Metacasting

Here's Bernhard Drax's coverage, in Second Life, of President Barack Obama's July 11 speech to the people of Ghana, which Drax calls "one of the most tweeted, facebooked, and SMS'ed events" of the six-month-old Administration.

Drax's engaging, mixed-media report blends virtual and offline interviews and video clips to explore the way social media were used by Obama's team to distribute Obama's speech to Africans lacking direct access to the Internet. But the real highlight is Drax's coverage of the interactive, global speech-viewing party convened in Second Life during Obama's remarks and an SL panel discussion that followed, featuring Kenton Keith, the former ambassador to Qatar, and Timothy Burke, an expert in African history.

Drax also interviewed some of the people who sent their avatars to both gatherings. Julius Sowu, who left Ghana for the U.K. in 1981, praised the opportunity he and others from around the world had to convene digitally in one place at one time to discuss Obama's speech as it was happening. Social media [including SL and other uses of the metaverse], he told Drax, are transforming politics and public engagement in profound new ways. "Gone are the days when a news story would break, (Ghana's) minister would send it to the media department to resolve the issue and then present the world with a comment about the issue," Sowu says. "Now that it's on Twitter, it's on Facebook, and it's on Second Life, the minister doesn't have time to spin it."

[NOTE: The suited avatar wearing eyeglasses and headphones is Draxtor Despres, Drax's alter-ego in Second Life, who is narrating the story.]



For more on Drax and his work, see Mo' Real, an earlier post on Cause Global by Marcia Stepanek about news reporting in Second Life.

—Marcia Stepanek

Mo' Real

A small group of social activists, journalists, and filmmakers has begun using Second Life to start covering the news. Leading the charge is Draxtor Despres [aka Bernhard Drax, a 38-year-old, Munich-born machinima hobbyist living in Pacific Grove, California]. Drax recently posted a report on YouTube telling how the incoming Obama Administration will use Second Life to help engage the public over health care reform. Here's that report, virtual video-style, below. [NOTE: Draxtor is the suited avatar with headphones.]



Drax, who has been experimenting with Second Life as a medium for news for nearly the past year, received international recognition in mid-December for his efforts [and recognition for Second Life as a new information medium] during the Paris celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There, Drax was awarded an "Every Human Has Rights" media award for his SL report, "Virtual Guantanamo," a feature story on the "virtual Gitmo" built in Second Life by filmmaker Nonny del la Pena and Peggy Weil, a professor at the University of Southern California. Their work, "Gone Gitmo," offers viewers an immersive experience about what it's like (no, really) to be a prisoner at Gitmo. See Drax's award-winning report, below:



Drax uses screen capture software to film events and gather interviews. Douglas Thomas, the director of USC's Network Culture Project, predicts an expansion this year in the use of the medium in education, journalism, and social advocacy, saying many nonprofits and social advocates also might start using Second Life as a new storytelling medium for encouraging public engagement in their causes. Says Drax: "How can we improve the real world? That's what I'm trying to focus on in Second Life." Drax will start filing reports next month from this virutal world for PBS's Frontline World. Said Drax, in accepting the award in Paris: "I'm proud I've gotten this award but it's a signal that this is viable, that this is legitimate, that this [SL] is not a game."

For more on the development of virtual worlds for social change, check out Games for Change co-founder Suzanne Seggerman and her work by clicking here to see her talk at the recent Pop!Tech 2008. Also check out Contribute Magazine's special report, The Cause Web, [September/October 2007], chiefly the story, Pixelanthropy, about the trend toward nonprofit activism in Second Life.