Section outline

    • This session is for exploring how 'the metaverse' is talked about and why.

      One could start with a student quiz asking students to define the metaverse or to come up with some examples of the metaverse today, which would be a good start for a discussion.

      There is a lot of varied material available for exploring how people talk about the metaverse. An obvious starting point is Mark Zuckerberg's announcement of the metaverse and the rebranding of Facebook as Meta. Some of these materials my be useful:

      Matthew Ball is a tech evangelist who is read e.g. by Zuckerberg and has made an effort to conceptualize the metaverse. This video provides a good overview:

         

      There is also Ball's book and a review by Paris Marx:
       
      Ball M (2022) The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything. First edition. New York, NY: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company.
       
      Marx P (2023) The always-future revolution: on Matthew Ball’s The Metaverse. Overland literary journal, 8 May. Available at: https://overland.org.au/2023/05/the-always-future-revolution-on-matthew-balls-the-metaverse/(accessed 12 June 2023).
       
      And some articles focusing on context and on the realities of Meta's metaverse:
       
      Nosthoff A-V and Maschewski F (2023) The Desert of the Virtual. Dissent Magazine, 23 February. Available at: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-desert-of-the-virtual (accessed 23 February 2023).
       
      Murray P (2023) Who Is Still Inside the Metaverse? Intelligencer, 15 March. Available at: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/mark-zuckerberg-metaverse-meta-horizon-worlds.html (accessed 20 March 2023).