When you look at real-life media reports about Second Life, you often hear about sex or finance scandals. Yet, you see very little about the actual productive uses of virtual worlds.
For instance, the Relay For Life campaign for cancer gathered more than 55 millions of Linden dollars in donations last year. Between sex and money stories, you don't hear about that. Why?
Mostly because the traditional media tend to be biased towards bad news. When SL became an interesting phenomenon for them to cover a couple of years ago, they were telling readers and viewers how it was a promising to use virtual worlds. All seemed fine. When other reporters scratched the surface, they started seeing how many users come here for sex. They saw the "stock exchange" and "bank" collapses that gave SL some very bad press.
Those stories actually became symbols of virtual world activity, instead of only a part of what goes on here.
It is a bit sad that the media work like this, but it is reality. I work in the media and publishing industry, I know quite a bit about it! Negative stories and criticism tend to be crunchier, more interesting to publish. It is so easier to sell to the public when there is controversy than when the story is constructive.
If any media reporter is reading this piece, I invite you to take one more look at Second Life. There are tens of thousands of us who use it on a regular basis for good reasons. There are ways to accomplish ourselves artistically. There are ways to gather money for good causes. It is a nice way to meet people you wouldn't otherwise see in RL social situations. Some, who have health issues, break their social isolation with virtual life.
I could go on and on but the point is already clear enough. Without abandoning the critical thinking that is essential to journalism, reporting about SL shouldn't be limited to the bad news. The truth is out there. It's up to reporters to make a bit of an effort to find it!
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