
the beliefs and
value
systems
of different
groups
who work
together
to
achieve social cohesion. The
key question
in
any
con-
sideration of the social order concerns the
relationship
between structure and
agency,
and structural func-
tionalism is considered
by many
to
propose
a model
of the individual
subject
that is too
limiting
in nature.
For
example,
Giddens
(1976) argued
that structural
functionalism
poses
too
deep
a divide between volun-
tarism and
determinism,
so he
developed
a notion of
double structuration. Social order is not
simply
con-
structed
through
a collation of the
multiple
activities of
individuals,
nor can the activities of individuals be seen
as
merely
determined
by
social
patterns,
but it is the
dynamic
between them that is at
stake,
a
dynamic
be-
tween structure and
agency
that Fuchs
(2001)
termed
an unresolved
enigmata.
Literacy
can be fundamental to the construction and
maintenance of social order and has been found to be
integral
to the functions of nation- states over centuries
(Cressy,
1980/2006; Graff, 1987).
Durkheim
emphasized
the role of
language
in the construction and mainte-
nance of a social
order,
but it is also the case that
literacy
permeates
social and cultural life. When
describing
the
findings
of the Local Literacies
(Barton
&
Hamilton,
1998) study,
an
ethnographic study
of
literacy
in the
lives of a
community
in northern
England,
Barton
(2001)
stated that
"nearly
all
everyday
activities in the contem-
porary
world are mediated
by literacy
and that
people
act within a
textually
mediated social world"
(p. 100).
The
relationship
between
literacy
and the social or-
der has seen radical transformations in the
digital age.
Urry (2000)
reminded us that the construction of social
order has
always depended
on extrasomatic
elements,
and in
contemporary society, technologies
intersect
with humans in
complex
and
dynamic ways.
The liter-
acy practices
that
emerge
in these intersections are
key
to the construction and maintenance of a social order.
This has not been
subject
to extensive
empirical
inter-
rogation
in relation to
young
children as
yet, although
the work of Steinkuehler
(2007, 2008)
indicates how lit-
eracy underpins
social
exchanges
between
young peo-
ple
and adults in the
massively multiplayer
online
game
World of Warcraft.
The
study reported
on in this article contributes to
this
emergent
area
by outlining
how children
using
a vir-
tual world utilized
literacy
in the
building
of an online so-
cial order that connected to children's offline lifeworlds.
To undertake this
work,
I draw on Goffman's
concep-
tual tools in the
development
of an
analytic
framework
that enables a consideration of the
place
of
literacy
in the
building
of online social worlds. In the next
section,
I
move on to consider his
concept
of the interaction
order,
as it
provides
a
key platform
for
understanding
the nature
of human interaction in online environments.
The Interaction Order
Goffman's work outlined how humans
deploy
verbal
and nonverbal resources and
strategies
to
convey spe-
cific
meanings.
In his 1982
presidential
address to the
American
Sociological
Association,
Goffman
(1983)
fo-
cused on
outlining aspects
of what he termed the interac-
tion order. His focus was on the
microanalysis
of social
interactions in
everyday
life. For
him,
social interaction
was
primordially
about face-to-face encounters with
known others and
strangers,
and he
explicitly suggested
that non-face-to-face
encounters,
although
still viable
units of
analysis,
were
paler
versions of the "real
thing":
Social interaction can be identified
narrowly
as that which
uniquely transpires
in social
situations,
that
is,
environ-
ments in which two or more individuals are
physically
in
one another's
response presence. (Presumably
the
telephone
and the mails
provide
reduced versions of the
primordial
real
thing.) (p. 2)
In
people's
face-to-face
encounters,
Goffman
(1983)
traced a
variety
of
practices
that serve to
produce
order
in what would otherwise be social chaos. Human
beings
voluntarily agree
to
participate
in these
practices
and,
102
Reading
Research
Quarterly

46(2)
in so
doing,
confirm
longstanding, reciprocal
interac-
tional
patterns.
He
suggested
that there are two main
types
of interaction: focused and unfocused. Focused
interaction takes
place
when two or more
people
intend
to interact with each
other,
and unfocused interaction
occurs when two or more
people
are
copresent
but
have no intention to interact
directly (Goffman, 1963).
In social
interaction,
humans
adopt
certain
patterns
of
speech, clothing, bodily posture,
and so forth to
signal
particular meanings
to others. In these interactions
with
others,
we use frames
(Goffman, 1974)
to
help
us
interpret
the
meanings
of the event. Frames are
prin-
ciples
of structure that can be conceived as
underpin-
ning specific
social situations. These frames
guide
our
expectations
as to how a
particular exchange
should be
structured. Goffman indicated that frames are
socially
structured but
acknowledged
that individuals
may
ex-
perience multiple
levels of frames in
any
one
context,
which means that their
experience
of a social situation is
different from that of another individual who is involved
in the same encounter.
Although
these
microscoiological
theories were
developed
in relation to face-to-face
contact,
it is
pos-
sible to
apply
them to situations in which
people
meet
only virtually (cf. Jenkins, 2010).
Media scholars have
drawn on Goffman's theories to
identify
the nature of
human interaction in
cyberspace.
Smith
(2008),
for ex-
ample,
used Goffman's
analysis
of
ties,
the markers we
use to
signal
ties with other humans
(e.g.,
shared dress
and
mannerisms),
to
develop
the
concept
of
hyperties,
which link
computational
devices to the
physical
world.
Also,
Miller
(1995)
and Robinson
(2007)
have been in-
sistent that Goffman's work is relevant to a
study
of on-
line human
engagement.
Goffman outlined how the social conventions in
which we
engage produce
ritualized
practices,
a theme
taken
up by
Collins
(2004),
who
developed
the
concept
of interaction ritual chains.
Drawing
on both Durkheim
(1915)
and
Goffman,
Collins
suggested
that "ritual is a
mechanism of
mutually
focused emotion and attention
producing
a
momentarily
shared
reality,
which
thereby
generates solidarity
and
symbols
of
group
member-
ship" (p. 7).
These rituals are
experienced
in a recurrent
manner,
thus
forming
chains of interactions in which
emotions and actions are
repeated
over time. Collins
contended that there are four
key aspects
of interac-
tion rituals:
(1)
two or more
people
have to be
physically
copresent, (2)
boundaries are set so that outsiders can-
not be
involved, (3) people
focus on a common
object
or
activity,
and
(4) participants
share a common mood
or emotional
experience.
Collins
argued
that individu-
als seek emotional
energy through participating
in
these rituals in which
they
have emotional and social
investment. The
concept
of interaction ritual chains is a
useful
development
of Goffman's
work,
and I draw on
Collins's
concept
to
suggest
that
literacy
is one of the
practices
embedded within interaction ritual chains in
children's
use of a virtual world environment.
Children's Virtual Worlds
Boellstorff
(2008)
traced the
origins
of virtual worlds
back to Plato's
(1991) allegory
of the cave in Book 7 of
The
Republic,
which
depicted
the actual world as a mere
shadow of a
nonphysical
world of ideas. Boellstorff
moved on to outline how virtual worlds as we
currently
know
them,
in the form of websites such as Second
Life,
began
to
emerge
in the 1970s with the
development
of
the first video
games
and
multiplayer dungeons.
The
burgeoning
of the children's virtual world market be-
gan
around the
midpoint
of the first decade of the 21st
century,
with some of the current
major players,
such as
Ganz's Webkinz and Viacom's
Neopets, beginning
to
attract
large
numbers of users around that time.
Since
then,
this has been an area of
rapid develop-
ment,
with some
reports
that the fastest
growing
demo-
graphic
of virtual world users is children between the
ages
of 5 and
9,
a
group
that will see 27%
growth
in the
use of these sites over the next 5
years (Gilbert, 2009).
The
majority
of children's virtual worlds involve
playing
games
as a
major activity,
which is not to
suggest
that
that the websites should be
categorized primarily
as
games.
As
Meyers (2009) argued,
the activities under-
taken in what he termed shared virtual environments
have more in common with virtual worlds for
adults,
such as Second
Life,
than other online
game
sites.
Many
of the sites enable users to
manage
an avatar
(e.g.,
clothe
and
manipulate
an online
representation
of
themselves),
create home environments,
chat to others
through
the
use of instant
messaging,
and
engage
in
shopping
for
virtual artifacts. These virtual worlds
promote
a
range
of
types
of
play
from the more restricted rule-bound
play
involved in
games
constructed
by
the site
produc-
ers
through
to
imaginative play,
which can involve fan-
tasy
and sociodramatic
play (Marsh, 2010).
There are few studies of children's use of virtual
worlds. The most
comprehensive
so
far,
the American
study
of tweens'
(i.e., ages 10-12)
use of
Whyville,
fo-
cused on social interaction and
learning
on the
site,
which was
developed
to
promote learning (Kafai,
2010). Whyville appears,
from Kafai 's
analysis,
to offer
a
productive space
for
learning,
somewhat in contrast
to the
commercially produced
virtual world
Webkinz,
of which Black
(2010) developed
a content
analysis
and
suggested
that it
provides
"a constrained set of litera-
cies"
(p. 7).
There is a
need, however,
to examine the
literacy practices
of
young
children in these kinds
of virtual worlds to determine how far
they
are con-
strained
by
the
producers
of these sites. The
present
Young
Children's
Literacy
Practices in a Virtual World:
Establishing
an Online Interaction Order 103
study
examines one of the
commercially
based virtual
worlds for
children,
Club
Penguin,
and focuses on the
literacy practices
of a
group
of its 5 -11
-year-
old users.
Club
Penguin
was
developed by
the media
compa-
ny
New Horizon Interactive in Canada and
opened
to
public
use in October 2005 with
approximately
25,000
users. In
2007,
there were more than 12 million
regis-
tered
accounts,
and the world was
subsequently
ac-
quired by
the Walt
Disney Company
for $350 million.
Club
Penguin
is
currently reported
to have 47 million
registered
accounts
(KZero Worldswide, 2010).
The
virtual world consists of an arctic environment in which
avatars are
penguins.
Each
penguin
has an
igloo
home.
There are numerous
games
in Club
Penguin
in which
users earn coins or that can be
played
for
sport (e.g.,
swimming,
ice
hockey).
Users can
buy
clothes and arti-
facts for their avatars and
igloos.
Text is
kept
to a minimum
throughout
the virtual
environment and is used
primarily
to
identify
the use of
buildings. Symbols,
such as
arrows,
are used
through-
out to
guide penguins,
and
every page
contains icons
that link to a
map
of the
world,
the
newspaper
Club
Penguin Times,
and a
moderator,
who can be contacted
if
penguins
wish to
complain
about the behavior of oth-
ers in the world. The
navigation
bar at the bottom of
the screen features icons that enable each child to en-
gage
in chat with other
penguins,
use
emoticons,
throw
snowballs,
contact other
penguins
to
request
that
they
become
friends,
and
navigate
to his or her avatar's
igloo.
Chat
appears
in
speech
bubbles above the heads of ava-
tars,
similar to the
placement
of
speech
in comics. This
limited use of text and extensive use of icons and
sym-
bols means that
very young
children find it
relatively
straightforward
to
navigate
in Club
Penguin.
Some of
the servers enable safe chat
mode,
which means that
users choose from a set of words and
phrases
to com-
municate with each
other,
again enabling
children who
are not fluent writers to
engage
in communication with
other avatars. The site also contains texts that are more
extensive in nature for those who wish to access them.
The
newspaper,
for
example,
includes
puzzles, jokes,
and
stories,
and there is a
library
that contains
books,
including
interactive
books,
for
longer
reads. In addi-
tion,
the editors of Club
Penguin
Times invite users to
submit
pictures
and articles.
Club
Penguin,
therefore,
contains
many
of the fea-
tures of other virtual worlds for
children,
such as the
use of a market-based
system
in which
shopping
is a
key activity
and the
tight
control of user
engagement
through
the
design
of the
site,
but it also has distinct
features,
such as the lack of in-world
marketing
and the
provision
of a
range
of written texts
beyond game
in-
structions and
shopping
resources. Virtual worlds for
children have been the focus of a
range
of
critique,
not
least because the
producers
often embed
sophisticated
data
mining
software,
which enables
surreptitious
sur-
veillance of users' online
practices (Chung
&
Grimes,
2005),
and
they
are located within a
complex,
multi-
media world of commercial
products
aimed at children
and
parents.
Further,
Club
Penguin
is now
part
of the
Disney corporation,
a
longstanding
focus for critical
analysis by political
economists and cultural theorists
who have
pointed
to its
corporate
manufacture of im-
perialist fantasy (Wasko, 2001).
Notwithstanding
these
concerns,
it would seem
important
to understand the kinds of
literacy practices
that are undertaken on these sites and the
purposes
for
these
practices, given
the extent to which virtual worlds
such as Club
Penguin
are used
by young
children. In
particular,
the
ways
in which children utilize
literacy
in
online
spaces
to create social
groups
is of
interest,
par-
ticularly
as there is little research in this field. We know
much about the
way
in which written texts are central
to children's social
practices (e.g., Dyson, 2003, 2010;
Rowe, 2003; Wohlwend, 2009),
and there is now a need
to extend this
understanding
to online
spaces.
This ar-
ticle examines the
ways
in which
literacy
informs the
development
of a social order in an online environment.
Methodology
The research
design
was that of a case
study,
which en-
abled the
generation
of
grounded
theoretical constructs.
I used a
funnelling approach (Spradley, 1980),
in that a
broad overview of 175 children's use of the Internet was
undertaken
by
means of a
survey,
a smaller
group
of
26 children were interviewed about their use of virtual
worlds,
and 3 children were filmed
using
a virtual world
over the
period
of 1 month. This enabled an intensifica-
tion and a further
focusing
at each
stage
of the issues
under
study.
The
study
was undertaken in a
primary
school in a
large city
in northern
England,
which was
involved in
ongoing projects
with a local
university.
The
school serves a
primarily
white,
working-class
commu-
nity
located on a
housing
estate in an area of
significant
economic
deprivation.
The school had
above-average
levels of children
qualifying
for free school
meals,
a
common marker in the
English system
of social
depri-
vation. Almost all of the children in the school were
monolingual.
Parental consent was received for
partici-
pation
in the
study.
All children have been
given pseud-
onyms
herein.
The information and communication
technologies
(ICT)
teacher in the
school,
who
taught every
ICT class
during
the course of a
week,
was involved in the
study,
as he wished to initiate work in the ICT curriculum on
virtual worlds and so felt that he would find it valu-
able to know about children's
engagement
with virtual
worlds outside of school. An online
survey
was set
up
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46(2)
using
the
Google
Docs website. Online
surveys
are ad-
vantageous
in the research
process
in a number of
ways,
as outlined
by Andrews, Nonnecke,
and Preece
(2003),
in that
they
have a number of characteristics that cannot
be
adopted
in
paper-based surveys,
such as the
ability
to
automatically
transfer
responses
to a database. The
ICT teacher in the school
frequently
used online sur-
veys
via
Google
Docs,
and therefore the
practice
was
not unfamiliar to the children.
Children were asked a
range
of
questions relating
to their Internet
use,
including
a
request
to
identify
if
they
used virtual worlds outside of school
and,
if
so,
how often.
Questions
also focused on the nature of
children's activities when
using
virtual worlds
(i.e.,
if
they shopped, played games,
read the in-world
texts,
and chatted with
friends). Many
of the
questions
were
multiple
-choice to enable ease of
completion.
Children
were invited to
complete
the
survey
when
they
attended
their ICT lessons in the ICT
suite,
which each class in
the school did twice a week.
A total of 175 children across all
year groups (ages
5-11) completed
the
survey.
Some of the
younger
chil-
dren were
supported
in their
completion
of the online
survey,
in that
questions
were read aloud to them when
necessary
and their
responses inputted by
an
adult,
but
the
majority
of children
completed
the
survey indepen-
dently.
The
survey
data are not the focus for discussion
in this
article,
other than to offer a broad outline of chil-
dren's use of virtual worlds. The
survey
data and
ques-
tions asked can be seen in the
Appendix.
Following
the
completion
of the
survey,
10 children
ages
6 and 7 as well as 5 children
ages
10 and 11 took
part
in a series of
group
and individual semistructured inter-
views. Further interviews at this
stage
were not
possible
because of the
impending
summer break.
Following
the
vacation
period,
a second
group
of children were inter-
viewed,
4 children
ages
5 and 6 as well as 7 children
ages
9 and 10. In
total,
26 children were interviewed about
their use of virtual worlds
(see
Table
1).
Children were invited to take
part
in the interviews
in sessions when
they
had classes in the ICT suite. It
was
explained
to them that I wished to ask
questions
about their use of virtual worlds and volunteers were
invited to
participate.
All volunteers were interviewed.
The interviews took
place
in the school cafeteria and
were
digitally
recorded,
then transcribed. Each inter-
view
normally
lasted between 20 and 30 minutes. The
in-depth
interviews
explored
children's activities when
using
virtual worlds outside of
school,
and
questions
were asked
regarding
who children
played
with in the
virtual
worlds,
what
they played,
and how
reading
and
writing
featured in this
play.
Following
the first set of
interviews,
three children
were filmed in their homes
using
the virtual world
Club
Penguin;
this
stage
took
place during
the summer
Table 1. Children Who Took Part in Interviews
Boys
Girls
Name
Age
Name
Age
Martin 5
Carly
5
Billy
7 Charlene 6
Bradley
7 Sarah-Louise 6
Brendan 7
Stacey
6
Ewan 7 Lisa 7
Kyle
7 Ruth 7
Leo 7 Deborah 9
Terence 7 Helen 9
Rob 9
Stacey
10
Adam 10 Eve 11
Chris 10 Jess
11
Mike 10
Travis 10
David 11
Owen 1 1
/Voie. All Heimes are
pseudonyms.
break. Children in the final
year
of
primary
school,
ages
10 and
11,
were invited to volunteer for this
stage
of the
project
if
they
were
regular
users of Club
Penguin
out-
side of school. This virtual world was chosen as a focus
because it was the most
popular
one identified from
the online
survey.
It was not felt to be
appropriate
to
require
children to
join
Club
Penguin
to take
part,
as
this
may
have led to
requests
from the children to their
parents
to
pay
for
membership
of the site. Four children
who were
regular
users of Club
Penguin
in their homes
volunteered to take
part. Only
three
children, however,
gained
the consent of their
parents
to take
part
in this
stage
of the
study,
two
girls
and one
boy.
All were
age
11
when the
filming
took
place.
The children's
profiles
are
outlined in Table 2.
In all of the
visits,
the children were
positioned
as
the
experts
in the use of their own media culture. As
Bloome and Katz
(2003) proposed,
"What can be known
about children
depends
on how 'child' is
conceptual-
ized,
the
personhood assigned
to the
category
'child'"
(p. 382).
As
suggested
in the work of the new sociolo-
gists
of childhood in the last decades of the 20th
century
(e.g., James, Jenks,
&
Prout, 1998),
which
emphasized
that childhood is a social
construct,
it is
important
to
recognize
that children have
particular rights
in relation
to
any
examination of their culture. I therefore informed
the children that at
any point,
if
they
wished me to turn
the video camera off or delete a certain
sequence,
then
I would do so. In
addition,
I also informed them that if
Young
Children's
Literacy
Establishing
Table 2. Profiles of Children Who Were Filmed
Using
Club
Penguin
in Their Homes
Paid Other
family
membership
of members who used
Name
Age
Gender
Ethnicity Siblings
Parental
occupation
the site the site
Emma 11 Female White British

1
sister, age
6

Father: Full-time Yes Mother
electrician

Sister

Mother: Part-time dinner
supervisor
at a local
primary
school
John
11 Male White British

1
sister,
age
9

Father: Unknown (did No

Sister used to
not have contact with the
play,
but no
family) longer
did so at

Mother: Full-time
teaching
the time of the
assistant at a local
primary study
school
Sally
11 Female White British

1
brother, age
5

Father:
Unemployed,
No Sister

1
sister, age
7
having
been made
redundant some months
prior

Mother: Part-time clerical
assistant
they
did not wish to answer
any
of the
questions
I
asked,
they
did not need to do so.
I visited each child at home four times over the
pe-
riod of one month and filmed them from the time at
which
they logged
on to Club
Penguin
to the time
they
logged
off,
unless
they
were
already logged
on to the vir-
tual world when I
arrived,
in which case I filmed them
from the
point
of
my
arrival to the time
they logged
off.
Table 3 indicates the amount of
filming completed
on
each visit.
Although
it is unusual to have this extent of
videotaped
material of children's online
practices
in the
home,
observations of children's online
literacy practic-
es in this context have also been undertaken
by
Leander
and Frank
(2006)
and Cammack
(2002).
I
placed
the camcorder on a
tripod
to the rear and
side of each
child,
so I could view their screen move-
ments. I then sat to the side of the child as he or she used
Club
Penguin,
so I could view their
eye
movements
when
necessary.
I asked the children
questions
occa-
sionally
as
they
used the site when I wished to
probe
their use of the world in
greater depth.
I also conducted
in-depth,
semistructured interviews with each child
and one of his or her
parents
after the final
filming
ses-
sion. In these
interviews,
I
probed
children's
responses
to the virtual world and
parents'
attitudes toward their
children's use of Club
Penguin.
On
completion
of the
study,
each of these families was
given
a
50 gift
vouch-
er for a local
department
store.
The research focus discussed in this article arose
from
repeated readings
of the
data,
and this
analytic
frame was
applied
at a later
stage
of the data
analysis
process.
In the earlier
stages,
children's
play
and
literacy
practices
in virtual worlds were
mapped (Marsh, 2010,
in
press).
On
repeated readings
of the
data,
patterns
relating
to the construction of a social order
emerged,
and a decision was made to undertake an
analysis
of the
data that drew on Goffman's
concepts, given
the extent
to which his work facilitated an
understanding
of social
interaction. I outline this
process
in the next section.
Table 3. Details of
Filming
Children While
Using
Club
Penguin
in Their Homes
Name Visit 1 Visit 2 Visit 3 Visit 4 Total
Emily
37 min 39 min 38 min 43 min 2 hr 38 min
22 sec 39 sec 51 sec 52 sec
John 28 min 56 min 68 min 45 min 3 hr 19 min
10 sec 3 sec 33 sec 38 sec
Sally
49 min 48 min 43 min 28 min 2 hr 50 min
19 sec 49 sec 49 sec 28 sec 25 sec
Data
Analysis
Various
approaches
were taken to data
analysis.
The
questionnaires
were used to
produce descriptive
statis-
tics
regarding
children's use of virtual worlds. The total
amount of film
analyzed
was 8 hours 48 minutes 55 sec-
onds. I undertook a content
analysis
of the
videotapes.
I
classified each
activity
undertaken
by
the children
(e.g.,
playing games, writing, reading)
and counted
every
oc-
currence of each
activity
and how
long
children
spent
on
each
activity.
These data informed a
quantitative analysis
of children's
literacy practices
when
using
Club
Penguin.
106
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46(2)
The
qualitative
data
arising
from the
open-ended
questions
in the
questionnaire,
the
transcriptions
from
the video
data,
and the transcribed interviews were ana-
lyzed using
two different
approaches. Initially,
a con-
stant
comparison
method
(Glaser, 1965)
was used to
identify patterns
and themes. Gibson and Brown
(2009)
emphasized
the
way
in which themes can enable nar-
ratives across a set of interviews to
cohere,
drawing
on
Van Manen's
(1998) suggestion
that themes are "knots in
the webs of our
experiences,
around which certain lived
experiences
are
spun" (p. 90).
Themes were identified
through
an iterative
process
in which commonalities and
differences in the children's
responses
were identified
and coded. Codes were then
grouped
to form themes
that illuminated children's
purposes
for
literacy
within
the virtual world and the nature of their different
prac-
tices. This
approach
led to the
development
of a number
of theories
regarding
children's
literacy practices,
which
are not the
subject
of this
particular
article but are
report-
ed elsewhere
(Marsh, 2010,
in
press).
Instead,
this article
focuses on
discussing
the data in relation to one of the
themes that
emerged during
the
analytical process.
During
the inductive
analysis
of the
data,
one of
the themes that
emerged
related to the
construction,
maintenance,
and
disruption
of a social order. The
data that had been coded in relation to this theme were
then
reanalyzed
in the
light
of Goffman's
work,
given
the
importance
of his work for an
understanding
of the
social order. At this
stage,
four
categories
that related to
his
conceptualization
of the interaction order were
ap-
plied
to this data. Goffman's
concepts
were not
applied
selectively
to this set of
data;
all of the data in relation
to the theme of the construction and maintenance of a
social order were
analyzed
in relation to the four basic
elements of the interaction
order,
as
conceptualized by
Goffman and identified
by Manning (1992)
in his over-
view of Goffman's work in this area:
1.
Spatial
units
involving
the
copresence
of humans
2. Verbal and nonverbal communication
3.
Participation
units
involving
the various con-
texts in which humans interact
(e.g., gatherings,
parties)
4.
System
and ritual
constraints,
which
operate
in
social situations to minimize embarrassment
It was not the case that the data related in
equal
measure to each of these four
areas,
as the fourth ele-
ment of the interaction
order,
system
and ritual con-
straints,
did not
appear
as
frequently
in the data as
the other three elements. There was also a
minority
of
data under this theme that could not be
applied
to
any
of the four elements and were considered as
examples
of the
disruption
of the social order. These
examples
are discussed where relevant later in this article. This
approach
to data
analysis
illuminated how the children
were involved in
making
sense of this online environ-
ment and enabled
theory-building relating
to the uses
of
literacy
in environments such as Club
Penguin
in the
construction of a social order. In the
following analy-
sis,
the discussion focuses on the
following
elements of
a social order that
emerged
as
significant
elements in
the
process
of
generating
codes:
space,
communicative
practices,
social
contexts,
and social constraints.
The Social Order
in a Virtual Environment
In
total,
52%
(n
=
91)
of the 175 children
ages
5-11 sur-
veyed
stated that
they
used virtual worlds on a
regu-
lar
basis,
53%
(n
=
49)
of whom were
girls.
The most
frequently
used virtual world was Club
Penguin.
Obviously,
it is not
possible
to
generalize
from these
figures, partly
because of the
sample
size and
partly
be-
cause the use of online sites
by specific
communities of
children is often localized. Information about new sites
is
frequently passed
on between
peers.
Nonetheless,
the
data indicate that within this
primary
school,
the use of
virtual worlds was
prevalent
across all
age groups.
It is a central
argument
of this article that one of
the
key
functions of the
literacy practices
within Club
Penguin
was to establish and maintain social interaction.
When first
logging
on to this virtual
world,
one is struck
by
the
apparent
chaos that
operates
in
it,
as indicated in
my
field notes from the first observation of
John:
John
moves his avatar to the town centre
using
the
map.
I
cannot see his
avatar,
as it has landed on
top
of a
large
num-
ber of avatars in the centre of the town. He
presses
the arrow
key,
and his avatar moves across the town
square
into a
space.
There are lots of avatars in this small
space.
Movement
ap-
pears
to be
spontaneous
and
quite
chaotic- some avatars
are
moving
at
speed,
others are still in one
space,
and oc-
casionally speech appears
above avatars' heads in a bubble
as
they appear
to be
addressing
the crowd. For
example,
one
penguin
shouts
"pool
zoo dance
party
at coolies on
map."
John
leaves his avatar here for 8
minutes, during
which time
I observe a lot of
apparently
random behaviour,
(field notes,
August 5, 2008)
As I observed this virtual world over
time,
I noticed
that the users of the world
engaged
in a series of
repeating
actions,
which offered a
recognizable
structure in what
could otherwise be viewed as random
activity. Literacy
was central to
creating
these social and cultural
patterns.
In the
following analysis
of the
data,
I
explore
how lit-
eracy underpinned
the construction and maintenance of
a social order in one virtual
world,
focusing
on the four
main elements of the interaction order:
space;
commu-
nicative
practices;
social
contexts,
and social constraints.
Young
Children's
Literacy
Establishing
Space
A social order is established when two or more
people
are
physically present
in the same environment. In re-
lation to Club
Penguin,
users
developed
a social order
when their avatars were in the
presence
of other avatars.
One of the first
premises
of a social order is that humans
manage
social
space
in
ways
that enable them to man-
age
social relations. Goffman's
(1971)
work on the differ-
ences between embodied
presences
in
physical space
is
of interest here in relation to the classification of indi-
viduals as a vehicular unit within
specific spatial
units.
As a vehicular
unit,
individuals move
through
a
spatial
unit and
signal
their intentions to others to
navigate
the
space effectively.
For
example,
when a
pedestrian
meets
someone
walking
in the
opposite
direction on a foot-
path,
he or she
may
move to one side of the
footpath
to
ensure that there is no
physical
contact with the other
person.
Two individuals thus coordinate their actions
to avoid collision and do this
through
confirmation of
social conventions
regarding space
and
strangers.
The conventions in Club
Penguin
were
necessarily
different because of the
inability
to read the intentions
of others with
regard
to direction. I observed few social
conventions as to
navigation.
Indeed,
the
programming
enabled avatars to move across
spaces by effectively
walking through
other avatars. This was
obviously
nec-
essary, given
the number of users
logged
on simultane-
ously.
However,
once
away
from these crowded
spaces,
the children
navigated
their avatars so that
they
did not
touch other
penguins,
and other users were
doing
the
same. Avatars tended to
keep polite
distances from each
other unless users wanted to move in
pairs,
in which
cases avatars moved
closely together through
the
spac-
es. For
example, Sally reported,
There's
big gangs
that can walk round with each other,
like
what
you do,
but
people
like
walking
in
fours,
like
they're
probably seeing
each other from school or made friends . . .
I've walked in threes and stuff with
my
friends and then we
go
and
play
like Connect 4 or
things.
Avatars also
grouped closely together
when in-
volved in
group
activities. The
ability
to
navigate
a
complex,
multimodal screen was therefore a
primary
skill
required
to
engage
in Club
Penguin,
in addition
to the social
knowledge
needed in terms of when it was
acceptable
to cluster
together
in
groups
and when it was
not
appropriate
to do so.
Further,
literacy
was a
signifi-
cant element of movement
through
the bounded
space
of the virtual world
environment,
in that there was ex-
tensive use
by
children of environmental
print
to find
their
way
about,
such as
following signs
or
using maps.
In the embodied
space
of an interaction
order,
it is
pos-
sible to "read" the characteristics of
someone,
Goffman
(2005) suggested, through
an
analysis
of their
presenta-
tion of self
(e.g., clothing, jewelry).
Kirkland and
Jackson
(2009),
for
example,
offered an account of how African
American
youths
use such
stylistic
conventions as mark-
ers of
identity.
Embodiment of self in virtual
spaces
is as
significant
as it is in offline
spaces (Boellstorff, 2008).
The
place
of
literacy
within this
process
of the construction of
identity
and
presentation
of a virtual
self,
and
recognition
of this
by
others,
is central. In Club
Penguin, literacy
and
multimodal
practices
served to construct and
project par-
ticular identities embodied in
space through
the
naming
and
pictorial representation
of a
penguin
avatar. The color
of avatars could be
changed,
and various clothes and arti-
facts could be
placed
on them.
Emily, John,
and
Sally
all
engaged
in
changing
the
appearance
of their avatars and
examining
the
ways
in
which other users had constructed theirs.
Emily, John,
and
Sally
were involved in semiotic
analysis
as
they
viewed the
profiles
of others and made
assumptions
about them. In an environment in which members who
paid
an extra fee had access to a wider wardrobe and ad-
ditional
artifacts,
the
performance
of
identity
was also
bound
up
with
judgments
about
others,
as indicated in
this
exchange
with
Sally regarding
how she identified
potential
friends:
Interviewer: When
you say you
like the look of
somebody,
what are
you looking
for
exactly?
Sally: Looking
for their
clothes, hair,
and
their
posh
houses,
but it doesn't
really
matter,
because I've
got
a lot of
plain
friends.
So,
he's
just got
little hats and
stuff
[pointing
to an avatar of a user
who does not have
paid membership],
so most
people
don't click on
him,
because he's
plain. Just
because he's
plain
and
[has not] got
a
fancy
back-
ground, they just
won't click on
him,
because
they
don't
really...
think, "Oh,
he's not rich... I won't
go
and see
him,
so I'll
just
leave him out." I
just
click on
anybody.
The children who were filmed all commented on how
they
could discern status of
membership
from an ava-
tar's
appearance
and her or his
possessions,
such as an
igloo
and
pets,
which are known as
puffles.
In
addition,
such markers were means of
constructing friendship
groups
of members and nonmembers. Within the
spa-
tial unit of Club
Penguin,
therefore,
the
presentation
of
one's avatar self was a means of
performing particular
identity
constructions
through
the use of
dress,
artifact
ownership,
and social networks.
The construction and
ongoing management
of
avatars is
widely
understood as a form of
identity play
(Bessire, Seay,
&
Kiesler, 2007; Nardi, 2010).
The
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46(2)
children
spent
time
constructing
their avatars and
pre-
senting
them in
particular ways
in
specific
contexts.
Goffman
(1959/1990) suggested
that there were both
front
stage
and
backstage operations
in individuals'
management
of themselves in the social world. Goffman
drew on these
dramaturgical metaphors
to
explain
how
individuals interacted in
group
encounters. He
argued
that individuals
performed
for audiences and moved
between front
stage
and
backstage settings.
The front
stage provides
the
setting
for the
identity performance
in front of an
audience,
which can be an individual or
team
performance,
and the
backstage
is located
away
from the
public eye,
"where the
impression
fostered
by
the
performance
is
knowingly
contradicted as a mat-
ter of course"
(p. 114).
These
concepts
have
proved
useful when
considering
online
identity practices
in
spaces
such as social
networking
sites
(Marwick, 2005)
and
massively multiplayer
online
games (Williams,
Kennedy,
&
Moore, 2010).
As Robinson
(2007) argued,
Online
expressions
are still
'given'
and
'given
off
through
text;
'front
stages'
and
'backstages'
are critical to
framing cy-
berinteractions. Thus,
interaction in
cyberspace perpetuates
the same
self-ing
that exists in the offline world,
(pp. 107-108)
It is the
case, however,
that the affordances of differ-
ent sites
shape
the
ways
in which identities can be
rep-
resented
(Marwick, 2005).
In Club
Penguin,
children
could choose the color of their
penguin
avatar
and,
if
they
were
paid
members,
dress it in clothes that
signaled
a
particular gender
if
they
wished.
They
could create
avatar names that
signaled
a
specific identity,
such as
"fungirl." Beyond
that,
opportunities
for role
adoption
in the front
stage
of the virtual world were limited to
what could be
expressed through
the chat
facility,
or
what additional
opportunities
were afforded
by
the
pro-
ducers,
such as when
they
released
special
clothes and
artifacts related to a
particular fantasy identity,
such
as
pirate
or mermaid. On the front
stage,
that
is,
in the
virtual
world,
the children could
present
themselves as
they
wished within these
specific
confines. The chil-
dren tended to
approach
this
conservatively,
in that
they
did not
report adopting
a
range
of identities front
stage;
this was
certainly
the case also in the data from the
observations of
John
and
Sally. Only Emily frequently
changed
the
gendered appearance
of her avatar. When
asked
why,
however,
her
response appeared
to indicate
more of a desire to be able to
buy
a wide
range
of
goods
than a wish to
express
a
variety
of
identity positions:
"Because
you
can
buy
all different
things,
and
you
can
enjoy everything
instead of
just
one half of the
things."
This
appears
to be different from the front
stage
behav-
ior of older children and adults in studies of Second Life
(Boellstorff, 2008), Whyville (Kafai, 2010),
and World
of Warcraft
(Nardi, 2010),
in which users
playfully
adopt
and
adapt
a
range
of identities over time.
As can be seen in
Sally's
comments
regarding
how
judgments
are made about users on the basis of their
avatars,
life on the
backstage inevitably impacts
the
front
stage.
Various forms of
capital
-
material, cultural,
and social
-
operate
in virtual worlds
(Malaby, 2006).
Users who
buy
a
paid membership,
rather than use the
free
membership,
can transfer offline credit into virtual
credit,
as it allows them to
buy
additional clothes for the
avatar and furniture and artifacts for their
igloos,
which
then coverts into social
capital,
as members are invit-
ed to members
only
events,
such as
parties
in
igloos.
Cultural
capital
is accrued
through knowledge
of the
game
itself,
and the wider one's
experience
in the
game,
the richer one's cultural
capital,
which
again
indicates
that those users who have
paid membership
can accrue
a
greater
amount of social
capital.
In relation to the chil-
dren in the case
study,
issues of
capital played
out in
different
ways,
as indicated in
Figure
1.
John
was not a
paid
member of Club
Penguin
and
had few friends in the virtual world. He tended to
spend
much of his time in the world on his own and visited the
igloos
of others
largely
when
they
were absent. He could
therefore be
positioned
as
lacking
all three kinds of
capi-
tal in Club
Penguin.
This somewhat reflected his life
outside of Club
Penguin. Living
in a
single-parent
fam-
ily
on a low income meant that
John
had less available
economic
capital
than either
Sally's
or
Emily's
families,
and he also tended to be much less sociable than either
Sally
or
Emily
in school.
Sally's family
was not as well
off as
Emily's, primarily
because
Sally's
father had been
made redundant and was in
receipt
of
unemployment
benefits,
and
therefore,
Sally's
mother was the
primary
wage
earner in the
family. Sally
had numerous school
friends who were members of Club
Penguin,
and
they
included her in their events and
parties,
thus
providing
her with both social and cultural
capital
in the virtual
world.
Emily
had been a
paid
member of Club
Penguin
Figure
1. Children's Different Forms of
Capital
in Club
Penguin
Young
Children's
Literacy
Establishing
for some time and had accrued a
large
amount of credit
in her account
through
her successful
game playing.
She
enjoyed spending
this virtual
money
and would wait un-
til a new
catalog
was launched each month before
buy-
ing
new items she did not
already
own.
Emily
had a wide network of in-world friends and
had
displayed
her cultural
capital
in numerous
ways
throughout
the
study,
such as
informing
me about the
practices
of other
players
and
ways
in which one
might
shortcut some of the
regulations.
Thus,
she accrued all
three forms of
capital
in Club
Penguin,
and there was a
clear
dynamic
with her offline
experiences.
While there
appeared
to be a
relatively straightforward mapping
of
offline forms of
capital
with in-world
capital
in these in-
stances,
this is not to
suggest
that this will
always
be the
case. Socioeconomic status has an
impact
on access to
both hardware and
particular
kinds of online
practices
(Livingstone
&
Bober, 2005),
so it should be no
surprise
that this
pattern emerged
in the
study.
It is
important
to
avoid essentialist
positions
on
this, however,
and
recog-
nize that other
factors,
such as
family digital capital,
can
impact
children's online
practices.
The context for the children's
play
was that of a mul-
tinational
corporate entity, Disney.
Both Wasko
(2001)
and Giroux
(2001)
have outlined how
Disney
constructs
normative and restrictive
ideological
worlds across their
texts and have at the heart of their
corporation
a mer-
cantile motivation.
Although
there is no in-world adver-
tising
in Club
Penguin,
there is a related website that
offers a
range
of
merchandise,
and
Disney
is
gradually
expanding
its
corporate
connections into other media
platforms popular
with
children,
such as Nintendo and
Wii. This has
implications
not
only
for children's
ge-
ographies
of
play (Marsh, 2010)
but also for their en-
gagement
in a commercialized network. The children
in this
study
were
positioned
as economic
subjects by
Disney
and acculturated into
shopping
as a
key
cultural
practice through
the
privileging
of
particular
kinds of
in-world
activity. Looking through catalogs
was a favor-
ite
reading activity,
even if children could not
purchase
items because
they
were not
paid
members.
Communicative Practices
Both verbal and nonverbal communication are central
to social
exchanges
in
public
life. In virtual worlds that
are not voice
enabled,
written communication is used to
interact with
others,
and the written text becomes close
to
speech,
as is the case with other forms of online com-
munication,
such as
texting
on mobile
phones (Baron,
2008;
Crystal, 2009). Reading
and
writing
were
integral
to the
practice
of
establishing
and
fostering relationships
in Club
Penguin
and the creation and maintenance of an
interaction order. I observed how children used a series
of
literacy practices
to communicate with other users
and
begin
to move toward a more ordered sense of social
interaction,
as indicated in these field notes:
Emily
clicks onto an avatar and looks at its
profile.
She then
chooses a
postcard
to send. It states "Be
my
friend!" I have
noticed that this is a
regular pattern
in the children's use of
Club
Penguin. They identify potential
new friends and then
send them
postcards
in order to invite
friendships,
rather
than
approaching
them
directly. Perhaps
this offers them a
safety
net if the other user chooses not to
respond
to their
request, (field notes, August 19, 2008)
One of the first activities children undertook when
they
encountered an avatar that either interested them
or had
approached
them with a
request
for
friendship
was to click on their avatar
profile
to read it. If this read-
ing
of the data led them to feel comfortable about the
avatar,
the next
step
would be to send a
postcard
invit-
ing friendship.
As Misztal
(2001) suggested, drawing
on
Goffman's
work,
a sense of
normality
and trust in social
interactions is built
through
routines and
rituals,
and
the
sending
and
receiving
of
postcards, messages,
and
emoticons
appeared
to have this effect in Club
Penguin.
In this
way, literacy
was central to the construction
and maintenance of
friendships.
In
interviews,
children
reported sending
others
postcards
as an
expression
of
friendship,
and
writing
and
reading messages
to and
from other
penguins:
I like
reading messages
and
falling
in love with
girl pen-
guins.
I have
got
about five
girlfriends.
You have to win a
loveheart and then
you
can send them to them.
(Billy, age 7)
I read them letters what tell
you
if
they
are
your
buddies or not
and when
they
send
you postcards
and
things. (Lisa, age 7)
Communication was undertaken with both known and
unknown interlocutors. For
example,
children wrote
messages
to unknown avatars
present
in the same
space
in
attempts
to communicate. These
attempts
to initiate
interaction were not
always
successful
(see
Table
4).
In Goffman's
terms,
this
exchange
would be viewed
as
problematic,
in that it counters normal social conven-
tions. In Club
Penguin,
however,
this was a common-
place
event. Boellstorff
(2008) pointed
out that "it has
long
been noted that
persons
involved in virtual worlds
(and
other forms of online
interaction,
from e-mail to
blogs)
can
experience
forms of 'disinhibition'"
(p. 187).
This disinhibition enabled users of Club
Penguin
to
flout offline social rules and
ignore approaches
from
other avatars when
they
were unwelcome. Other exam-
ples
included
throwing
snowballs at unknown avatars or
telling
other avatars to
"go away."
There was no evidence
from the interviews or observations that children found
this
upsetting, although
as the children were
regular
us-
ers of virtual
worlds,
it
may
have been the case that
they
had become used to such
practices.
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46(2)
Table 4. A Video Observation of
Emily
While
Using
Club
Penguin
in Her
Home,
Visit 1
(August 7, 2008)
Time Duration Action
Dialogue
0:30:42 20 sec
Emily's
avatar is in the cove
among
a number of
other
penguins.
She
randomly
throws snowballs.
0:31:02 12 sec
Emily
scrolls
through
the set
phrases, choosing
one.
Emily's
avatar asks another avatar,
"How are
you today?"
There is no
response.
The children
developed
their own criteria for decid-
ing
who
they
would
approach
to be friends with or in-
vite to
play.
For
example, John
discussed
being
invited
to become another user's friend:
John:
I look at a
name,
and if it sound weird
or not
right,
I
always press
no,
but
that's
only occasionally,
because I
have
only got
one friend. If the name
is not a normal name or sounds weird
to
me,
I don't
normally press
it.
Interviewer: And what do
you
mean,
a normal
name?
John:
If it's like a
funny
name or
like,
I don't
know,
their real name or like
"coolgirl"
or
something
like
that,
I would nor-
mally press yes,
but if it is
something
weird. . .
John
was unable to articulate what he identified as
"weird,"
but from the
example
he
gave,
it was clear that
one of the criteria he
developed
in
choosing
whether to
make friends was whether he could
recognize
the name
in
any way (i.e.,
a familiar
name,
a name constructed
using
terms familiar to
him).
As
suggested previously,
Emily
and
Sally
used visual cues in their
management
of
friendships, although they
were keen to
point
out
that this did not mean
they
excluded
people
from
being
friends if
they
were not
paid
members.
Through experience
in this virtual environment
over
time, therefore,
users
developed specific literacy
practices
that were context-
specific
and were used with
an
understanding
of the
prevalent
social behaviors in the
world. Goffman noted that human interaction involv-
ing
verbal and nonverbal communication can become
ritualized in nature. As in the offline
world, literacy
served to establish and maintain social networks be-
tween
groups
of children in Club
Penguin
in ritualistic
ways.
At
times,
the children
engaged
in ritualistic
play
(Marsh, 2010).
These
patterns
of behavior sometimes
involved
groups
of users
typing
in the same or similar
phrases
as
they joined
in the ritualistic
play.
For exam-
ple,
a
frequent activity
in Club
Penguin
is for avatars to
gather
on an
iceberg
and
attempt
to
tip
it
by jumping up
and down or
drilling.
Sometimes one avatar uses a
par-
ticular
phrase during
this
activity
such as
"Tip
it!" and
then all avatars use this
phrase.
These interaction ritual
chains serve to
develop
the emotional
energy (Collins,
2004)
that can be
gained
from
membership
of a
group.
This
pattern
has been documented in older children's
and
young
adults' use of social
networking
sites
(Davies,
2009; Dowdall, 2009)
and adults' use of
massively
multi-
player
online
games (Steinkuehler, 2008).
Children in this
study reported using
a
variety
of
literacy practices
that facilitated this kind of social net-
working (Marsh,
in
press).
In addition to text
chat, they
also used emoticons to
relay specific messages
to oth-
ers. For
example, Sally
at one
point
animated her avatar
so that it
appeared
to be
clapping
at a
group
of
penguins
on a
stage.
She
commented,
I'm
just applausing people
that's on
stage, just
to be
friendly
with them. You can,
whatever
you
feel
like, you
can click
the emotions. So,
I feel like
happy today,
so
[she
clicks on
the
smiley
face
emoticon],
and then
everybody
knows
you're
happy
and want to come
play
with me.
Literacy
and multimodal communicative
practices
were
thus a central element in
making
connections with oth-
ers in the virtual world. As outlined
earlier,
these
prac-
tices became ritualized in
many
instances,
with the
children
developing
an
understanding
of the
place
these
rituals
played
in online interaction.
Social Contexts and the Social Order
The children in this
study
could be seen
constructing
and
maintaining
a social order
through
their in-world
friendship
activities.
They
also
successfully navigated
the various
spaces
that this virtual world offered and en-
sured that
they adopted
the most
appropriate practices
for
constructing
a social order in the
particular spaces
they
encountered. Goffman
(1963) suggested
that social
interaction is
shaped by
the context in which it
occurs,
and he outlined the kinds of
participation
units in which
human interaction takes
place, including everyday
social
contexts,
occasions
(e.g.,
a
party),
and
gatherings.
These contexts also
operate
within virtual worlds.
For
example,
avatars interact in the environment of the
Young
Children's
Literacy
Establishing
virtual
world,
which
replicates
the random interaction of
humans in offline
public spaces.
There are also
general
gatherings,
in which avatars
congregate
to
play games
or
take
part
in ritualistic
play.
Further,
many
users structure
occasions;
for
example, they organize parties
in their
ig-
loos,
to which
they
either invite other users
they
know
or unknown others. Users invite unknown avatars
by
stationing
their own avatars in the town
square,
or other
public spaces
in the virtual
world,
and
writing, "Party
at
my igloo
on the
map!"
or a similar
phrase,
as noted in the
field notes from
my
first observation of
John
and in the
following excerpt
from an interview with
Travis,
age
10:
This, like,
little
penguin,
he showed his number... he said
above his ca
-
he said above
it,
"I'm
having
a
huge party
at
my igloo" at, like,
I don't know what time it was.
So,
at that
time that he
said,
I went to his
igloo,
and there were like this
big
disco
playing
at his
party;
it were
right good.
Goffman
(1963) suggested
that within
participation
units,
individuals
operate
either
singly
or within social
interactions.
Further,
in these social
interactions,
he dis-
tinguished
between focused and unfocused interaction
between individuals. Unfocused interaction is character-
ized
by
mere
copresence,
whereas focused interaction in-
volves deliberate
attempts
to communicate. Both of these
types
of interaction were observed in the children's use
of Club
Penguin.
For much of the
time,
when
playing
on
their
own,
the interaction
appeared
to be
unfocused,
and
occasionally
the children moved into focused interaction
when
engaging
in
play
or talk with other avatars. When
children
log
on with
siblings
or friends at the same
time,
then much of the interaction is focused.
The children in this
study
were
engaged
in a
range
of activities online that mirrored offline activities in
many ways.
Goffman noted how individuals
navigate
different
types
of face-to-face
participation
units
by
drawing
on a
variety
of social
strategies
that fit
specif-
ic
contexts,
which was also the case in Club
Penguin.
Thus,
social order was constructed
through
ritualized
practices
that have their
origins
in the offline social
world,
and children could then transfer social under-
standings
from one context to another. The fourth
aspect
of the interaction order that is considered here
relates to the constraints that
operate
to structure social
interaction in the online and offline
worlds,
which of-
fers a final
example
of the
relationship
between online
and offline social orders.
Social Constraints and the Social Order
The
previous
sections indicate the extent to which lit-
eracy
was fundamental to the children's construction of
social order in Club
Penguin,
which was also the case
in relation to its
ongoing
maintenance.
Ensuring
that
the social order remains in
place appears
to be a less
challenging
task in the
physical
environment. Goffman
(1974)
identified a
range
of
ways
in which we
shape
social
interactions to avoid
misinterpretation,
or the
causing
of
offense. He
suggested
that there were a number of
sys-
tem constraints that
operated
to minimize social
gaffes,
such as
signaling
the
beginning
and end of social turns
and
using
verbal and nonverbal
signs
that one is
listening
to a
speaker (e.g., nodding).
Verbal conventions
operate
to
provide
a set of
recognizable
frames for social interac-
tion. In the children's use of Club
Penguin,
however,
the
majority
of
system
constraints identified
by
Goffman did
not
operate, given
that he focused on
body language.
The
beginning
and end of turns was different in
Club
Penguin
than in both offline contexts and other
virtual worlds. In some other virtual world environ-
ments,
such as Second
Life,
it is
possible
to discern
when another user is
typing
text into the chat
box,
as
his or her avatar makes automated movements that
rep-
licate hands
typing
on a
keyboard.
It is
commonplace,
therefore,
in
dyad
or
small-group
communication for
other users to wait for this user to
type
in his or her
text before
responding.
There is no
way
to determine
when another user is
typing
in Club
Penguin,
so users
frequently begin
to
type
in chat while other users move
their avatars
away,
as
they
do not realize text is
being
typed. Sally suggested
that she sometimes used the
virtual world's set
phrases
to communicate with other
avatars rather than
type
in her own
text,
otherwise
they
might
not
stay
around to hear what she had to
say:
I
usually
use these
up
here
[pulls
down the
set-phrase
menu],
because it's easier than
writing.
When
you
like
someone to
play
with
you, you
ask them a
question.
Because
they're your buddy, you've got to, like, type
it
really quick
before
they
run off... so it's
just
easier to click
things,
so
they
don't run off or
something.
Goffman detailed how ritual constraints
operate
to
maintain social order
by ensuring
that when there is dis-
cord in social
interaction,
repair
work is undertaken to
remedy
the
situation,
so we
apologize,
for
example,
for
unwarranted comments.
Again,
because of the virtual
environment,
there were few
examples
of these
types
of
ritual constraints in
operation
in Club
Penguin.
The in-
teraction in Table
5,
in which there is a
polite response
from another user who
acknowledged
that
Emily
had
been in some
way
inconvenienced
by
his or her inter-
ruption,
was unusual.
Nonetheless,
patterns
could be discerned in rela-
tion to conventions such as
taking
turns or
leave-taking.
For
example,
some users used emoticons to
signal
wel-
comes or
goodbyes,
and at
times,
avatars moved closer
together
or farther
apart
to
signal
the
beginning
and
end of conversations. It is to be
expected
that there
would be differences in offline and online
system
and
ritual
constraints,
given
the nature of both contexts.
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46(2)
Table 5. A Video Observation of
Emily's
Social Interaction While
Using
Club
Penguin
in Her
Home,
Vbit 4
(August 29, 2008)
What is of note in this
study
is that the children con-
structed a social order
by
both
drawing
on offline ritu-
alized
practices
and
abandoning
them when
they
did
not meet needs. Across all interviews and
observations,
there was no evidence that children were disconcerted
or
upset by
what
might
be considered
abrupt
or con-
fusing exchanges
with others. This online resilience is
crucial,
and thus
play
in virtual worlds can be viewed as
an
important
context in which children can
experience
both continuous and discontinuous social
engagement.
The four
aspects
of the interaction order that have
been reviewed in relation to the data from this
study
can
be seen as
interdependent
and can
only
be
explored
in
relatively
brief detail here. In the next
section,
I move on
to consider the
implications
of this
analysis
for the de-
velopment
of a theoretical
understanding
of the nature
of
parallel
offline and online social orders.
Discussion
I would
suggest
that a number of
grounded
theoreti-
cal constructs
emerged
in an
analysis
of the data in this
study.
The first relates to the fundamental
way
in which
literacy
was
put
to use in the virtual world. In these chil-
dren's use of Club
Penguin, literacy
was a social
practice,
which served to construct a ritualistic
repertoire
that
could be drawn on in the
development
of a social order.
Literacy
was an essential element in the media
ecologies
(Ito
et
al, 2010)
of these
young
children,
as it acted as a
social
glue
and created connections in a networked en-
vironment that
might
otherwise have been
daunting
for
individuals.
Literacy
and multimodal communication
were
significant
elements in the creation of a sense of
normality
and effective social
functioning. Through
re-
petitive
and ritualistic uses of
literacy practices,
such as
the
sending
and
receiving
of
postcards
and the
synchro-
nous use of
particular
words, emoticons,
and
phrases,
the children created a set of
practices
that served to
build social cohesion and thus
develop
a stable social
order. This is not to
suggest
that all
literacy practices
served this
purpose;
there were numerous instances in
the data overall in which children used
literacy
for other
purposes,
such as individual
pleasure
or entertainment.
In
addition,
some
literacy practices
could be viewed as
attempts
to
disrupt
the social
order,
such as the exam-
ples
discussed
previously
as indicators of disinhibition
(Boellstorff, 2008). Nevertheless,
there was substantive
evidence within the data that the children used
literacy
in the construction and maintenance of a social order in
the virtual world.
Second,
the
study points
to how
many
of the ele-
ments identified
by
Goffman as
constituting
an offline
interaction order could be traced in this virtual world
environment. This would
appear
to
suggest
that
pat-
terns in human interaction in this Club
Penguin
con-
text were similar to
patterns
in offline
environments,
although
there were some distinct
differences,
such as
the
inability
to read intentions from face-to-face interac-
tion.
Third,
the
study
indicates how the social order in
the online world was
shaped by
the children's
experi-
ences in the offline world. The two domains could not
be treated as
separate
entities. The children's
literacy
activities in Club
Penguin
were influenced
by
their un-
derstandings
of how
things
worked in the offline
world,
such as the belief that
postcards
were sent to others as
expressions
of some kind of connection.
Nevertheless,
there are
significant
differences between online and of-
fline worlds in terms of the construction of
friendships,
and there was evidence that children were still
working
this
relationship
out in some
way,
for
example,
in
John's
reading
of the names of avatars.
Finally,
and related to the
previous point,
the
study
indicates how the dialectical tension between structure
and
agency
can be seen to
permeate
the children's virtu-
al world activities. In
tracing
the forms of
capital
at
play
in Club
Penguin,
I have
pointed
to how matters related
to social class and economic wealth were writ
large
on
the material fabric of the virtual world. Economic
capi-
tal led to differential levels of social and cultural
capital
as members
only groups
held
parties
and events that
Young
Children's
Literacy
Establishing
Time Duration Action
Dialogue
0:37:26 20 sec
Emily's
avatar moves into the theater. It is Another avatar asks
Emily's avatar,
busy,
with lots of avatars either
standing
"Wheres the
pin?"
around or
engaged
in activities and
Emily types
in, "Sorry,
I don't know."
dialogue.
0:37:46 8 sec
Emily types,
"Go team blue."
0:37:54 42 sec
Emily
chooses a
smiley
face emoticon The other avatar
responds,
"Thanks
to show the other avatar. She makes her
anyway."
avatar dance.
excluded others. The offline lifeworlds of the three chil-
dren who were the focus for close
analysis
-
John, Sally,
and
Emily
-
played
out in the online
world,
and in this
way, they
each
enjoyed
different levels of access to events
and
practices
in Club
Penguin.
In
addition,
the tensions
between structure and
agency
could be seen in how the
children were
ultimately
constrained in the
range
and
nature of the
literacy practices
in which
they
could en-
gage.
When
they
chose to
play
on the safe chat
servers,
they
lacked the
ability
to converse as
they pleased.
Even
when on the
open
chat
servers,
the software used
by
Disney
to screen out
potentially predatory
or
dangerous
language
meant that their conversations were not
always
as full as
they
would have liked them to be.
In
ecological analyses
of
literacy practices,
it has been
suggested
that domains
overlap,
and
literacy
texts and
practices
traverse time and
space (Leander
&
Sheehy,
2004). Although literacy practices
and texts encoun-
tered in offline
spaces
can be found in virtual
worlds,
I
propose
that we should consider these as
parallel
social
orders rather than
overlapping
ones. There is undoubt-
edly
a
great
deal of
similarity
between online and offline
texts and
practices,
and
certainly identity
work can be
viewed as
overlapping
in this
way.
As Robinson
(2007)
suggested,
"in
creating
online
selves,
users do not seek to
transcend the most fundamental
aspects
of their offline
selves.
Rather,
users
bring
into
being
bodies,
personas,
and
personalities
framed
according
to the same
catego-
ries that exist in the offline world"
(p. 94).
Nonetheless,
both
ontologically
and in terms of
modality,
virtual and offline
spaces
are
quite distinct,
and the social orders constructed thus run in
parallel
to one another. This has
significant implications
if we
consider how online
spaces
offer
opportunities
for en-
gagement
with both known and unknown interlocutors
and with
people
who are located
locally
and
globally.
Literacy
as a social and cultural
practice
as
experienced
in virtual worlds offers
young
children the
opportunity
to
engage
in authentic activities that
provide
an induc-
tion into social
networking
and
develop
the skills and
understanding they
will
require
as
they
move further
into their
digital
lifeworlds.
Limitations of the
Study
There are a number of limitations to this
study.
The
most
significant
of them relates to the fact that the
study
was located within one school and the children studied
were
primarily
from a
white,
working-class community.
There is a need to
identify
how
socially
and
ethnically
diverse
groups
of children use online virtual worlds.
Second,
the
study
has
only
examined one virtual world
in detail. Given the
large range
of virtual worlds now
being developed
for
children,
future studies should
focus on a more diverse set of environments. In
par-
ticular,
there is a need for research into children's use of
those virtual worlds in which
they
are
subject
to intense
in-world
advertising;
how far do
they
resist both direct
and indirect forms of
marketing? Despite
these limita-
tions,
the
study
offers some
insights
into
how,
for these
children,
literacy practices
were
key
to
cementing
and
stabilizing
online social interaction.
Final Comments
What this
study
has
highlighted
is how these children's
use of one virtual world was
dependent
on
literacy prac-
tices for a sense of coherence and
purpose.
The
literacy
practices
in which the children were
engaged
have been
viewed in this article in the
light
of Goffman's
concep-
tual
tools,
and it is clear from this
analysis
that
many
of
the social frames that
underpin
human interaction in
offline contexts can be identified within the children's
use of the virtual world. The aim of the
study
was not
to offer
empirical generalizations
about children's use
of virtual worlds but to
generate
theoretical constructs
regarding
this use that are
grounded
in
qualitative
data.
The theoretical contribution this
study
thus offers to the
field lies in how it demonstrates that the
literacy prac-
tices that the children
engaged
in when
using
a virtual
world not
only
served a number of
purposes
but also
fundamentally
contributed to the establishment and
maintenance of social order.
Literacy
is used to render transactions in virtual
worlds as
"predictable, reliable,
and
legible" (Misztal,
2001,
p. 313).
These
practices, although seemingly
ran-
dom or
innocuous,
were
important
in the construction
and maintenance of social
groups.
Too
often,
activi-
ties in online forums can be branded as mundane or
trivial
pursuits by
commentators who do not consider
the
underlying
reasons for these
exchanges.
To
some,
the
apparent
chaotic nature of
activity
in Club
Penguin
might
indicate that users are not
engaged
in
meaning-
ful interactions with
others,
yet analysis
of the data in
this
study
indicates that the children were involved in a
range
of social
encounters,
some of which held
signifi-
cance for them. This is
agentic
to a certain
extent,
as the
children decided
when, where,
and how to use ritualis-
tic discourse to build communities and demonstrated
choice and control over their communicative
practices,
albeit within the constraints
imposed by
the
producers
of the virtual worlds.
There are a number of
implications
of this
study
for
further research.
First,
in addition to an examination of
how
literacy
contributes to the construction of the social
order in an online
world,
it
might
be fruitful to consider
how and in what
ways literacy practices
serve to further
the online and offline social interaction of children in
114
Reading
Research
Quarterly

46(2)
fluid
ways.
Which
practices
are transferred from one
domain to the
other,
and what becomes transformed in
the
process?
How do children's online social networks
correlate with their offline social
networks,
and what
role does
literacy play
in
establishing
and
maintaining
these networks across domains?
Second,
this
study
fo-
cused
largely
on children's online communicative
prac-
tices
using
written
texts,
images,
and
symbols.
In future
studies,
a more diverse
range
of modes could be consid-
ered,
given
the
way
in
which,
for
example,
sound and
animation feature in
many
online contexts that
young
children access.
Finally,
there is a need to examine texts related to
Club
Penguin
that are accessed
by
children,
such as
YouTube machinima and the Wii and Nintendo ver-
sions of Club
Penguin.
Children in this
study
accessed
a
range
of these
platforms,
and it would be
helpful
to
identify
how far children transferred their
literacy prac-
tices across these
spaces
and
explore
how the different
texts
shape
the
literacy practices
in which the children
engage.
It would also be useful to examine how chil-
dren
develop
their
understanding
of the Club
Penguin
narrative across diverse texts. These
questions
could
be asked of numerous virtual worlds and related media
texts,
and
they highlight
issues that will become
para-
mount in the
years
ahead,
as children move
increasingly
across and between offline and online
spaces
in
pursuit
of their textual
pleasures.
Note
Club
Penguin
is a
registered
trademark of the Walt
Disney
Company.
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116
Reading
Research
Quarterly

46(2)
Survey
of 5-11 -Year-Old Children's Online
Practices
(n
=
175)
Appendix
Question
1 . How Old Are You?
Age
Number of children
5 12
6 16
7 26
8 45
9 35
10 30
11 11
Note. Number in foundation
stage
and
key stage
1
(ages
5-7): 38. Number
in
key stage
2
(ages
7-11): 137.
Question
2. How Often Do You Go on the Internet
at Home?
Frequency
Number of children
Every day
64
2-3 times a week 30
4-6 times a week 24
Once a week 20
Twice a month 2
Once a month 7
Less than once a month 2
Never 26
Question
3. Which of the
Following
Sites Do You Use
on a
Regular
Basis? (You can check as
many
as
you
use.)
Website Number of children (n
=
156)
Bebo 5
CBBC or CBeebies 89
eBay
44
Google
117
Nickelodeon 47
Stardoll 13
Wikipedia
5
YouTube 68
Question
4. Name 3 Other Sites You Use
on a
Regular
Basis
Students named 64 different sites,
including
Bratz, Disney,
Facebook, Habbo, and
High
School Musical.
Question
5. 1 Have
My
Own Bebo
Page
Response
Number of children (n
=
175)
No 127
Yes 48
Question
6. 1 Have
My
Own WeeMee
Response
Number of children (
=
175)
No 137
Yes 38
Note. A WeeMee is an avatar on the website WeeWorld.
Question
7. 1 Use Instant
Messenger
Response
Number of children {n
=
175)
No 86
Yes 89
Question
8. 1 Download Music
Response
=
175)
No 75
Yes 100
Young
Children's
Literacy
Establishing
Appendix
(continued)
Question
9. 1
Buy Things
From the Internet
Response
=
175)
No 90
Yes 85
Question
10. 1 Watch Television on the Internet
Response
=
175)
No 70
Yes 105
Question
11.1 Write a
Blog
Response
=
175)
No 66
Yes 109
Note. The school enables
pupils
to
develop
their own
blogs.
Question
12. Do You Use Virtual Worlds?
Response
=
175)
No 84
Yes 91a
49
girls
and 42
boys
stated that
they
used virtual worlds.
Question
1 3. Which Virtual World Do You Use?
Virtual world Number of children (n
-
91)
Barbie Girls 13
Club
Penguin
48
Nicktropolis
11
Habbo 9
RuneScape
3
Others 7
Question
14. How Often Do You Use Virtual Worlds?
Frequency
=
91
Once a week or more 57
Twice a month or more 17
Once a month 6
Less than once a month 11
Question
15. What Do You Like About
Playing
in Virtual Worlds?
There were 75
open responses.
Questions
1 6-22. Children's Activities in Virtual Worlds
Number of childrer
Question
who
replied yes
16. Do
you enjoy chatting
to others? 66 {n
=
91)
17. Do
you enjoy dressing your
avatar? 61 {n
=
84)
18. Do
you enjoy creating
a virtual home? 58 {n
=
77)
19. Do
you enjoy shopping?
53 (
=
83)
20. Do
you enjoy earning
coins? 72 {n
=
84)
21 . Do
you enjoy playing games?
82 (n
-
91)
22. Do
you enjoy reading?
53 (n
=
90)
Question
23. Which of These Texts in Club
Penguin
Do
You Read on a
Regular
Basis? (Check all that
you
read.)
Number of children
Text (
=
45)
Instructions for
games
36
Library
books 29
Messages
from other
penguins
40
Newspaper
30
118
Reading
Research
Quarterly

46(2)

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