Audience and producer engagement with immersive worlds (Case study: CBBC World)

该项目旨在建立儿童如何居住和参与沉浸式数字环境，基于CBBC World的案例研究，与BBC儿童部门密切合作。牛熊证世界于2007年4月推出，是一个3D虚拟环境，为儿童提供探索和创意的机会，让他们尝试音乐、绘画和动画，并设有专门的网站和留言板社区。Nickelodeon和Playstation 3也为儿童制作了虚拟世界，建立在第二人生的成功基础上，这是一个针对成年人的3D虚拟世界。然而，作为一个由公共服务广播公司制作的虚拟世界，CBBC World面临着独特的挑战。研究人员将与BBC制作人以及儿童用户合作，特别是通过研究儿童为世界创造内容的方式，对“制作人”和“用户”之间的界限模糊感兴趣，并可能在其管理中发挥作用。除此之外，BBC儿童基金会和研究人员希望，这项研究将表明，儿童在未来如何参与组织本身，成为能够以创造性和负责任的方式参与数字生活的积极公民。此外，这是一项比较研究，考虑儿童如何在真实的世界中创造想象世界和建立社会联系，以及儿童如何在虚拟空间中表现出社交和创造性。这种真实的生活行为的基础--例如，孩子们如何创建“巢穴”和组织他们的卧室或私人空间--将锚在孩子们周围的研究，以及BBC如何回应他们的偏好和需求。实地调查将涉及75名7-11岁的参与者，他们来自苏格兰、威尔士、北爱尔兰和英格兰的五个混合社会经济和种族群体。每个小组将参加两个讲习班，间隔两个月。第一个工作坊将邀请孩子们通过有趣和创造性的活动来表达他们如何组织他们的卧室，洞穴和想象空间。在第一节结束时，儿童将被介绍到牛熊证世界，并被邀请在接下来的几周内参与牛熊证世界（使用家中的电脑），并记录他们与牛熊证世界和牛熊证（及其他相关媒体）的互动的创意日记。家长亦会填写一份问卷，了解他们对子女参与这个虚拟世界的感受。第二个工作坊将以牛熊证世界为主题，邀请相同的儿童参加。工作坊将提供电脑让小朋友互相展示活动，但工作坊将鼓励小朋友透过其他方式，例如表演及艺术作品，表达他们对牛熊证世界的想法。这些视觉艺术品和表演将使用Gauntlett（2007）中完整开发的方法进行解释，其中儿童自己将被要求进行解释（而不是研究人员在活动结束后进行推测性的“阅读”）。此外，研究人员还将作为参与观察员与BBC儿童节目的制片人和主持人一起工作（扮演次要角色）。一个详细的研究日记将被用来记录一致性和差异之间的生产者的期望和儿童自己的反应。调查结果将以各种形式传播。除了学术出版物，包括期刊文章和书籍章节，研究人员还将为BBC制片人制作报告，视频剪辑，博客，小册子和制作研讨会，以及儿童参与CBBC World的图形映射和可视化。最后，威斯敏斯特大学将主办一次会议，并参观英国广播公司的制作中心，报告和讨论调查结果。

This project aims to establish how children inhabit and engage with immersive digital environments, based on a case study of CBBC World, in close collaboration with BBC Children's department. Launched in April 2007, CBBC World is a 3D virtual environment offering exploration and creative opportunities for children to experiment with music, drawing and animation, alongside a dedicated website and message board community. Virtual worlds for children have also been produced by Nickelodeon and Playstation 3, building on the success of Second Life, a 3D virtual world aimed more at adults. As a virtual world produced by a public service broadcaster, however, CBBC World faces unique challenges.The researchers will work with BBC producers as well as child users, and in particular take an interest in the blurring of the division between 'producer' and 'user' by studying ways in which children create content for the world, and could play a role in its management. Beyond this, BBC Children's and the researchers hope that the study will suggest how children might be involved with the organisation itself, in the future, as active citizens able to engage with digital life in creative and responsible ways.Furthermore, this is a comparative study, considering how children create imaginative worlds and make social connections in the real world, with how children behave socially and creatively in virtual spaces. This grounding in real life behaviour - for example, how children create 'dens' and organise their bedrooms or private space - will anchor the study firmly around the children, and how the BBC is responding to their preferences and needs. The fieldwork will involve 75 participants aged 7-11 years, in five mixed socio-economic and ethnic groups located in Scotland, Wales, N Ireland, and England. Each group will participate in two workshops, two months apart. The first workshop will invite children to articulate, through playful and creative activities, how they organise their bedrooms, dens and imaginary spaces. At the end of the first session the children will be introduced to CBBC World, invited to participate in the World over the following weeks (using the computers in their homes), and keep creative diaries about their engagement with the World, and with CBBC (and other related media) in general. Parents will also complete a questionnaire regarding their feelings about their children participating in this virtual world.The second workshop, with the same children, will concentrate on CBBC World. Computers will be available for the children to show each other activities, but the workshop will encourage children to articulate their thoughts about CBBC World by other means, such as performance and artwork. Such visual artefacts, and performance, will be interpreted using the approach developed in full in Gauntlett (2007), in which the children themselves will be asked to produce the interpretation (rather than the researcher producing a speculative 'reading' after the event).In addition, the researcher will also spend time as a participant observer working alongside the producers and hosts of BBC Children's (taking a minor role). A detailed research diary will be used to note congruencies and disparities between producers' expectations and children's own responses. The findings will be disseminated in a range of forms. In addition to academic publications including journal articles and book chapters, the researchers will produce reports, video clips, a blog, a booklet and production workshops for BBC producers, and graphical mapping and visualisations of children's engagement with CBBC World. Finally there will be a conference hosted by University of Westminster, and a tour of BBC production centres to report and discuss the findings.