Social movements in world of warcraft

Virtual worlds provide new forms of social interaction. They offer alternative spaces where social functions can be carried out in online three-dimensional virtual environments. In this paper we explore how collective action on a global scale is enabled by these virtual worlds. We used qualitative research to examine the organization of one social movement in World of Warcraft (WoW), the most widely used massively multiplayer online role playing game in the world. Using New Social Movement Theory, our paper suggests that there are a number of differences between real world and virtual world social movements, namely in their (a) locality, (b) issues, (c) periods of activity, (d) hierarchies, and (e) membership.