The immersive impact of meta-media in a virtual world

With the increasing importance of virtual settings, we observe a complexification of the media used by members of the virtual communities. Using as the model the Star Wars Role-Play community of the virtual environment of Second Life, and a related news-styled blog, the Galactic News Network, we analysed here the impact of this media complexification on immersion process. Specifically, we analysed how meta-media can act on virtual community behavior, and on the immersive potential of the virtual world. We combined out-of-world analysis of the blog, and in-world qualitative and quantitative evaluation of meta-media-related social activities. Our results demonstrate that meta-media strongly contribute to reinforce the immersive potential of the virtual setting via several mechanisms: by increasing three parameters of the virtual world (cohesion, coherence, and commitment), by increasing the social density of the virtual community, and by acting on the perceived time factor. The combined in-world and out-of-world action of the meta-media increases the possibilities of inter-individual connections. The combination of 20 asynchronous media and 3D instantaneous virtual settings in a homogeneous and coherent immersive environment reinforces the immersive potential of the virtual world. Thus, meta-media seem to be a factor of long-term stabilization of social structures in virtual environments. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.