Virtual Worlds as Poetic Allegories

Abstract

According to sociologist Neil Postman, all media forms generally function

like metaphors, working by unobtrusive but powerful implication to enforce their special definition of reality. Whether we experience the world through the lens of speech or the printed word or the television camera, our media-metaphors classify the world for us, sequence it, frame it, enlarge it, reduce it, colour it, argue a case for what the world is like. (Postman, 2005, 10)