The “metaverse society”: Beyond the discourse intrinsic potential and transformative impact

Abstract

<p>With the full-scale development of the new digital revolution, with mobile Internet, application ecology and holographic Internet as keywords, and the leapfrog development of media technologies such as virtual reality, immersive environments, blockchain and open source, as well as the gradual emergence of user-produced content and interesting communities as mature online cultural production mechanisms and main organizational methods, the metaverse has “emerged”. The metaverse is now historically positioned as a new stage embedded in the entire sequence of Internet and digital development, and has been given social significance and future imagination beyond the level of discourse. As can be seen from its inherent technologies, mechanisms and value assumptions, the metaverse, as a utopian social vision and social practice still carrying the Silicon Valley discourse, presents a potential and transformative impact to be stimulated in three areas: production and creation, cognition and experience, and community and identity. However, this potential and transformative impact is constrained by the material world, and metaverse societies thus show inextricable connections to the real world.</p>