Communicating Leadership in Immersive Digital Environments

• In Event: HIGH-DENSITY: Communicating Interpersonally Digitally and Online

Abstract

The research presented in this paper brings together two theories of leadership, prototypical/implicit leadership theory and theories of leadership communication to understand how people communicate leadership and how leadership is perceived by followers. To examine this, we created two mystery games, one in World of Warcraft (WoW) and one in Second Life (SL), and collected and analyzed all chat, movement, and avatar data generated by 210 SL and 375 WoW players randomly assigned to groups of 3-5 players. We find leaders in these immersive digital environments, both self-perceived and those identified by others, rely only on a few, forceful linguistic cues. We suggest that even in rich digital communication environments leaders convey and leadership is perceived based on a small set of forceful communication behaviors.

Authors

• Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Syracuse U

• Rosa Mikeal Martey

• Jaime Banks, West Virginia U

• Jingsi Christina Wu, Hofstra U