Social theatres: a model for regulated virtual interaction environments

The growth of the Internet and its associated technologies did open space for a new type of human interaction: virtual, social interaction environments. Nowadays, these virtual places are spread all over the Internet and are accessible to almost everyone. However, in these environments interaction is still mostly ad hoc, which is a drawback that, as pointed out by some authors, may lead to their future extinction. Therefore, the introduction of regulated interaction in these virtual interaction spaces may be a solution towards their organization and inherent increased credibility. In this paper we propose a model for interaction regulation and control for virtual, social interaction spaces, called Social Theatres. Social Theatres stand for the application of the theatrical metaphor to social virtual environments, intended to virtually reproduce some of the common useful people interaction contexts. Inside these environments, users become actors, playing previously well defined roles within a well known, commonly established virtual interaction scenario. The interaction between users becomes regulated and has to obey and follow very well established rules, flows and conversation protocols. This paper discusses the advantages of regulated interaction, presents the Social Theatre metaphor and proposes a software architecture for the implementation of these interaction spaces. A small case study of a regulated virtual interaction environment is also presented.