Field Assignment!

Field Assignment

The two examples we selected were Health Info Island and The Fellowship of Reconciliation in Commonwealth Island.

The purpose of Health Info Island (located at 80,122, 21) is to provide health information to SL residents and to answer any questions that avatars may have. This island employs many different techniques and tools to raise awareness and distribute information. There are many informative billboards and posters on information such about health concerns such as Alzheimers, strokes and diabetes. These billboards include how Health Info is funded and information about the organization. The center is funded by the National Library of Medicine with the University of Illinois at Chicago, Library of the Health Sciences, working with the Alliance Library System. Also, the billboards on sicknesses include statistics, symptoms/warning signs, treatments and commonly asked questions. Many powerful RL images are used to create an emotional impact and increase awareness about certain illnesses. There are also sound tutorials, such as a statue of a person where you can touch different sections of their body to find out more information about different health concerns. For instance, when you touch the figure’s eyes it tells you where to go to find information about blindness and low vision. There are also brochures for more information and a Health library on site.
There are also opportunities for interaction since residents can take surveys and make donations. There are also websites provided, such as iViNNie.com which is a virtual news network that has helped fund the program. Links to websites are provided on the posters and billboards.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation (located at 163, 158, 22) seeks to replace violence, war, racism and economic injustice with non-violence, peace and justice. Different from most of organizations in CommonWealth Island, the organization employs simple techniques; such as slide shows and donations in SL. The organization also provides its mission and vision statements in SL and encourages people to visit its website for further information. Since the organization provides only little information, its message is simple and effective to catches individuals’ attentions. Individuals participate in the organization’s activities by donating Lindens and taking part in meetings in SL. The organization tries to provide the strong connection between first life and second life since if people want to obtain information of the organization; they have to visit the link (http://forusa.org/) the organization offers. The website has abundant information of their activities and beliefs. For instance, the web site has the information about events, programs and different religious beliefs. Also, the website provides interactive communications, such as e-mail and commentary to viewers.
Overall, The Fellowship of Reconciliation in SL effectively uses simple messages and pictures with fundamental information to obtain attentions of visitors of Common Wealth Island, and employ the strong relationship between SL and FL activities.

Evaluation

In our opinion the health info island was more effective is displaying its information. The style of the billboards within the island are graphically professional and look substantially more elaborate than the simple pictures that have been posted on the commonwealth island. Also, the ideas of these islands are to make you feel comfortable and take in the information. The commonwealth was giant walls that keep you from seeing the edges. It has large trees that obstruct your view and ultimately offer minimal reason to stay once you have taken a fly around.
Health Island provides an open atmosphere with many more moving parts. It is visually more appealing and offers a glimpse into interactive bodily functions that is educational and flashy through its flash style of presentation. Overall the health island conveys its message better but that could be a result of funding as there is more money in health than non violence campaigns it seems.

Reflecting: Our Cause

The cause our group would like to campaign for on Second Life is fairness in reporting. We would start an island that focused on building areas dedicated to stories that are occurring in first life. As the stories grow and become more in-depth the area in which the story started will be able to grow based on the additions from sources contributing to the story. For example someone might contribute photos relevant to the story. As a result the island would expand into a virtual encyclopedia following important stories in politics, news, sports etc. Visitors can view the stories through video, audio, PowerPoint, picture display and/or creative user generated material that could would explain a given story. The premise behind the island will allow those interested in certain subject to expand and record history as well as keep the subject open to many conflicting views. However, these stories develop the island can offer advice as to how to collect information, source academics and provide external links to other information and websites. Really simple syndication (RSS) or highlights can start up and expand into channels for those who want to follow the stories from a website rather than enter second life. Essentially, the internet and Second Life offer a new medium for news and storytelling by the people living the history.
Overall, we liked the use of billboards for conveying information, and thought it was especially effective to use real life images, so we would be using these in our campaign as well. We would also offer links to websites such as: http://www.aim.org/ (Accuracy in the Media) and http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=119 (Fairness and Accuracy in the Media) so that residents can access further information about this cause. Additonally, we would have a club people could join to get monthly information surrounding issues that concern fairness in the media. A Second Life campaign would be beneficial to easily disseminate information and allow people to find out information about this cause at their own leisure. A downfall, however, would be that there may not always be an avatar there to answer you questions, but we would hope that giving information through billboards and pictures, and giving SL residents contact information for additional questions would help overcome any obstacles. This way if the residents’ questions could not be answered immediately they can contact someone who does have the information.