Customer Reviews

Electronic Tribes: The Virtual Worlds of Geeks, Gamers, Shamans, and Scammers

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I bought this book because I work in the computer game industry and have a long-term interest in virtual worlds and societies. Unfortunately, this book turns out to be a fairly random collection of essays and papers about virtual communities that are of very mixed quality and are not tied together in any coherent way. Some appear to be extremely technical sociological discussions using arcane academic terminology and referencing prior studies that I was quite unfamiliar with. Others are useless descriptions of online communities that anybody at all familiar with online communities would find completely obvious. I'm left rather baffled by what the editor of this book was thinking when selecting the essays. Although there were one or two vaguely interesting ones, they mostly fell into either highly technical professional writing not appropriate for a general audience, or "how I learned to use myspace" type categories, neither of which were what I expected from the title and description of the book. Not recommended.

College-level collections strong in communication or media studies, as well as computer libraries and cultural anthropology holdings, will find ELECTRONIC TRIBES a satisfying blend of sociology and computer tech savvy. It provides sixteen essays examining the social uses and abuses of online communication forms, including analysis of MySpace, multiplayer role playing games, and other groups. An invaluable survey for high school and college holdings alike.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch