Virtuality, Virtual Consumption, and the China Market

With technological advance, virtuality and virtual consumption have been evolving to become increasingly important in marketing landscapes worldwide. Theoretical and methodological approaches for study of virtuality and consumption, however, have not kept pace. In terms of theoretical approach, the existing literature has been primarily focused on virtual consumption in virtuality as a place of “de-localization” and “de-realization”. In terms of methodological approach, there have been various conflicting opinions concerning different methodological procedures to be followed. Moreover, in terms of empirical study, there is little existing literature dealing with virtuality and virtual consumption in context other than western. Given the fact that China is now the largest virtual goods market in the world and has unique sociocultural characteristics, studies on virtuality and virtual consumption in the context of China’s market are particularly needed. To fill these research gaps, this dissertation aims to begin a process of theoretical and methodological renewal, and then to apply such renewed approaches to the study of virtuality and virtual consumption in context of China’s market. Starting with introduction of major extant theories of virtuality and discussion of such theoretical perspectives in the context of studies of virtual consumption, chapter two of this dissertation presents a broader and integrated conceptual framework for analysis of virtual consumption, which is based on both perspectives of “virtuality as place”, and “virtuality as practice/process”. Additionally, chapter two also identifies the research questions that have not been addressed in prior studies and will be addressed in this dissertation. Chapter three examines the qualitative methods to be applied in study of virtuality and virtual consumption, with special focus on the methodological challenge and adaptation of ethnography, and demonstrates the benefits of using digital ethnography to take advantage of the opportunities offered by Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, and address the methodological challenges. Applying the theoretical and methodological approach discussed in previous chapters, chapter 4 first generates a historical narrative of rapidly changed and persistently unchanged aspects of reality in China, as a larger place, that suits virtuality and virtual consumption. Then, the chapter explores how the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers, as the largest segment of virtual goods market in China, navigate between the virtuality and reality and mediates between the old and the new. The main finding is that through self-control, compromise, and negotiation in the process of virtual consumption, the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers strike a balance between their virtual world experience and their offline daily life, and develop a coherent perception of self. Collectively, this dissertation has advanced the state of knowledge of virtuality and virtual consumption in general, and in China’s market context in particular.


The Rise of Virtual Consumption
With the evolution of the Internet, online consumption has also evolved. The following subsections trace this evolution, starting from early and simple e-commerce and ending with the forms of consumption that are the focus of this dissertation: virtual ways of consuming.

Evolution of online consumption
The rapid migration of technology across geographic and socioeconomic boundaries is a defining element of the times we live in (Masten and Plowman 2003;Dholakia 2012, p.7). Especially the Internet "heralds the onset of a third industrial revolution, one based in technological advances in software, hardware and telecommunications" (Smith 2001). As of December 2014, there were over 3 billion Internet users worldwide (Internetworldstats 2015). These digital technological advances are changing consumers' lives (Dholakia 2012, p. 23) and transforming marketing practices (Berman 2012;Dholakia and Dholakia 2011, p. 52).
The evolution of Internet from the past Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, and the shift to ongoing and future Web 3.0, has been shaping the online consumption spaces in the sense that these technological developments keep reshaping the way consumers communicate with marketers, the way they interact with other consumers, and the way in which consumers become aware of, consider, buy, and consume products. Table 1.1 summarizes the key aspects of the Web 1.0 to Web 3.0 evolution.  Lehdonvirta (2009) argues that such changes can be expressed as the stages of digitization of consumption. The first wave entailed a spatial change in consumption: from offline to online. Online shopping allowed traditional goods and services to be purchased over the Internet and delivered by mail or courier (or electronically, in case of digital goods). The paradigmatic examples of the online shopping wave are the early stages of Amazon.com and Dell.com, and various brick-and-mortar producers and marketers going online, and opening online stores. While this wave has some enduring long-term successes, there were also spectacular failures such as Pets.com and Webvan during the so-called "dotcom crash" during this first wave (Pandya and Dholakia 2005; Dholakia and Turcan 2014, p. 2).
Termed as the "participatory wave" by Lehdonvirta (2009), the second wave of consumption comprised a range of practicesin consumption as well as in productionthat were set in motion by the spread of social media and social networking technologies (see also Aral et al. 2013;Kaplan and Haenlein 2011). This wave entailed both in social networking platforms such as Tencent's QQ.

Evidence from the World Wide Virtual Economy
In their 2015 review of virtual economies and virtual goods in the gaming context, Knowles, Castronova, and Ross (2015) note that the "incredible graphics and sharply written stories of virtual worlds are impressive, but we believe that the most important development in games over the past ten years has been… the emergence of complex virtual economies" (p. 237). Indeed, virtual consumption has increased, worldwide, from Virtual consumption complements previously more recognized two waves of digitization: online shopping/marketing and online advertising business models (Hoffman and Novak 2005), and has great impacts on local markets and consumers, as virtual consumption provides new consumption choices (i.e., virtual goods) and new revenue models (e.g., 'freemium' business model, among others) to both developed and developing countries. Table 1.2 illustrates such patterns, and the sharp rises in China's revenue streams are especially noteworthy.

Online Revenue Type
Year  Knowles, Castronova, and Ross (2015) foresee growing interactions of virtual and real economies (p. 237): Player to player trade is now a common feature in an ever-growing number of multiplayer videogames. This means that there are literally thousands of different virtual economies, of varying sizes and complexity, found in games across the world. These economies make for fascinating objects of study, both in their own right and for the insights they give us into how real-world economies function… The value of virtual economies is being stated in the billions… Thus, their stability may soon begin to matter for the stability of the real economy.
While the size of the virtual economy in relation to the overall economy is still small, the virtual economy items are growing so fast and becoming so sophisticated "that they're now being lauded as a yardstick for economic insight in the real world" (DailyRecord 2015 While virtual consumption is booming in many parts of the world, the distribution of virtual consumption and virtual economies across the countries is highly asymmetrical. Consumers in the Asia-Pacific region play a dominating role in virtual goods consumption, accounting for around 70% of virtual goods business; while consumers in the U.S. and Europe, Middle East and Africa account for only 30% of virtual goods business. The trend continues, even though the Asia-Pacific share was gradually projected to decrease to about 61 percent by 2014 (InStat 2010). Especially, the fast rate of growth of virtual consumption in some developing countries (especially China) has made such countries the leading players in the emerging global virtual goods market. For instance, the market for virtual goods in China had reached $5 billion by 2009, five times larger than that in the United States (Boykoff 2010). By 2012, China had the world's largest market for virtual goods (Hawkins 2012). This growth has continued and by 2014 the revenue of the virtual goods was estimated to be $7.4 billons (statista 2012). Indeed, as Chayka (2014)  Asia is home to the vast majority of mobile gaming payments, with $10 billion in 2014, over four times as much volume as North America… This [virtual] economy of the future will be as digital as possible, increasingly non-Western, and contained within easily accessible smartphone ecosystems. Its merchants will rigorously mete out content over time to keep customers engaged and the money flowing. While we might not be paying for digital-only groceries instead of actual produce any time soon, all economies will soon be, to some extent, virtual.

Research Motivations and Objectives
While the rapidly expanding virtual economies and the virtual consumption cultures are thriving worldwide in general, and in China in particular, there are considerable research gaps in the virtual consumption literature. First and foremost, there is little existing literature on virtual consumption that spans and links both virtual worlds and real life or RL, and considers consumers' dual presences in both virtuality and RL.
(except recent works by , Belk 2013, and Seo 2013. Existing studies about virtual consumption have mostly examined virtual consumption from the perspective of "virtuality" as place of "de-localization and de-realization," and this type of "place oriented" research )either documenting the characteristics and attributes of the new place (other than real) and their correlation with virtual consumption, or examining the new place as a new culture (different from real) on its ownlends support to the experimentation and construction of multiple new virtual identities in virtual settings (Turkle 1995;Slater 2002).
Second, the available studies on virtual consumption (e.g., Castronova 2002;Martin 2008) are mainly based in developed countries, especially in USA. Very few studies on virtual consumption focuses on regions outside the USA (Belk 2013), and the focus on China is even less. Research results drawn primarily from USA and the West may not be generalizable to developing countries like China that have different culturaleconomic-political contexts (Belk 2013). Given the important roles China is playing in the emerging global virtual economy and possible distinct virtual consumption patterns in China, studies on virtual consumption in the context of China are urgently needed.
This dissertation research deals with the connections between virtual worlds and the real world as much as, or even more than, the disconnections. As suggested by Belk (2013) "there are additional linkages between online and offline worlds that need to be examined" (p. 493). As such, in this dissertation study, while acknowledging and documenting the disjunctive nature of two placesvirtual worlds and everyday (real) life in Chinathe research departs from the previous studies that focused the discussion of virtual consumption in the context of virtuality as place of "de-localization and derealization", and develops the perspective of virtuality as practice (from a consumer perspective) and as a process (from a firm or marketer perspective) of "re-localization and re-realization". This dissertation research examines: (1)  First, this dissertation research proposes, and develops to some extent, an integrated conceptual framethe 3Ps view of virtual consumptionthat combines previous theoretical perspective of "virtuality as place" and "virtuality as practice" offered by Slater (2002), and "virtuality as process" suggested by .
Second, this dissertation research reviews and evaluates the various existing ethnography methods used in study of virtuality and virtual consumption, and demonstrates the benefits of using digital ethnography to study virtuality and consumption in digital age. While this is not the main thrust of the dissertation, the comparison of net-based ethnographic methods and identifying digital ethnography as most suitable for studying virtual settings is a minor and subsidiary contribution, something that could be of greater value in further studies on virtual consumption. Chapter 3 presents the qualitative methods used in this dissertation research, with focus on the discussion of the methodological challenges of online ethnography, the most popular research method for the study of virtuality, and its adaptation for this dissertation.
Chapter 4 presents the main findings from this research, organized into these main sections: (a) Research findings from virtuality as place perspective, focusing on virtuality and reality in China, including the disjuncture and convergence between these "two places" that illustrates virtual consumption; (b) Findings from virtuality as practice perspective, examining how consumers make sense of the virtual goods and use the consumption of virtual goods to manage their online and offline relationships with others and construct coherent self-concepts; including some specific results of study in China using qualitative data collection methods that entailed digital ethnography and in-depth interviews. (c) Discussion of the implications for the firmshow firms can optimize their marketing mixes based on a better understanding of virtuality, creating value for both consumers and marketers.
Chapter 5 integrates the results of the various parts of the study and provides integrative theoretical discussion and conclusions, including a summary of the contributions made by the study, and provides ideas for further work.

Chapter Abstract
As virtual worlds and virtual consumption have evolved, so have the schools of thought on virtuality. The chapter starts with the introduction of major extant theories of virtuality, followed by discussion of such theoretical perspectives in the context of studies of virtual consumption, identity, and social relationships. The review indicates that different perspectives of virtuality represent differing logics of virtuality and different aspects of existing and emerging virtual consumption and markets, most prior literature on virtuality and virtual consumption has focused on the perspective of virtuality as place. More recently, researchers have examined virtuality and virtual consumption from the perspective of virtuality as practice/process. Rarely, however, have both perspectives been considered concurrently. The last section of this chapter proposes a conceptual frame that combines boththe perspective of virtuality as place and the perspective of virtuality as practice/processfor study of virtual consumption. This last section identifies the research questions in the investigation of virtual consumption that haven not been addressed in prior literature and will be addressed in this dissertation research.

Introduction
Consumption is changing. When consumption occurs in virtuality, does it move into theoretical realms that are new and different? Debate rages on different views of virtuality, on varying working definitions of virtual consumption, and on varied thoughts on the role of virtual consumption in building identities and social relationshipsthese views will be explored later in the chapter. Understanding virtual consumption requires an understanding of virtuality and its relation to social reality so that we can deal with consumption practices taking place in virtual worlds but conditioned by social contexts.
Growth in virtual consumption and online virtual worlds results from and sustains changes in consumption practices. These effects are becoming massive and they necessitate a comprehensive review of the theories of virtuality and virtual consumption, which has not been done before.
Although it is still too early to predict the full consequences of virtuality and its possible impacts on consumptionthe field is still evolving because of technological Source: Author's conceptualization

The Concept of Virtuality as Place
Place, as an important metaphor in social sciences, has been used extensively in studying modernity, post-modernity, and the information societyand its role in shaping new reality (Gustafson 2001 (1985), in his book No sense of place, discussed the drastic impact of mass media (i.e., television) on the "sense of place" of individuals. In his study, "place" referred to both (1) the physical location, and (2) the reality of social position, hierarchy and identity.
Place, in both senses, has constantly changed with technological advancements. In particular, electronic media have separated the social context and physical place of consumers. Individuals have lost their sense of "place"in terms of location and context of socialization, hierarchy, and identityand consequently new types of social behaviors and identities have emerged (as examples, more career-oriented women and more familyoriented men).
More recently and relevant to this dissertation research is the discussion of virtuality as "place" by , in which they view virtual "places" as the online marketplaces and consumptionscapes including online multiplayer video games, avatar-based social platforms, social networking sites, online discussion forums, among others; places that consumers inhabit in virtual ways Reyes 2013, p. 1584). Such a metaphor of place (e.g., rooms and hallways in Habbo Hotel) provides a consistent and familiar base for the users in the virtual worlds and also for the designers of virtual worlds (Gu and Maher 2014).
Expanding on such extant literature, this dissertation research extends the metaphor of "place" further; by studying virtuality and virtual consumption first as a "simulational place of de-localization", and second as a "social place of de-realization."

Virtuality as Simulational Place of De-Localization
This school of thought considers virtuality as places of de-localization -"the outcome of highly technologized forms of representation" (Dholakia and Reyes 2013, P. 1582; see also Eco 1973Eco /1990Murray 1997;Rheingold 1992;Stone 1991Stone , 1996Tomas 1996). The concept of virtuality, from this perspective, is not very new. Before digitization of virtuality, there was virtual. In early text-based forms, virtuality has existed since antiquity -for example, Homer's Odysseybut in the form of literary "created worlds" (Shippey 1983 On the other hand, there is an emphasis on the complexity of such cybernetic places of delocalization -"A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity." (Gibson 1984, p. 51).
Similarly, Slater (2002) describes virtuality as "a space of representation that can be related to 'as if' it were real, and therefore effects a separation from, or even replacement of, the 'really real'. It therefore contrasts with several terms that might characterize the offline world; 'real', 'actual' and 'material' being the central ones (Shields 2000). The extreme point of virtuality, which exercised much of the early literature, is the idea of 'virtual reality': a space of representations in which all one's senses are exposed to coordinated representations such that the experience is completely immersive." (p.534).
And, virtual reality is regarded primarily as technology (Heim 1998). Such description of complexity of the virtuality as place of delocalization is consistent with Baudrillard's ultimate level of simulation exemplified by Disneyland. To Baudrillard (1981Baudrillard ( /1988 172): Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation.
It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle.
As such, these places of representation and communication that exist across increasingly complex and fluid networking matrices cannot be easily mapped clearly on offline space; and at the same time, such virtual places themselves can and must be mapped (Slater 2002).
In summary, the "virtuality as place of de-localization" perspective emphasizes the role of digital technology in creating and developing the virtual world, via representation, as a place with its own characteristics that are different than reality, with the intent to immerse the users; and this perspective is theatrically concerned about the distinction between the "virtual" versus "real".

Virtuality, Simulation, De-Localization: Perspectives on Virtual Consumption
From this theoretical perspective, the virtual consumption studies seem to have evolved from initial focus on defining and categorizing the virtual worlds and virtual goods, enabling legal uses of virtual world and virtual goods (e.g., legal status of virtual goods, taxation of virtual goods sales, etc.; which is related to whether virtual consumption can be considered as "consumption", see for example Fairfield 2005), to examining the motivations of virtual consumption (e.g., utility and attributes of the virtual goods and their relationship with virtual consumption, etc.; which is related to the questions why consumers spend "real" money on "virtual" goods, Castronova 2002), and designs of virtual goods and virtual worlds and business model based on different access to "place" mode (e.g., questions related to how to create a virtual environment that is immersive for the users, see for example Lombard and Ditton 1997). Some representative studies are discussed in the following narrative.

Virtual worlds
There are different definitions of virtual worlds in study of virtual consumption.
Most researchers (e.g., Bartle 2003;Jakobsson 2006), however, agree that virtual worlds can be understood as computer programs that constitute an environment where users can interact with each other. The most important attribute of a virtual world is a spatial metaphorusers interact with each other in a system of symbolic forms (Flichy 2007;Froy 2003;Hansen and Hansen 2006;Venkatesh 1999)  (3) Virtual worlds for content creation, which enable users to create their own content. Second Life, a virtual world established by Linden Lab, is an example of such a virtual world.

Virtual goods
In studies of virtual consumption, there are a lot of terms for virtual goods such as virtual property (Fairfield 2005), virtual assets (Mennecke et al. 2007), and virtual items (Guo and Barnes 2007). Most agree, however, that what characterizes virtual goods and separates them from other goods/services are: 1) unlike tangible products, virtual goods are intangible and do not need to be shipped; 2) unlike information goods (such as online music, software and DVD), virtual goods are rivalrous, not permitting sharingone person's use of a virtual good excludes others from using it; 3) unlike services, virtual goods are not perishable and can be owned and resold (Lehdonvirta 2009). Table 2.1 shows a summarized comparative profile of virtual goods discussed in prior literature.

Enabling legal uses of virtual worlds and virtual goods
Traditionally, "consumption" was defined as the process where real/tangible properties are being produced, exchanged, and then consumed, until they disappear or fade and lose their value (Wilk 2004). In the present virtual consumption phenomenon, however, nothing is consumed in the sense of something tangible (Castells 2000;Tapscott and Williams 2006;Anderson 2006) that is devoured or disappears, which raises the question as to whether virtual goods should be regarded as real property in the legal sense (Grimmelmann 2004;Lastowka and Hunter 2004), and whether virtual consumption can be considered as consumption and get legal protection. Fairfield (2005) offers the most conclusive explanation that virtual goods are real world property. First is rivalrousness, which lets the owner exclude other people from using the owned objects, indicating that owners of virtual goods have exclusive control over their property. Second is persistence, which protects the investment by ensuring that it lasts. Third is interconnectivity, which lets the owner and other consumers experience or interact with the objects, indicating that virtual goods can serve as the medium to interconnect consumers' interactions. As such, virtual property should be treated as realworld property, and notions of property rights and taxation can be extended to virtual property.
Balkin (2008)  Others try to explain consumers' motivation of virtual consumption through the attributes of the virtual goods. Based on the technology acceptance model (Davis 1989), Guo and Barnes (2007) identify the "individual determinants" for virtual consumption as "performance expectancy", "performance enjoyment", and "desire to enhance character competence" in games. Oh and Ryu (2007) classify virtual goods as 'functional' or 'ornamental.' A 'functional' virtual good is bought to increase an avatar's ability to compete while an 'ornamental' virtual good is bought for decorative purposes.
In his study of virtual consumption in Habbo Hotel (a virtual social world), Lehdonvirta (2009) develops a scheme composed of ten attributes (functionality, performance, visual appearance and sounds, background fiction, provenance, customizability, cultural references, licenses, price, and rarity) and investigates these attributes' influence on purchase decisions. Lehdonvirta (2009)  With emphasis on achievement in MMORPG, it is important to maximize the technological possibilities of improved computer memory to create environments that are not only more persistent but also more dynamic, focusing on the value of unique re-plays, which not only make the games feel more like 'worlds' -because every player's game takes unique turns thanks to the complex programming of affordances typical of simulationsbut also enhance the value proposition for consumers (Dholakia, Reyes, and Zhang 2013).
With emphasis on sociality in social virtual worlds, the user-generated content focuses on social interactions that happen in an environment that resembles a giant contemporary Western indoor space (Lehdonvirta, Wilska and Johnson 2009), filled with "different kinds of ongoing events, competitions, quests and other happenings, most of them created by the users themselves" (Sulake Labs 2012).
2.3.3.6 Business models to engage users in virtuality: access to the "place" The first generation of virtual worlds such as Habitat and Compuserve CB Chat Simulator was 'free to play' through dial-up internet accessmetered by the hourwas expensive. Clearly, the purpose of offering these free games and online chat service was to incentivize the purchase of internet access, and time spent in-world was essentially purchased by the hour.
The next generation of MMORPGs, such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft, would also monetize in-world time, though differentlyvia monthly subscription fees paid to the game company itself. Unlike time-based models, or monthly subscription models, in which access to the virtual worlds as a "place/space" is provided for a fixed number of pre-paid hours, virtual goods sales model (also called free-to-play model or freemium model) allows users to enter the place for free, and generates revenue for online operator via the sale of virtual goods in the virtual worlds to engage the users (Nojima 2007 Likewise, according to Niko Report (2010), Chinese gamers are less willing to pay-toplay or subscribe monthly to MMORPG games, but willing to pay extra for virtual goods such as weaponry that helps them advance in the game and improve play experience.
Recognizing this trend, Shanda, a leading MMORPG company in China, and other companies, offer free access to games and make money by selling virtual weapons and other accessories (Eyring, Johnson, and Nair 2011).

Virtuality as Social Place of De-Realization
Let us turn the discussion to another major theme: de-realization. This school of thought considers virtuality as places of de-realization -"places that are obviously to some extent removed from, or in suspension with, everyday reality" Reyes 2013, p. 1584; see also Slater 2002). With this metaphor, the distinction between virtual versus real is no longer simply a technological one as asserted by "virtuality as simulational place of de-localization" perspective. Rather, such distinction, from virtuality as social place of de-realization perspective, takes on social and cultural dimensions, and offers the ground for "a realization of an intellectual trajectory of on poststructuralism, postrnodernisrn and (post)feminisrn" (Slater 2002, p. 537). Baudrillard (1981) posits that the world now is constructed through simulacra and simulations, a world of self-referential signs in a simulated environment where realities constantly are constructed and consumed. Virtuality connects with such hyperreality in a way that consumers construct their own realities in virtuality (Fırat, Dholakia, and Venkatesh 1995;Venkatesh 1999). Kozinets (2010) states that "online communities form or manifest cultures, the learned beliefs, values and customs that serve to order, guide and direct the behavior of a particular society or group" (p. 12).
The social and cultural dimensions of virtuality as place is characterized by two related ideas. The first is disembeddingvirtuality frees people not only from their geographic locations, but also the social principle of linearity, hierarchy, and control in RL (Giddens 1990). Such a notion of "disembedding" gave rise to the claim that the new media can sustain communities that are largely or entirely virtual (Slater 2002), and are governable by users inhabiting these virtual communities with the principles of openness, non-linearity and free communication and interaction (Bucher 2004). For example, Huizinga (1955) theorized games as taking place within a "magic circle". When participants enter this circlewherein certain actions take on new meanings in the setting of a game (e.g., chess board, football field)different rules apply compared to outside the 'magic circle'. Play, thus, amounts to a type of virtual reality, even in physical faceto-face settings. Participation in such activities is existentially crucial for homo ludens, or "man the player" (Huizinga 1955). The best summary of such "disembedding" comes from 'Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' by Barlow (1996), in which he states that "cyberspace does not lie within your borders (of reality)... It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions". For him, virtuality is a global social space, independent from RLending not only the concept of geography, but also history and politics in RL (Mosco 2004), and entering a world that "consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself" (Barlow 1996).
As such, this school of thought has theorized virtuality as new social place which constitutes a "strange counter-cultural world" (Slater 2002), where net libertarianism involves a claim to total freedom such as freedom of speech and freedom of interaction, and association, and opposition of offline regulation such as censorship.
The second idea is disembodiment -people's online identity is separated from their physical presence, allowing people to engage in communication and interaction anonymously (Slater 2002). Poster (1998) suggests that virtuality, as social space of derealization, creates its own universe that is very different and separate from the real, and "by directly tinkering with reality and constituting a simulational culture, a simulational practice is set in place which alters forever the conditions under which the identity of the self is formed" (p. 262). Such idea has been extensively researched in academic accounts of virtual experiences (e.g., Cooper, Dibbell, and Spaight 2007), with focus on the discussion of the authenticity of identity versus the performance. First, users canand in most cases, in virtual worlds, are required toperform any identity of their choice via a new bodily form (e.g., avatar), which might not be possible or conceivable in reality that is constrained by social and bodily physics. Second, users can take on multiple virtual identities simultaneously. For example, users can have different avatars in different virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft, Second Life and Habbo Hotel. This "aggregate" self is not consistent with the "single" self, conceptualized by Belk (1988), and lends the theoretical support to postmodern view of fluid and multiple personalities (e.g., . Third, because the presence of online self is through performance, the users can liberate from the authenticity of identitytheir identities in RL (Slater 2002).
In summary, both of these characteristics of virtuality as social place of derealizationdisembedding and disembodimentemphasize the virtual world as a separate space that has its own culture and "removed from everyday reality," or in other words, there is disjuncture between the online and offline reality, suggesting a departure of the users from the "real reality" to "virtual reality."

Virtuality, Sociality, De-Realization: Perspectives on Virtual consumption
This perspective views virtuality as a new type of social space in its own right (Slater 2002). New forms of sociality and identity that are generated within this new types of social spaces or places, across MMORPG and online avatar-based social platforms. This theoretical approach, with common themes of "disembedding" and "disembodiment", proposes that virtual worlds be understood as sites of alienation/escapism, as well as liberation/rebellion, a theme that is discussed next.

Virtual world as a place of alienation/escapism
In virtual worlds, several factorsthe obvious lack of correspondence to offline contexts or even creation of online cues opposite to what happens in offline RL (e.g., killing and shooting are the overarching themes of many games) and exotic identities (e.g., roles set by the online game rules)have created a distinctive virtual sociality that may help foster relationships quickly (Bargh, McKenna and Fitzsimons 2002), but also allows escaping from conventional daily life. This has raised concerns that there are no meaningful interactions in such relationships, and such interactions even distract from building offline relationships that could help to fill the needs for sociality and companionship (Wellman et al. 1996).
For example, Duchenault et al. (2006) found that World of Warcraft players do not play with one another as much as they play around one another. The social world of this online environment is focused primarily on in-game achievements, not role-playing or chatting with friends; yet this does not mean it is asocial, only a different kind of sociality that responds to the design of the world as a game.
Denegri-Knott and Molesworth (2010) found that the failure of the material marketplace to sustain pleasurable cycles of desire may encourage consumers to turn to virtual worlds that stimulate new desires and new forms of actualization of day dream and fantasy, such as an experiment and trip to other worlds, and ownership of digital virtual luxury goods. In a sense, virtual consumption becomes an arena for escape from the material world of unmet desires.
Apart from alienation/escape, virtual worlds have been also studied as places of liberation/rebellion, to which we turn next.

Virtual world as a place of liberation/rebellion
Unlike the real world where there are things the users do not like or agree with, users in some virtual worlds have the power to create a comfort zone and a carefree environment where things fit users' criteria. As the result of such liberation, "the more ecstatic the promises of new, possible (virtual) worlds, the more problematic the concept of the (real) world becomes" (Nunes 1995, p. 314).
Virtual worlds enable people to develop and express their self-identities with greater freedom. For example, users on Facebook can remove an identity heckler by "unfriending", or, users in virtual games can delete each other and treat each other like inanimate objectsjust as they are able vanquish an enemy on a video screen with a touch of a button (Turkle 2011). As such, users in virtual worlds can express the identities that they perhaps would have been hesitant to express in RL. Barber's (2007) study shows that for online gamers in post-socialist China, communist creed that represses play in the name of self-sacrifice and hard work has been replaced with the new consumption orientation that encourages playfulness and an obsession with youthful spontaneity and rebellion.

Virtual identity crafting and consumption
The economic idea of maximizing utility as asserted by virtuality as simulational place of delocalization is somewhat dated. Digitally savvy consumers increasingly participate in symbolic shopping, especially in the era of digitized virtuality, and make purchase decisions increasingly based upon their identity or identity they wish to project or communicate to others. Most research -from "virtuality as social place of derealization perspective"has therefore been conducted on virtual identities and virtual consumption in construction of identities, in virtual settings (e.g., Denegri-Knott and Molesworth 2010).
Expanding on the idea of "disembodiment", researchers have studied identity within virtual settings, with the focus on the change of gender and/or race when going virtual. Generally, as Ostwald (2001) and Nakamura (2002) show, in online virtual social worlds such as 2D online chat rooms (QQ chat) or 3D virtual social environments (e.g., Second Life and HiPiHi), consumers have the option to detach themselves from their real identities of their offline lived reality and the opportunity to take on various range of virtual identities of their choice. Indeed, such consumers go on "identity tours" (Nakamura 2000), and end up with an "aggregated self" by experimenting and constructing their new digital selves via the avatars (Belk 2013). Essentially, the term of 'identity tourism' resonates with some of the ideas of  about the fluidity of postmodern identity.
In terms of the role of virtual consumption in construction of identity in virtual settings, previous studies have been focused on how virtual consumption facilitates the realization of fluidity and multiplicity of identity. For example, in Kelly's study of social media (2011), the ability to choose one's appearance/identity and purchase the particular clothes and services to "spruce up" one's avatar and virtual identity is one of the most appealing advantages of virtual worlds over the real world (Lastowka and Hunter 2004).
Likewise, Denegri-Knott and Molesworth (2010, p. 125) argue that: "if the use of commodities for the construction of identity stems from a loss of traditional sources, then the use of digital virtual experiences accepts and encourages transient and fragmented selves rather than providing something more concrete. This seems like a good way to ensure that individuals continue to buy into the simulations that allow a fleeting sense of identity."

Discussion of Perspective of Virtuality as Place
As discussed above, this school of thoughtvirtuality as placeattempts to explore the correlation between the general characteristics of the new place (virtual world) and virtual consumption, independent of the larger place, the RL network and social settings, in which they are embedded. This perspective assumes that the virtual worlds that consumers inhabit, by themselves and within their own 'magic circle', generate utilities desired by consumers or foster a new type of culture within that circle (e.g., alienation/escapism, rebellion/liberation); and thus, virtual consumption flows naturally and effortlessly, without reference to the prevailing "social conditions" (e.g., political economy of access, material and symbolic power) (Slater 2002). Further, consumers' role in virtual consumption can vary, they may or may not engage in virtual consumption, depending on their skills and economic and cultural capitals -"they may not choose to do or to value [virtuality], and which they need to accomplish through highly reflexive skills in using the communicative potentials of the various Internet media" (Slater 2002, p. 593). Such a perspective of "virtuality as place" has both advantages and challenges in the study of virtual consumption.
The first advantage is that this perspective of "virtuality as place" suggests the distinction from RL and lends support to the boundary between virtual and RL. This gives rise to "the 'ludic' quality eloquently described by Stone…" (Wynn and Katz 1997, p. 305), and "state of suspension between these conditions" (Robbins 1996, p. 92). Both of these are parts of the myth of virtual culture (Dholakia, Reyes, and Zhang 2013;) that this dissertation research aims to address. Particularly, in the Chinese contextwhere the me-culture (elaborated in Chapter 4) is prevalent in the virtual world and the larger social context (offline RL) where the we-culture still prevails the relationship between virtuality and reality has serious implications for personal and collective lives (Robbins 1996, p. 92). Taking this perspective of "virtuality as place", Chapter 4 will examine the reality and virtuality in Chinaa unique context that suits virtual worlds and virtual consumption.
The second advantage (outside of the scope of this dissertation research), as Slater (2002, p. 542) suggests, is that place-oriented research is useful as it "focuses attention on the media-specific and is a way of unearthing the radical potentials of the new technology".
For example, some researchers, while recognizing that technological development is essentially part of the social domain, thus agreeing with Slater, but argue that technology's impact might be greater than anticipated. Lin (2004) argues that virtual consumption could be "Second Life" of the earth, as "when we acquire, collect, or give digital objects as gifts, we are not using up valuable resources as we would with analog objects" (Belk 2013). Varisco (2007) further notes that if human beings become cyborgs in the future, then humans will be more like the machines that enable cyberspace rather than be part of the online culture: "the illusion of material existence".
On the other hand, there are some definite theoretical challenges to the perspective of "virtuality as place". Five challenges can be identified: (1) First is the challenge of technological determinism and the viewpoint of consumption based on the utility of the products. With technological determinism, one is likely to ignore: (a) the virtual world as a possible site for construction of multiple identities; (b) the cultural meanings the consumers may attach to virtual goods. Indeed, the virtual/intangible nature of the virtual goods, as a kind of experiential goods, suggests that virtual consumption is prone to subjective interpretations, which can be heavily influenced by consumers' cultural background and social context; and (c) other environmental factors that may condition virtual consumption. For instance, "different IT skills and the kinds of material and symbolic power" (Slater 2002, p. 542) required to engaged in virtuality and consequently virtual consumption.
(2) The second challenge is related to the relationship between virtual worlds and RL. In recent years the voices challenging the division between cyberspace and RL have grown in intensity. Unlike virtual worlds, at its early stage, as a generally separate place in which multiple identities can be constructed through one's own imagination, without the direct influence of cultural assumptions and social stereotypes (Greenhill 2000), the digitization of virtuality, along with broadband and mobile internet, has in recent years changed the meaning of virtuality a lot. Miller and Slater (2000, p. 5) suggest that "we need to treat Internet media as continuous with and embedded in other social spaces". Chandra (2003) states that "if the social construction of what technology is and how it is bounded off from the social, are prior ontological events, then the so-called individual projections about technology must be artifacts of that social construction, not of the subsequently defined element labeled 'technology'" (p. 31). Varisco (2007) similarly argues that "cyberculture as an imagined space escapes the philosophical stalemate in the representation of reality problem, because it is obviously a recognizable byproduct of technology, and distinctly a superorganic mode of relating to the imagined selves of other people." As such, while there is the distinction between virtuality and RL and thus the boundary between them, as discussed as one of the advantages, much of the literature and research into the boundary between the two places, unfortunately, has focused on the screena disconnection between virtuality and RL. For example, the virtual world as a site of "alienation/escapism" or "rebellion/liberation" overstates the departure from the RL to virtual world and virtuality as a separate site for consumers to inhabit, and cannot account for the fact that many consumers use consumption practices to navigate between virtual worlds and RL, and construct coherent self and gain social membership in RL.
(3) The third challenge is related to distinctions within the virtual worlds.
Virtuality as place is (a) either considered and studied as a unified cultural phenomenon, as opposed to the fact that distinctions exist between the virtual worlds (e.g., MMORPG, avatar based social platforms, social networking sites; online discussion forum, etc.) and different types of virtual goods (functional virtual goods, decorative virtual goods, and virtual gifts) that might be used in different ways and in different combinations, and as such there are possibly different cultural meanings attached to them by consumers, or (b) studied partially with one type of virtual world only. For example, in recent years, the Second Life or Habbo Hotel have been the research focus for many researchers.
(4) The fourth challenge regarding fragmentation of identities is related to the second challengethe division between virtuality and RL. Admittedly, postmodern conceptions of identity as ludic and multiple (e.g., Denegri-Knott and Molesworth 2013) have been further fueled by virtuality that allows consumers engage in "identity tourism", but it should be duly noted that these are countered by the environments and social contexts in which virtuality exists. While "the self is decentered, dispersed, and multiplied in continuous instability," (Poster 1990 p. 6.), there are diverse demands that need to be negotiated (Turkle 1995), and confrontations among aggregate selves when facing a potential consumption choice (Ahuvia 2005; Bahl and Milne 2010).
(5) The fifth challenge is related to the role that marketing plays in virtuality.
Although consumptionscapes could be shaped to some extent by the singular logic of profit and growth, in their earlier stages, the creators of virtual consumptionscapesgames as well as metaversesare driven more by forms of ludic logic than by money.
Rather than profit-seeking accountants and finance specialists, creative designersoften impelled by motives of being innovative and uniquedrive the early phases of development of games and metaverses.  argue that virtual worlds are more than "representations", "a bias toward issues of representation, or of virtual places, such as that epitomized by Baudrillard's early work, leads away from the core of the marketing concept," and "for marketing, the crux of the matter begins with the industrialization of virtuality and the social implications of a (real) world saturated with less-than-real products, experiences, and spaces for consumption" (p. 1581). Such a shift into a 'markets' phase, from technological space and consumptionscapes, brings strong commercial compulsions in the design, promotion, and management of virtual worlds (Cagnina and Poian 2009).

The Concept of Virtuality as Practice/Process
The limitations of the virtuality as place approaches to virtual consumption and marketing has become increasingly apparent to marketing scholars and led to realization that understanding virtuality cannot be achieved by just place-reoriented research. It is important to bring in and cross-breed the conceptual approaches from the social sciences and from applied fields like marketing and business strategy.
In recent years, in contrast to the conceptualization of virtuality as place, some research has been focused on developing a new perspective to study of virtuality that emphasizes understanding of virtuality as practice from the consumer's perspective (Slater 2002;Miller and Slater 2000), and process from the firm's perspective (Dholakia and Reyes 2013).

Virtuality as Practice of Re-Localization and Re-Realization
Largely from a consumer perspective, Miller and Slater (2000) and Hine (2000) conceptualizes virtuality as a matter of social practice -"in this approach, virtuality is not a premise… on the contrary, it is a social accomplishmentsomething that participants may or may not choose to do or to value, and which they need to accomplish through highly reflexive skills in using the communicative potentials of the various Internet media" (Slater 2002, p. 539). This view of virtuality as practice has its root in 'social construction of technology' theory (Hughes and Pinch 1987) and 'dual capacity of communication' model (Sitkin et al. 1992;Orlikowski 2000). Social construction of technology theory (SCOT) holds that (1) human action shapes technology, rather than technology determines human action; and (2) how technology is used should be studied in the social context where the technology is embedded. Orlikowski (2000) argues that "while users can and do use technologies as they were designed, they also can and do circumvent inscribed ways of using the technologies" (Orlikowski 2000, p. 407). From SCOT point of view, the use of media, in general, is influenced by both senders' and receivers' attitudes and behaviors, their knowledge and expertise of the medium, and normative contingencies (e.g., cultural norms). In a similar vein, 'dual capacity model of communication' further argues that the characteristics of task perceived by the users also influence the choice of medium.
2.6.2.1 Virtuality as practice of re-localization: navigation between virtual worlds and RL This school of thought considers virtuality as practice of re-localizationnavigation between online and RL boundaries. Miller and Slater (2000, p. 5) suggest that "we need to treat Internet media as continuous with and embedded in other social spaces". Through this theoretical lens, this perspective focuses the discussion less on the characteristics of the media, and more on how Internet media need to be interpreted and used in an offline social world, and how consumers navigate between their online lives and RL.
The logic behind this shift in research focus is descried by Slater (2002, p. 545) as "it is fairly pointless to look abstractly for correlations between the variables of media 'characteristics' and communicative practices when participants are busily redefining both across times and places." With the relationship between virtuality and RL social practices becomes "an issue for participants or users and that they may come up with quite different responses to it" (Slater 2002, p. 539). As such, "virtuality is clearly not a feature of the media but one social practice of media use amongst many others" (Slater 2002, p. 544).
Slater (2002, p. 534) further points out that "past media (e.g., TV) have seemed to constitute new forms and spaces of sociality, they have (however) quickly been absorbed into everyday practices as utilities." This dissertation research will investigate whether there is any difference in the case of virtuality as Internet media and how consumers integrate their virtual experiences in general and virtual consumption experiences in particular into their daily lives. To that end, we draw on Robbins (1996)  Through this, the technology is stabilized by users themselves" (Hine 2000, p. 12).
In study of real/virtual boundary, Turkle (1995)  can/need to make between virtuality and RL is essential to their mental health (Turkle 1995), or they may suffer from "dissociative identity order" (Ross 1999).
2.6.2.2 Virtuality as practice of re-realization: the project of construction of coherent self This school of thought considers virtuality as practice of re-realizationa project by which consumers construct a coherent self, a practice of necessity and social survival.
In virtual worlds where virtual goods are diversified and may serve different purposes, early studies, from the perspective of virtuality as place, have focused on the loose identities and confrontations among aggregate selves when facing a potential consumption choice (Ahuvia 2005;Bahl and Milne 2010). In contrast, from 'virtuality as practice of re-realization' perspective, Varisco (2007) argues that unlike the "being in the world" is necessary for human being to exist in this society, interacting online is still a choice to be made -"none is actually born online; death in cyberspace is simply going offline". The human being just can act on what they say or hear via web, but what ultimately matters is when human beings do in the real social world where they are situated in the different social categories.
Indeed, in today's modern societies, the self is no longer defined by family name or social class, it is 'constructed'a lifelong project that needs to be worked on (Giddens 1991). The selves that are constructed are the responsibility of the individuals who work out their identity issues largely in social life (Taylor 1989), and increasinglyfor a rapidly growing number of individualsa substantial portion of that social life is conducted in virtual settings. Such "identity projects" aim at securing a reasonably strong and coherent self as a basis for social relations (Knights and Willmott 1989). Especially, as in virtual worlds "wherein every action and transaction generates information about itself" (Andrejevic 2007, p. 2), it is crucial for consumers to actively reconstruct their identities while inhabiting there; and at the same time, consider the social context of RL as well. In this dissertation research, it is crucial to ask for the role of virtual consumption practice in stabilizing identities and constructing coherent selves.

Virtuality as Process of Re-Localization and Re-Realization
Largely from a firm's perspective,  suggest that virtuality should also be understood as the process, or "the means by which virtualization is realized." (p. 1580). This section classifies the process perspective discussed by  further into two groups: (1) the processes of "re-localization" Dholakia and Reyes (2015) define transmediation as "the processes, methods, and technologies of carrying a storyline or narrative across multiple devices, screens, and media; attempting all the time to enhance and enrich the ways of engaging and interacting with the narrative." (p. 2). The most common application of transmediation strategy is to extend the narratives of virtual worlds to other media to increase the access points to a central product/places and engage consumers across the virtual worlds and other media . The best example in the context of virtual worlds is Halo, which started as video game but then expanded to other media such as film, novels, and comicsa broader marketing context for virtual places .
Unlike the perspective of virtuality as place that emphasizes the technical domain in general, and unique characteristics of virtual worlds as Internet media in particular, transmediation is "culturally and not technologically driven" and focuses on managing "trans-market, trans-industry, and trans-national." (Dholakia and Reyes 2015, p. 12). As such "the transmediation is essentially a marketing strategy designed to overcome the limits inherent in contemporary processes of virtualization" that only focus on storytelling in most times Reyes 2013, p. 1589).
2.6.3.2 Virtuality as process of re-realization: managing the consumers This school of thought considers virtuality as process of re-realizationmarketing efforts by firms to manage consumers, including their identities. Such processes are central to marketing, especially, "documenting and priming consumers are essential for populating and exploiting consumptionscapes, virtual or otherwise." Reyes 2013, p. 1584). The idea that companies try to manage consumers is not a new insight. It remains, however, a critical one. In particular, when one considers that virtual worlds provide opportunities for consumers to go on identity tours (Nakamura 2000), consumers' identities become flexible and changeable, and are no longer associated with their gender, racial group, and/or physical origins. Furthermore, virtual consumption facilitates the realization of fluidity and multiplicity of the identity (Denegri-Knott and Molesworth 2010) as consumers purchase virtual goods to "spruce up" one's avatar (Lastowka and Hunter 2004). All of these combined have created fertile ground from which a great number of threats can grow. For example, as a result of the allegations raised by Channel 4 (UK) that explicit sex chats were common on Habbo Hotel, at the time when Habbo Hotel was the world's largest social virtual world aimed at teenagers, two of the Habbo Hotel's biggest investors withdrew their investments (Bowater 2012).
In contrast to net libertarianism, it seems clear that the companies are moving in the opposite direction to document and prime consumers to take a particular path through information networks . As part of such efforts, Facebook and other social networks, as well as some social game platforms, require the users to establish their unity with rights and responsibility, and encourage people to use their real identities when playing. Even the virtual gaming worlds have started to try a singular model of identity and to induce a greater sense of real presence of self in virtual worlds.
For example, Activision Blizzard has provided options that allow players to use their real identities in a game (The Economist 2010). Similarly, EA Sports has developed an identity system where gamers can build a status around their single identity (Takahashi 2013). Such moves not only enable companies to have more control over the virtual worlds but also help companies gather more detailed and accurate information about consumers' activities and habits, based on which they can undertake more targeted marketing efforts.

Virtuality as Practice/Process and Virtual Consumption
Dholakia and Reyes (2013) as well as Miller and Slater (2000) point to process and efforts toward assimilation of virtual worlds into the consumers' daily lives. The relationship with social others in online and offline settings are interwoven and entangled (Miller and Slater 2000). In previous studies, the meaning of the involvement in virtuality has been much discussed by treating virtuality, in its own right, as a separate place (e.g., online community, digital self in digital world, etc.). The involvement in the virtual, in relation to other realities, while it is not "socially new" to consumers, is still "relatively unexplored" in previous literature (Slater 2002). So, in this dissertation research, it is worth asking how consumers integrate the various media, including the virtual worlds, into their existing social practices and identities, rather than disembedding from local context (Miller and Slater 2000), and what role virtual consumption plays in such a process.

Questions
The purposes of this chapter are twofold. First, the chapter reviewed the extant theories and developed an integrativealbeit a preliminary one at this stageconceptual framework. Second, it identified the research questions in the investigation of virtual consumption that have not been addressed in extant work, and will be addressed in this dissertation research.
This chapter first reviewed and evaluated the merits and limitations of two perspectives toward virtuality -virtuality as "place of de-localization and de-realization" (the de-perspective) and virtuality as "practice/process of re-localization and rerealization" (the re-perspective), in the context of studies of virtual consumption. The review and discussions revealed that perspective of virtuality as "place of de-localization and de-realization" emphasizes the correlation between the general characteristics of virtuality (e.g., representation and simulation) and virtual consumption, independent of influences from the larger place -RL. It assumes that virtuality itself creates new forms of utilities desired by consumers as well as its own culture (of virtual existence) that induces virtual consumption. On the one hand, at the early stage of virtuality and virtual consumption studies, the de-perspective allows the researchers to conceptualize the virtual goods and virtual worlds, probes the motivations of consumers, and helps in the (product/platform) designs and business models of the firms operating in this space. On the other hand, however, the de-perspective overstates the disconnection between virtuality and RL, oversimplifies consumer's experience of virtuality (e.g., escape to virtuality, rebellion/liberation in virtuality) and virtual consumption (e.g., meanings and role of virtual consumption in the "magic circle" of virtual worlds as help with realization of fragmented selves), and downplays the importance of marketing as representation and simulation.
In contrast to the somewhat older de-perspective of virtuality, the more recent perspective of virtuality as "practice/process of re-localization and re-realization" emphasizes the connection between virtuality and RL and virtuality as embedded in RL.
Specifically, from the consumer perspective, virtuality is a matter of social practice that requires reflexive skills to connect their experience in virtuality with the RL (e.g., consumers navigate and negotiate between boundaries of virtuality and RL, while attempting to construct a coherent self), which is in line with the social construction of technology theory (Hughes and Pinch 1987). From the firm perspective, virtuality is the process of managing the virtual worlds (e.g., transmediation that connects virtual worlds with other media and RL) and consumers (e.g., connect the performance of identities in virtuality with real identity in RL) to provide broader marketing context, more control over the forms of virtuality, and more targeted marketing effort towards consumers. Such a perspective (the re-perspective) opens new space for investigation of virtuality and virtual consumption.
Drawing on the review and evaluation of existing and emerging perspectives on virtuality, this chapter extended and integrated these two perspectives (the de-and the re-) to develop a 3P view of virtual consumption conceptual frame (see figure 2.3), which consists of three underlying components: (1) the first P covers two placesreality and virtuality, with reality as a larger place thatunder certain conditions (China)suits virtuality and promotes or hinders the growth of virtuality and virtual consumption, (2) the second P is for virtual consumption practices by which consumers manage to navigate and negotiate the boundaries of virtual world and RL, and (3) the third P refers to the marketing process that develop around those places and practices.

Figure 2. 3: Virtual Consumption: The Three P's View
Source: Author's conceptualization Such a conceptual frame provides a broader theoretical lensshifting the focus of study of virtual consumption in three ways: 1) from 'virtuality only' to both virtuality and RL that condition virtual consumption; 2) from consumers' presence only in the "magic circle" of virtuality (e.g., Lombard and Ditton 1997) to consumers' dual presence and dual roles in both virtuality and RL (e.g., navigation and negotiation between virtuality and RL); 3) from marketing's limited role of "representation" in virtuality (Dholakia and Reyes 2013) to marketing's broader role of managing the virtual worlds and consumers in broader context of both virtuality and RL (for example, in some cases, accommodating consumers' busy schedule in RL by designing simple games, transmediation, gamification, augmented reality or AR approaches, etc.) As such, each aspect of this theatrical framework raises unique and important issues that have not been addressed before and will be studied to analyze the dynamics of virtual consumption in China. The perspective of virtuality as "place of de-localization and de-realization" provides a pertinent angle from which to document the "suspension" between "virtual" reality and real "reality" of China. Identifying these suspensions is important for analyzing the adoption of or resistance to new purchase choices of virtual goods. The perspective of virtuality as "practice of re-localization and re-realization" by consumers is useful for examining how consumers navigate between virtuality and RL, and how they attempt to overcome these "suspensions". Indeed, through various ways of self-control, compromise and negotiation, consumers (especially the Chinese youth studied in this dissertation) do seem to make progress in the construction of coherent selves. The perspective of "virtuality as process of re-localization and re-realization" allows for the broader scope of discussion on strategies and actions taken by the firms, based on the understanding of such "places" and "practice". Table 2.2 provides a succinct summary of the key research objectives this dissertation aims to achieve and the questions that this dissertation explores to some extent.

Research Objectives
Research Questions consumption From perspective of "virtuality as practice" (consumer perspective), investigate consumption practices taking place in virtual worlds but conditioned by RL social contexts, in China's market.

3.
How the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers navigate and negotiate the boundaries between virtuality and offline RL, and engineer their own experience of virtual consumption? 4. How do the consumption practices relate to and reconcile the different identities that the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers have in virtuality and their offline real lives, and how do they construct a coherent self?
From perspective of "virtuality as process" (firm perspective), study marketing strategy that firms need to develop around those places and practices.

5.
What are the implications of the preceding questions for marketing strategies and actions?
Source: Author's conceptualization The next chapter reviews the qualitative research approaches that are available to explore virtuality and virtual consumptionin general and specifically in the Chinese context that is the focus of this dissertation.

Chapter Abstract
With special focus on the discussion of the methodological challenge and adaptation of ethnography for virtual consumption studies, this chapter examines the qualitative methods to be applied in this dissertation research and offers some guidance for future virtual consumption research. The chapter starts with a brief review of the existing literatures on online ethnography and examination of the challenges and opportunities to evolve ethnographic approaches, followed by the discussion of application of digital ethnography for the specific purposes of this dissertation. Then, two supplemental qualitative methodsinterviews and historical analysisare detailed, in terms of methodological procedures and concerns. This chapter represents a research arrangement that features methodological triangulation (i.e., "three legs of qualitative stool" suggested by Hall 1999), data triangulation (i.e., combination of text data and digital data such as audio/videos), and theoretical triangulation (i.e., combination of both theoretical perspectives of virtuality as place and process) in study of virtual consumption in the context of China.

Introduction: Qualitative Methods and Methodological Triangulation
One of the important challenges for virtual consumption researchers is to apply the right research method to the problem under investigation. In choice of the methodology, a trade-off is always made between ensuring "generalizability" by using quantitative methods such as experiments and questionnaire surveys; and seeking "thickness in description" by using qualitative methods such as ethnographic consumer research (Mason 1988). While quantitative methods are more effective in verification of theories by examining big pool of samples to generalize, qualitative methods should be used for research that requires exploration of new phenomena and theory discovery (Darke 1995;McKeganey 1995). In this dissertation, qualitative approaches help address research questions about the "why" and "how" of virtual consumption, and to explore the everyday practices related to virtual consumption. Such explorations are beyond the quantitative methodological domain.
Virtual consumption is a relatively new marketing phenomenon, and the focus of this dissertation study is on investigating why and how consumers engage in virtual consumption, and the consumption practices that sustain the virtual consumption patterns.
Therefore, qualitative methods are the appropriate methodological means to explore complex and chaotic RL situations and to understand desires, identity, and practice actions that together create the deeper meanings of virtual consumption.
Different qualitative methods have their own unique strengths and weaknesses (Hall and Rist 1999). Systematic selection of context and situation, and use-specific methodology is more likely to meet the objectives of research than adhering to a particular methodology (Razzaque 1998). Employing multiple qualitative methods gives researcher many advantages; creating methodological triangulation (Patton 1980) that combines the strengths of the methods and compensates for mutual weaknesses so as to increase the "intellectual and methodological power" of qualitative research (Hall and Rist 1999). Methodological triangulation enables the researcher to visualize and explain the phenomena of interest in more complete ways (Campbell and Fiske 1959).
Bearing that in mind, this study uses the variation of "three legs of qualitative stool" (Hall and List 1999): (1) digital ethnography and (2) interviews for the study of virtual consumption at consumer level; and (3) historical method for the study of political/economic and sociocultural environment in China to explain the politicalcultural reality that seems particularly well-suited to the growth of virtual worlds and consumption. The following sections present and discuss each method, with the major focus on ethnography.

Ethnography
The dominant qualitative research approach to virtuality has been ethnography, or participant observation, largely due to the fact that "both academics and non-academics who were themselves learning the new media by exploring them and therefore could not detach their analysis from the participation that generate it" (Slater 2002, p. 541). A number of online research methods (e.g., "netnography" developed by Kozinets 1997; "virtual ethnography" from Hine 2000; and "digital ethnography" from Masten and Plowman 2003) have adapted ethnography to the study of the communities and cultures created through computer-mediated social interactions. Online ethnography in recent years has made contributions to the development of the marketing and consumer behavior disciplines (e.g., Kozinets 2002, Nelson and Otnes 2005, Muñiz and Schau 2005. The ethnographic research landscape, however, has changed dramatically after the rapid growth of virtual worlds. Particularly, online ethnography has been under pressure from conflicting opinions concerning its fundamental theoretical assumptionswhether the online consumption space, communities, cultures are exotic and fundamentally different than everyday communication, and consequently some distinctive methodological procedures should be followed; or not. Numerous ethnographic approaches for the elaboration of the online life and culture have emerged (Boellstorff 2008), based on different theoretical assumptions. As Salter (2002, p. 543) argues, "the lines are drawn between the online and offline as much by methodology as by theory" (i.e., virtuality as place vs. virtuality as process perspective, as discussed in Chapter 2). A review of the existing online ethnographic methods is therefore necessary and desirable at this stage of dissertation studynot only as a way to inform this dissertation study in methodological terms, but to provide potential guidelines for future virtual consumption research as well. The following review presents and discusses three main methods of online ethnography. This is by no means exhaustive in terms of this methodological domain, but does represent major alternative online ethnographic approaches.

Existing Online Ethnographic Methods: A Review
3.3.1.1 Netnography "Method specifically designed to study cultures and communities online." - Kozinets (1997) Introduced by Kozinets in 1997, netnography designates an interpretative method devised specifically to investigate the consumer cultures and communities present on the internet. Kozinets suggests that conventional ethnographic fieldwork can be meaningfully applied to computer-mediated interactions. The fieldwork includes direct copy from the computer-mediated communications of online community members and observations of the community and its members, interactions and meanings (Kozinets 2010). The data collected is mainly textual such as downloaded files of newsgroup postings, transcripts of MUD (multi-user dungeons) or IRC (Internet relay chat) sessions, and e-mail exchanges.
As Kozinets (1998) suggests, netnography investigates the specific instances in which community is formed through computer-mediated communications.
Based on conventional ethnographic procedures, Kozinets (2002) recommends five methodological stages and procedures for netnographic studies that include: (1) formulation of research questions and identification and gaining entree to appropriate online communities and cultures, (2) data collection that consists of the researcher's field notes and the artifacts of the culture or community, (3) data analysis with focus on the cultural contextualizing of online data and classification, coding analysis and contextualization of communicative acts, (4) ensuring research ethics by which netnography uses cultural information that is not given specifically to the researchers, and (5) research representation with focus on member checks to solicit other researchers' opinions.

Virtual Ethnography
"It is the ethnography of, in and through the virtual." -Hine (2000) Hine (2000) called her study a "virtual ethnography," with the virtual indicating that it is a different kind of ethnography in that it is partial (because the accounts can be based on strategic relevance to particular research questions rather than faithful representations of objective realities) and inauthentic (because it takes place online).
Virtual ethnography extends the notions of field and ethnographic observation from the exclusive study of co-present and face to face interactions, to a focus on mediated and distributed ones (Hine 2000). Instead of going to a particular physical field site, virtual ethnography focuses more on online field connections. Although virtual ethnography is conducted using a predominance of (if not exclusively) online data, proponents of virtual ethnography argue that this does not undermine the quality and depth of the "thick description" generated. Hine (2000) suggests that researchers need to be mobile both virtually and physically so as to be fully engaged in the ethnography of mediated interaction. In contrast to conventional ethnography that emphasizes long term immersion in the culture being studied, virtual ethnography is a process of intermittent engagement rather than long term immersion (Hine 2000); thus, it allows the researchers to perform a comparative ethnography of more than one site at the same time. Since the early virtual ethnography studies (e.g., ethnography of WolfMOO by Rosenber 1992) were of text-based virtual worlds, the data were mostly texts. Boellstorff (2008) notes that there is an emerging set of virtual ethnographies that are graphically based (e.g.,

Second Life).
Hine does not give prescriptive and exhaustive set of rules on how to do virtual ethnography (Hine 2000). Later, Hair and Clark (2003) identify a procedure for conducting virtual ethnography, in the sense proposed by Hine, which includes: (1) identifying proactive communities, negotiating access, (2) interacting with participants, (3) conducting electronic depth interviews, (4) data interpretation, and (5) returning results and analysis to the community.

Digital Ethnography
"Using the digital and wireless communication revolutions as platforms for rethinking ethnographic principles, methodologies, and analysis." - Masten and Plowman (2003) In 2003, Masten and Plowman characterized digital ethnography as "next wave in understanding the consumer experience," as "digital ethno enables participants to convey the real-time richness of their own lives and environments." The proponents of digital ethnography argue that with the Web 2.0 increasingly permeating people's daily lives and people increasingly accessing Web and engaging online communities on the go, the term netnography fails to capture the essence of consumer consumption environment that features ubiquitous digital devices (Irons 2010). In the era of Web 2.0, much of online ethnographic methods including netnography and virtual ethnography are not inherently or natively digital; instead they are generally text-based physical world field techniques transplanted onto the internet (Masten and Plowman 2003). Besides the conventional participant observation and passive observation, digital ethnography focuses on participant self-reporting. As Masten and Plowman (2003) suggest, putting the power of observation in the participants' own hands benefits the ethnographic research in two ways. One benefit is that of allowing participants to convey the real-time richness of their own lives and environments. Second, rather than simply acting as the source of data, participants get involved in the research process and share their insights on the topic being studied. Compared with mostly text-based data collected by netnography and virtual ethnography, the details of participants' experiencein the form of words, images, or audio/video filesare collected by digital ethnography. The various types of data enable the researchers to conduct deeper and richer analyses (Masten and Plowman 2003). Table 3.1 summarizes the characteristics of these online ethnographic methods. The evolution of virtual worlds, as online consumption spaces, offers the opportunities to advance the online ethnographic methodology in several aspects such as the removal of spatial and temporal boundaries, lower cost of data collection as data is often stored in online repositories, and easier access to online communications. The challenges of studying virtual consumption, however, have not disappeared and new developments in virtuality study have raised important questions for conducting and developing online ethnographic methodologies. Ethnography has evolved from early theoretical claim that online life could be investigated as an integral culture or social order in its own right to later use of the method to contextualize online within offline life of consumers (Slater 2002). Some online ethnographic methods appear not to catch up with such theoretical developments. For example, netnography and virtual ethnography appear to have narrow focus on online interactions, and cannot capture the full and rich detail of consumer experience beyond the virtual worlds (these, of course, do not refute the merits of these online ethnographic methods for purely online contexts, as later discussed, in relation to some of the research questions). Data collections by netnography and virtual ethnography are limited to text based data, which also is problematic when people are increasingly getting into the graphic based virtual worlds and ubiquitous computing environments of Web 2.0.
The application of any type of online ethnography should be exercised with caution because, in the contemporary contextswith the blurring boundaries between the social and the technique, the real and the virtual world -the assumption of "pure-form ethnography" is arguable at best. The methodologies employed, as Sunderland and Denny (2007) point out, "are not 'ethnographic' per se, but…are made so by the intellectual framing of the task" (p. 52). It is crucial for researchers to understand the relationship between research questions at hand and methods; and to choose the ethnographic or other approaches accordingly (Sunderland and Denny 2003).
To select appropriate online ethnographic methods and collect the data (online, offline, or both) needed, Boellstorff (2010) classifies research questions regarding virtuality into three groups: (1) interface between virtual world and actual world, (2) interface between virtual words and another virtual world, and (3) single virtual world.
Accordingly, researchers need to focus on combined online/offline context and both online and offline data for research question type 1, and on online contexts and related data for research question types 2 and 3.
Indeed, online ethnographic methodology needs to evolve from a text based perspective to digital perspectivewith whatever sensory and mediated form the digital content takes. Researchers can ask people to take pictures, record audio, tag a GPS coordinate, and generate rich, though often unwieldy, data. Such data triangulation can help increase the conformability of the findings and deepen our understanding related to diffusion and adoption phenomena. Gathering data from different sources can provide cross-data validity checks (Hall and Rist 1999;Patton 1990). In addition to usual data sources, description of social settings in which behaviors occur (Stimson 1986) may increase the confirmability of research. Besides the observations conducted by the researcher, the participants of this dissertation study were instructed to keep journal records of virtual consumption choices they made as informed by the discussion of the procedure of participants' self-reporting, including but not limited to recording what type of virtual goods they purchased, what type of virtual worlds they engaged with, how they accessed the virtual worlds (e.g., through the smartphone, laptop, desktop, or Internet café, etc.), the feelings associated with consuming various types of virtual goods in particular virtual world environments, and the feedback and reactions from the social others in RL. In addition, the participants were encouraged to report anything that the researcher did not anticipate, but that the participants identified and considered as relevant to the study and wanted to report. The journals recorded by participants were not only used to inform the researcher before the interviews with participants, and as a way to explore their overall experience with virtual worlds and virtual consumption, but also used as probes during the interviews later on to help participants to better remember their choice of virtual goods in different virtual worlds and the particular experiences associated with those. In addition, the participants were strongly encouraged to submit the journal record in digital formats, such as pictures and audio/videos.
It should be noted, however, that there is the methodological issue related to verification of data collected via observation and self-reporting, due to the fact that participants may not tell the truth about various aspects of their identity (Slater 2002).
Especially in the context of virtual worlds, the "identity tourism" has little, often none, of negative consequence for participants. Slater (2002, p. 542) suggests "the researcher has to make judgements and rules on the basis of situation-specific knowledge and thinking." For example, the judgement can be made on whether there might be some points for participants in lying about their gender online, and "whether the falsity of that claim has some bearings" (Slater 2002).

Interviews
In this dissertation research, interviews and (digital) ethnography were combined and complemented each other as Kozinets (2010) suggested. The strength of the interviews is to allow for researchers to study virtual consumption from deeply subjective, immersed, emic perspectives (McCracken 1998).
Fifteen participants in this dissertation research, seven females and eight males, were college students from Zhejiang University of Media and Communications, with age ranges from 17 to 21 at the time of interviews. The participants were selected through purposive sampling (in this particular study, based on their knowledge of and involvement with the virtual worlds and virtual consumption), with the evolving research interests during the research process dictating the choice of participants. Except two participants are nonusers, the rest of thirteen participants were long term users of virtual worlds for at least five years, which fits the sought user profile of post -90s digital nativesthe generation with experience of Web2.0 and Web3.0. They were also actively engaged in virtual consumption (because of recency, the years of virtual consumption are normally less than that of engaging in virtual worlds), and regularly blogged about virtual world's activities and virtual consumption experience and practices. As such, these participants were in a good position to keep the journal as required by digital ethnography in the early stage of the research process, and were able to respond to interviews questions in details in later stage of research.
In addition to knowledge of and involvement with the virtual worlds and virtual consumption, variety and contrast were additional selection criteria. Contrasts in this study focused on different views of virtual consumption experience in various virtual worlds. Specifically, there were seven long term users of both social virtual worlds such as QQ and online gaming worlds (SVGU for short), four long term users of social virtual world (SVU for short), two long term users of online gaming worlds (GWU for short) and two non-user participants (NUV for short). All participants granted their informed consent in compliance with IRB regulations. See table 3.2 for profile of research participants. The NUV, SVU, and GWU compare and contrast with SVGU to provide different views of the virtual worlds and virtual consumption experience, which is helpful in addressing the research questions. The size of this sample pool is methodologically appropriate for the goal of qualitative research including this dissertation research, that is, "to capture complexity and to search out patterns of interrelationship between categories …that offer explanations that take us 'back stage' in the culture in question to let us glimpse assumptions and categories that are otherwise hidden from view" (McCracken 1988, p.4).
The semi-structured interviews lasted from twenty minutes to one hour. The interviews questions were mostly focused on their general virtual world and virtual consumption experience, but a flexible format was allowed for questions to be added or altered as new topics of interest that may emerge during the interviews process.
The interviews were later transcribed verbatim from audiotapes and translated from Chinese to English. Verbatim texts were interpreted based on three important principles: emic approach (affording primacy to the meanings held by the participant), autonomy of the text (the transcript standing on its own, as a document that is interpretable and analyzable), and bracketing (theoretical notions to be held in abeyance, in the first round of interpretation) (Spiggle 1994). Interpretative analysis entails a comparative process between researcher notes and transcripts (Glaser and Strauss 1967), and allowing common patterns to emerge and be identified (Spiggle 1994). The steps in such a process include categorization, abstraction, comparison, dimensionalization, and iteration. Conceptual categories, patterns and typologies that emerge during this process then are developed into themes that unpack the transformed 'afferent' (afferent refers to the sensory intake part of the experience) experience and 'efferent' (efferent refers to that which is emitted from the receiver as a result of the stimulus) responses, and dimensions underlying similarities and differences among the responses.
The main methodological issue with this interviews approach, in the context of study of virtual consumption particularly, is related to the theoretical concern thatpresuming the media characteristics of virtual worlds and goodsmay lead researchers to ask leading questions such as "the nature of online relationships and identities" (Slater 2002). Rather, Slater (2002) suggests that the question should be framed as "what do people do online", which is an open-ended question and "leaves open the possibility that the relationship between online and offline social processes is an issue for participants or users and that they may come up with quite different responses to it. Hence, concepts like 'virtuality' can be treated as (one possible) result of people's practices" (Slater 2002, p. 539).

Historical Analysis
One goal of this dissertation is to examine virtual consumption at national level, investigating unique environmental factors in China, the on-the-ground social-politicalcultural reality that appears to suit rather well the virtual worlds and virtual consumption in China.
Rather than simply creating the account of "remembrance of the past", the historical method has the ability to produce scientific and useful knowledge (Golder 1992), and is particularly useful in study of virtual consumption for two reasons. First, Slater (2002) argues that the study of the dynamics of virtuality is incomplete without an in-depth analysis of the reality such as "political economy of access", "material and symbolic power", and "social conditions that structure the communication and sociality that go on there (in virtual worlds)". Historical method can bring in the historical facts (facts about the changes in economic/political, sociocultural environmental factors in China, in this dissertation study) that adequately explain the phenomenon (virtual consumption, in this study) under investigation, and help create an "explanatory narrative" (Danto 1985;Smith and Lux 1993).
Second, and more importantly, historical analysis has the ability to explain variance in anomalous cases (Smith & Lux 1993;Watkins 1959). The study of virtual consumption, in context of China, has to deal with the paradoxical nature of market there.
For example, there is asymmetric relationship between the consumption power (low) and virtual consumption, which violates the general consumption pattern suggested by Keynes (1936).
The historical part of the research in this dissertation followed Mason, Mckenney, and Copeland's (1997) seven step process of historical analysis: (1) Asking questions about past events and answering them with selected facts arranged in the form of an explanatory paradigm (Fischer 1970 (2) The second step is specifying the domain and the units of analysis. In this dissertation research, the environment (e.g., political/economic, social/cultural factors) of Hang Zhou region constitutes the unit of analysis.
(3) The third step entails collection of evidence from multiple sources. In this dissertation research, datamostly qualitative and descriptive with some related numbers were collected from multiple sources such as regional, national, and international newspapers, magazines, trade and academic journals, unpublished data from various organizations, and internet.
(4) The fourth step is critique of the evidence. Such critique follows the criteria suggested by Gottschalk (1969) with regard to time elapsed between events and reporting, range of knowledge and expertise of the person reporting the events, and corroboration from other multiple sources. In case of contradictory evidence from multiple secondary published sources, the data analysis should give credence to the original data sources as far as possible (Malhotra, Peterson, and Kleiser 1998).
(5) The fifth step is determining the pattern. In this step, the two kinds of factors that Smith and Lux (1993) suggestdiscontinuous factors which are things that change and continuous factors which refer to things that stay the sameare examined.
(6) The sixth step is telling the story. In this step, the continuous and discontinuous factors identified are synthesized to develop the historical narrative that can explain the phenomenon under investigation.
(7) The seventh and last step is writing the script. In this step, the implications of such historical narrative for the research questions are discussed.
Such a study of virtual consumption at national level, using historical method, is useful in further dealing with research questions regarding virtual consumption at consumer level.
The methodological concerns for the historical method center on the lack of generalizability and confirmability, due to the fact that the explanatory narrative constructed based on the historical method can only apply to that particular period of time in history under study (Hobsbawm 1997, p. 42).

Summary and Conclusions
Collectively, the proposed methodological triangulation (combination of digital ethnography, interviews, and historic analysis), data triangulation (combination of text data and digital data such as audio/videos), as well as theory triangulation discussed in

Introduction
Previous research on virtuality and virtual consumption in China has well documented the young Chinese consumers' steady distancing from RL and embracement of virtuality. According to Herold (2012), the Chinese consumers view the virtual worlds as "wholly separate from their offline existence and identity," and "online China itself constitutes an independent space for entertainment, political, social, etc., discourse" (p.9).
Virtuality is the place where Chinese consumers "can rebel against authority... and where they can escape their often stressful and boring lives". Likewise, Wang and Mainwaring (2009)  While such studies with a focus on total disengagement from the RL (for some) and getting lost in virtuality (for many) has raised societal concerns such as lack of meaningful interaction in relationships, and even distraction from building offline relationships that could help with the isolation and ennui of online settings (Wellman et al. 2010), such studies have not provided a comprehensive view of virtuality and virtual consumption in China. This dissertation study redresses this lack and focuses on virtuality as a place of de-localization and de-realization, looking into a "broadened, encompassing RL" as a bigger place, a place with as well as sometimes without electronic devices, with a role in mediating the online and offline consumer behaviors.
Because of this broader view, this study is able to address the important research questions such as how consumers reconcile the different goals set for online virtual world and RL, negotiate the cultural conditions, and what role virtual goods and consumption play in the construction of self.
Taking a perspective of virtuality as a practice of re-localization and rerealization, this dissertation research, argues that "it is fairly pointless to look abstractly for correlations between the variables of media characteristic (e.g., culture on its own right) and communicative practices when participants are busily redefining both across times and places" (Slater 2002, p. 545). The virtual world as a site of "alienation/escapism" or "rebellion/liberation" may overstate the Chinese post-1990 generation's departure from the RL to virtual world and virtuality as a separate site for consumers to inhabit, and cannot account for the fact that the majority of Chinese post-1990 generation consumers are found to be pragmatic when they go online (Liu 2009).
For many in the Chinese post-1990 generation, being pragmatic entails a demanding process and practice of making sense of the relationship between RL and virtuality where "the self is decentered, dispersed, and multiplied in continuous instability" (Poster 1990, p. 6.). Being pragmatic also entails compromise, negotiation, and coping with the conflicting ideologies, identities, interpersonal demands, and construction of coherent concepts of self, when navigating between RL and virtuality. To explore the research questions that have not been addressed before, in this dissertation research, we will take a different theoretical lens, with focus on 1) reality as a bigger (more encompassing) place that conditions virtuality, and affects Chinese consumers' lives in numerous and significant ways, including their virtual consumption patterns, and 2) virtuality as a "social accomplishment" (Slater 2002), actively sought and achieved by the Chinese post-1990 generation consumer, through online and offline practices.
Following the next introductory section on virtual goods market and consumption in China, the discussion in this chapter proceeds to the historical analysis of rapidly changing and, at the same time, persistently unchanged aspects of the Chinese environment (i.e., economic, political/legal, sociocultural) since its economic reforms of 1979.

Growth of Virtual Goods Market and Consumption in China
Chinese consumers were first exposed to digitized virtuality when video arcades  (Wei 2014). It is estimated that 5 to 10 percent of gamers in China pay for virtual goods. These paying gamers, however, tend to be high-spenders and their devotion to the games helps support the other 90 percent of gamers that play for free (Kwang 2011).
China's virtual goods market in online chatting (such as the QQ messaging platform) is even bigger, dwarfing the virtual goods market in MMORPG. Tencent, China's largest Internet service portal launched in 1998, offers diverse internet services such as QZone and Pengyou social networks, Weixin mobile chat (also called WeChat), its own Weibo microblog service, online games and more. For Tencent, the majority of its massive virtual goods revenue comes from popular the QQ instant messaging service that unites everything together (Su 2010). Tencent claims that it has 752 million active users, more than half of China's population (and about the size of the combined total population of USA and EU). Most of the QQ users are using the free basic service such as text chat, voice chat, and video chat. Over 30 million QQ users, however, pay to get enhanced services such as changing QQ avatars (from the default versions that are offered free) or buying clothes for their avatars, as well as through exchange of virtual gifts.
From 2007 onwards, the success of the avatar Ailin Graef, a female and Chineseborn "first millionaire in virtual world" (in the game currency) in Second Life inspired Chinese firms to begin to develop Chinese-versions of 3D virtual worlds. Among the Chinese versions of virtual worlds, the most famous ones are HiPiHi, Novoking, and Uworld. By 2009, however, all of these virtual worlds were on the verge of going out of business. HiPiHi only had 48,000 registered users, Novoking had 10,000 registered users, and Uworld had only 1000 registered users (Zhang et al., 2010). Chen (2009) found that 3D virtual worlds, such as HiPiHi and Second Life, are platforms for usergenerated content, which requires creativity and skills of design and even programming.
Thus, unlike regular online games that are fun-based, 3D virtual worlds have high threshold for users and only attract hardcore players, and most casual users soon lose interest.
With the emergence of casual games on social networking sites (e.g., Happy Farm on Kaixin) and more advanced mobile phones that can access these games, a new virtual goods market has been created in recent years, but the revenues generated from the social games have been modest (Boykoff 2010). On the other hand, free social games on social networking sites that feature 2D interface, easy access and play that appeal to Chinese consumers, have seen a rise in popularity among Chinese consumers.
In one industry report, 88 percent of those surveyed said they played social network- . This cohort also represents the most active users of smartphonesmore than three hours a daychecking their device about four times an hour (Moshinsky 2015). They share some common characteristics: young, only-child and highly educated.

China
During the time that China became the largest virtual goods market in the world and the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers became the largest virtual goods market segment in China, the Chinese society has been in a transformative period. The characteristics of this period include the post-1980 one-child policy, rapid socioeconomic changes, and 'the victory of materialism' (Rosen 2004). Chinese traditional cultural ideology faced the challenges arising from the increasingly visible Western consumption culture, with its emphasis on freedom of choice, especially in consumption (Friedman and Friedman 1980), which in turn influenced the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers' online and offline consumer behaviors.

Changes in China's Economic Landscape and Continuous Economic Uncertainty
Following the economic reforms initiated in 1979, China has steadily shifted from a planned economy to a market economy, and emerged as a major global economic power, with economic growth averaging nearly 10% through 2014 (Morrison 2015). Based on Purchasing Price Parity (PPP), China is now the largest economy in the world (Morrison 2015).
With a massive rise in disposable personal income over the years, from 343 yuan in 1978 to 28,844 yuan in 2014 (Trading Economy 2015), a growing portion of discretionary household income has been spent on leisure services, and the priority has shifted from the products of utilitarian nature to product of hedonic nature (Fan 2000), especially for the younger generation (Chu and Ju 1993). These younger generation of Chinese consumers are traveling the world, drinking Starbucks coffee, using Estee Lauder cosmetics, and engaging with virtuality in multiple ways. The theory of cluster consumption states that consumption does not change marginally or linearly; instead it takes a discontinuous form, requiring leaps to new consumption clusters (deVries 2008; Dholakia 2012). In case of virtual consumption, consumers have a choice to purchase the virtual goods on a laptop or desktop computer, or on a smartphone or tablet, allowing virtual consumption anytime, anywhere. China has more smartphone users than US, Brazil, and Indonesia combined, over 816 million total in 2015, which included over 170 million on its 4G network and 223 million on 3G (Perez 2015). This trend is expected to continue -4G smartphone connections in China would reach one billion by 2020 (Perez 2015).
The Chinese government has also recognized the importance of meeting the consumer demands of Chinese consumers, encouraging both local and foreign companies to participate in the efforts . With the development of Internet and online banking in China, new kinds of payment methods have emerged to help users to get around constraints such as lack of credit cards, the most popular payment in advanced countries. For instance, Alipay is the leading online payment company in China with over 350 million registered users (Rao 2015). Alipay allows consumers to make payment online via their bank account, prepaid cards, or even make mobile and telephone payments, without having to use credit cards.
The dramatic effects of the economic reforms are also evident in the emergence of advertising and influx of multinational companies to China. Radio commercials appeared in China for the first time in January 1979, and in March of the same year, the first TV commercials appeared (Anderson 1984). KFC entered the Chinese market in 1987 (Cho 2009). China's entry in WTO in 2001 was another mark of economic growth and globalization of China's economic landscape. The large Chinese market has attracted a steady stream of foreign investments and foreign firms are expected to reshape the competitive space (Chan, Cui and Zhou 2009;Fang and Yen 2006;Leung and Chan 2006). Exposure to international products and services, the cultural influences brought by the multinational companies, and advertisements on radio and TV have introduced the modern lifestyle to the Chinese consumers. For example, Lin (2001) noted the subtle changes in cultural values and advertising strategies visible in Chinese commercials which emphasize youth/ modernity appeals and reflect westernization.
On the other hand, however, there have been continuous economic uncertainties over the years since the economic reforms of 1979. These include overdependence on exports as the economic driver, serious housing bubble problems (Barth, Lea, and Li 2012), an inefficient banking system that "lacks the ability to ration and allocate credit according to market principles" (Morrison 2012), aging and 'graying population' problem that resulted from the one-child policy of 1980, lack of an adequate pension system, and the sharply rising costs of health care (Morrison 2012). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that China's real GDP growth will slow to 6.8% in 2015 and to 6.3% in 2016 (Morrison 2015). Therefore, the precautionary motive for saving and being frugal has been strong among Chinese consumers. For example, the high cost of buying consoles and games (e.g., Lenovo CT510 priced at $600 when it was launched in 2004) is what made online gaming a really appealing option to Chinese consumers (Becker 2004). The possibility is real that the wide range of economic uncertainties may jeopardize consumption spending in general (Rajagopal and Castaño 2015), which may include spending on virtual consumption.

Changes in Political Policies and Legislation
Chinese consumers' lives have been tremendously changed by policy reforms from late 1970s to 2010s. During this period, China has transformed politically from the legacy of Mao and imperialistic heritage (Lieberthal 1995) to what some researchers (e.g., Odgden 1995) describe as both the largest communist country and the fastest growing capitalist country that seeks "continuity with, as well as a departure from, the socialist legacy and cultural tradition of the past, and integration with, as well as resistance to, global capitalism" (Yu 2009, p 6).
Before the reform in 1979, most Chinese consumers were assigned to a danwei, or work unit. In socialist China, the danwei, created on the concept of space of collectivism and egalitarianism, was "simultaneously the spatial building block, the locus of daily life, and the mainspring of social identity in the Chinese socialist city" (Hill 2005), which not only provided its members with income, but also was "omnipotent in distributing every consumer product" (Yang 2005), including social goods such as housing, medical care, and day care and schooling, and consequently, provided to its members identity and "ability to participate in wider society" (Bray 2005). The economic reform, especially the rise of private economy in China, since 1979, has considerably diminished the danwei's role in the construction of Chinese consumers' identityas person who is a member of a work unit or a production celland offered the opportunity to the Chinese consumers, as individual agents in society, to create their own identities (Bray 2005).  (Dholakia 2012). On the one hand, the one-child policy enhanced the consumption power of the only child, as "little emperor/empress" in the family, with the parents and grandparents concentrating their financial resources on the one child (Woronov 2002). On the other hand, it posed a serious social problem characterized as the "4-2-1 phenomenon", where the 'only' children, when they grew up and started working, had to provide the financial support for two parents and four grandparents. Even with high savings rates, it seemed that the younger generation were not able to afford such a burden (Economist 2012). Indeed, to reinforce the sense of filial obligation among the youth, even legislation was passed to support traditional filial values (Ikels 2006).
When Internet was first introduced to China in 1994 (Warschauer 2004) the Chinese government has maintained and even strengthened its strict controls on the Internet media and related products and services, based on its political ideologies. In terms ofsocial platforms, the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers had no access to certain popular social media sites (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) that contain politically sensitive information and have consequently been blocked by the government. This has created a form of digital divide between China and the rest of the world, despite the physical existence of ICT infrastructure ready for use (Lu 2001). In terms of gaming virtual worlds, arcade game rooms declined in popularity after 2000, mainly because of government crackdown on gambling and illegal activities in the game rooms (Cao and Downing 2008). Likewise, while Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles are mostly assembled in China, video game consoles have been banned by Chinese government since 2000 (Ashcraft 2010 ), based on a number of concerns ranging from "violating the constitution" to "threatening national security" and "damaging the nation's glory" (Nyhart 2012).

Rise of individualization and hedonism
The ongoing modernization and globalization processes have had dramatic impacts on Chinese consumers' cultural and value systems (Xiao and Kim 2009). Unlike the previous generations that lived in poverty and were defined by collectivist ideology and danwei, the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers, born into China's economic reform era and with increased consumption power, has been exploring and embracing a rising individualization trend and tends to hold materialistic and hedonistic values (Dou et al. 2006;Gu and Huang 2009) with focus on material desires and new lifestyles (Zhang and Harwood 2004).
In online virtual worlds, either virtual social worlds or gaming virtual worlds, the lack of traditional Chinese social order and cultural constrains (e.g., hierarchy) has facilitated the rise of individualization -the "me" culturethat allows consumers to experiment and play with their new identities and build new types of consumer groups.
For online gamers in post-socialist China, communist creed that represses play in the name of self-sacrifice and hard work has been replaced with the new consumption orientation that encourages playfulness and an obsession with youthful spontaneity and rebellion as also seen in Western society's theme parks and shopping malls (Barber 2007). For online chatters in post-socialist China, the engagement with virtuality has become a means of creating new identities and new horizontal ties of friendship and sociability that are partially immune from the controlling mechanisms of the Chinese state (Dirlik and Zhang 2000).

Continuous constraints on individualization and hedonism
Culture refers to shared and enduring set of values, beliefs, and attitudes in a nation, region, or organization (Hofstede 2001). Despite the changing economic and political circumstances, the older and established Chinese traditional sociocultural system nonetheless has an enduring influence on cultural conceptions of individuals. Even when confronted with the increased pressures of individualism and personal freedom (Yang and Neal 2006), the bedrock of Chinese culture would not change overnight, as "it takes time to construct the symbols and institutionalize them via processes of dissemination and socialization until they become dominant parts of the culture that is shared by at least the majority of society's members" (Schwarzer and Frensch 2012, p. 378). The Chinese society, as a whole, has not developed culturally to provide the individualization processes with the social support such trends require (Belk 2014). Rather, "there is an extensive negotiation among citizens, social structures and institutions on the one hand, and the logic of capital on the other" (Chu et al. 2012, p. 110). Indeed, the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers, as individuals, must cope with the hard reality in Chinese societypersistence of traditional Chinese cultural values and of resistive forces from the social institutions such as the government, media, and family.

Persistent traditional Chinese values
Traditional Chinese values originated from Confucian cultural ethos (Jochim 1992;Yao 2000), which is a collectivist-based value system that emphasizes and glorifies collective interests over individual rights (Guo 2012). In China, which has long been a collectivist society (Fiske 2002;Hofstede 1984;Hofstede and Bond 1988), consumers are "we" oriented, their "self" identity is primarily an interdependent self that is based on the social system (Lu 2001), in which family interests are placed above those of individuals within it (Wu and Tseng 1985). The loyalty and piety to parents, and extended to employers and government officials, is highly valued (Liu 1986).

These cultural values have long lasting implications for consumption in the
Chinese context, such as Chinese individuals' long valued self-control (Ho 1994), thriftiness, suppression of desire, delay in gratification through consumption (Pan et al. 1994), and emphasis on mian zi, or face, and guanxi, or social networks (Jap 2010). In addition, Chinese consumers have a holistic view of harmony that relates to not only themselves but, more importantly, other individuals; and hence their purchase decisions must suit not just themselves but also the larger social context (Hsu 1972). In addition, rather than use consumption by 'the independent self' for self-expression, those with an interdependent self-construal tend not to rely on objects for self-expression but to show similarity with their reference group (Aaker and Schmitt 2001).

Resistive forces from the social institutions
Another source of persistence of traditions is the set of resistive forces emanating from three major social institutions: the government, the media, and the family.

Government:
In an effort to fill the ideological vacuum left by the sidelining of Maoism (the form of Marxism-Leninism developed in China), a form of Confucianism has been glorified and championed by the Chinese government (Tse, Belk and Zhou 1989) as both a new national code of conduct, emphasizing the traditional value such as collectivism, self-control, harmony, thrift, industry, education, and as a symbol of national identity (Guo and Guo 2008 (Kahn 2003), and used more traditional values compared to foreign brands that use more modern values (Zhang and Harwood 2004;Zhao et al. 2013). Especially since 2006, there has been the increased use of collectivism appealindividuals are portrayed as integral parts of the group and the emphasis is on the family tie (Cheng and Schweitzer 1996) which illustrates the strong influence of local culture on consumer behavior (Zhao et al. 2013). Indeed, excessive use of global/western appeals in contemporary China may backfire and may cause audience confusion due to Chinese preference for local heroes and local values (Zhou and Belk 2004).

Family:
The family has been a major arena for socialization of children, laying the foundation for their identity, as "parents were the primary source of children's exposure to their culture's language" (Maccoby 1992). Growing up in different circumstances characterized by frugality and collectivism, the parents of the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers, as trainers or transmitters of culture, passed down the traditional Chinese cultural values to the younger cohorts. In the meantime, the parents of the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers have high expectations for their only child to "maintain or improve their family's social position' (Stockman 2000, p. 112)

Summary and Discussion of the Historical Analysis
Before turning to the next major section of the chapter, which is based on field observations and interviews in China, it is useful to create here an interim summary of the more macro-level and historical account of the tussle of modern Internet-based trends and the traditional Chinese values, a tussle that shapes the overall context of virtual consumption in China.
Internet and other technologies have expanded the consumer marketplace to online consumer "marketspace" (Rayport and Sviokla 1994). In the online marketspace, the recent trend entails a gradual shift from consumption of regular material goods to virtual goods (Lehdonvirta 2009). The transforming Chinese society is confronted with "a culture of desiring, consuming individuals yearning to be fulfilled" (Yang 1997), which has extended to the virtual world and virtual consumption. The historic narrative, in this section, places the issue of virtuality and virtual consumption in the appropriate environmental context, and provides a perspective of a larger placerealityby documenting the continuous and discontinuous factors (i.e., economic, political/legal, sociocultural) that, interwoven together, condition virtuality and virtual consumption in China (see Table 4.1 for additional details).  Maoism fell, and traditional "we culture" was being seriously challenged by the rising "me culture" that came with the globalization and economic growth. The growth of the virtual world provides Chinese consumers with access to the new consumption experiences and more resources for fun and experimenting with their identities. But the offline social "real" reality still dominates and constrains the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers' everyday lives and consumer behaviors, and the predominant social ideology is still rooted deeply in the minds of the Chinese youth. In addition, as the only child in family, they are expected to assume the traditional and even bigger responsibilities for the familyparents and two sets of grandparents.
All of above point to the radical disjunctive splits or "suspensions" that exist between online virtual worlds and offline real physical world, in terms of sociality, relationships and identities (Robbins 1996), which is manifested particularly strongly in China. The Chinese post-1990 generation consumers have to deal with conflicts such as online liberating consumption vs. offline social responsibilities and expectations, online "me" vs. offline "we" cultural ideologies, online ideal selves vs. offline traditionallyconstrained self and relationships with social others.
Consequently, many questions arise with regard to the "suspensions" between these forms of newer, emergent and traditional, established conditioning. For example, consumers who have these aggregate selves might have to bargain with or confront one another when facing a potential consumption choice (Ahuvia 2005;Bahl and Milne 2010). One extreme end of the continuum of virtual consumption is the phenomenon of Internet addicts -"lost sense of place" (Meyrowitz 1985). China's Internet-virtual culture has been under criticism for being irresponsible and damaging to the psychological wellbeing of the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers, but most the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers appear to be able to re-localize and re-realize the reality, and seem to navigate and strike an optimal balance between virtual worlds and RL.
This historical background and narrative sets the context for the analysis of place making practices by the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers, engaged in navigation and negotiation between RL and virtuality and the role of virtual consumption.

Emergent Field-based Themes and Interpretations
This section presents empirically developed insights about the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers' experiences of navigating between two places -RL and virtuality which defines and frames the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers' virtual consumption practices, and throws light on the roles of virtual goods in relation to this overall, blended RL-Virtual experience. The participants described the developed virtual consumption strategy that reconciled virtuality with what they saw as the long-enduring values of the RL, like family and tradition, and the process of the compromise and the negotiation by which they tried to strike the balance between the aggregate self and develop a coherent "self". In some instances, discursive theoretical concepts were brought in to interpret the insights that were not overtly explicit in the transcripts and notes. The themes are summarized in Table 4. 2.

Virtual Consumption as a New Institution
Previous studies (e.g., Fırat and Dholakia 1998) indicate that in modern society, consumption has become an institution, where "modern social and political institutions have been under attack from the postmodernist and other counter modern discourses….The void created by their dissolution has been filled in by the market" (Fırat and Venkatesh 1995, p. 245). Consumers take control of their lives through consumption, and identity is no longer based on family name or social class (Giddens 1991). Rather, construction of self is the responsibility of the individuals (Taylor 1989), and it is through the consumption decision of products and services, consumers construct, project and communicate their identities to others (Fırat and Dholakia 1998 Underlying ranging from selves that may be akin to the real self to selves that are vastly different from the real self in RL (Turkle 1995;Wynn and Katz 1997 Virtual consumption, as a new institution, also facilitates the realization of materialistic and hedonistic values. By definition, materialism is the importance a consumer attaches to consumption objects (Belk 1985). In RL, accumulation of consumption objects can be either an end in itself or a means for achieving higher goals (Chaplin and John 2007). Similarly, in virtuality, especially in MMORPG, consumers attach great importance to virtual goods as they are "both goals to be sought after and the means to accomplish further goals" (Boone 2008, p. 23).
According to Boone (2008), the virtual goods could be "constructed, found, won, which helped me become a superhero in the game. My fantasy came true.
As such, compared to constructing or winning virtual goods through tedious and no-funat-all work or skills that need to be acquired, purchase and use of virtual goods helps the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers realize quickly the hedonistic values that are always associated with pleasure, arousal (Campbell 1987), fantasies, feelings, fun (Hirschman and Holbrook 1982), and "enjoy now" consumption ethos (Lin and Wang 2010).

Cultural Capital
To the Chinese post -1990 generation consumers, individualization process is not simply a replica of that in the West (Chu et al. 2012), as there is no required social support for individualism in China (Belk 2014). While virtuality and virtual consumption have provided a meso environment that facilities the rise of individualization, Chinese consumers have to deal with persistent traditional Chinese cultural values and resistive forces from the social institutions such as the government, the media, and the family.
Therefore the individualization process in China is characterized by "an extensive negotiation among citizens, social structures and institutions on the one hand, and the logic of capital on the other" (Chu et al. 2012, p. 110).
During the interviews, several participants shared their experience of engaging in virtuality and virtual consumption, and described the importance of digital literacy and virtual literacy. Both digital literacy and virtual literacy fall into the category of cultural capital that is defined as cultural habits, knowledge, skills, education, and competences of individuals (Bourdieu 1998). Specifically, digital literacy refers to a special kind of mindset and knowledge that enables users to access and perform in digital environments (Gilster 1997 In virtual worlds, as the participants described, it also takes some specialized knowledge, or virtual literacy -"the ability to manipulate, structure, coordinate and thus, signify all kinds of signs verbal, visual, etc." (Fırat 1996, p.186 image of "hexie", or crab, meaning "it is going to be censored". Li is not alone. It was reported, in 2007, that over 80 percent of Chinese consumers aged 15 to 20 were using Martian Language (Jiang 2008). As such, "the secrecy that such pseudonyms offered and the obscurity of the characters used meant that 'Martian' became for those born in the 1990s their own kind of 'secret password'" (Clark 2012), and that gives them a sense of identity.
To master the Martian language, however, is not easy and takes some serious Consumption of virtual goods also takes cultural capital. For example, Hou complains： I bought the weaponry in World of Warcraft, but I did not know how to use it effectively, I was laughed at by others in the Internet café, as I had such advanced weapon, but I still lost the game. How come? You know I am a straight-A student in class and I am smart. I really lost 'face' playing the game that proves I am not that smart at all.
Face, mentioned by Hou, refers to a sense of favorable social self-worth that a person wants others to have of him/her in a relational and network context (Goffman 1967), which is especially important to Chinese consumers (Jap 2010). Lack of cultural capital produces a general sense of disempowerment in the marketplace (Üstüner and Holt 2007), which leads to the sense of losing face. To Chinese consumers, including the post-1990 generation consumers, losing face is a big blow to their sense of self.
Conversely, presence of "cultural capital secures the respect of others through the consumption of objects that can only be consumed by those few who have acquired the ability to do so" (Holt 2000, p.218 But not all the participants are so interested in developing the cultural capital to individualize their avatars, neither do they want to spend time and money on it. As one of the participants, Ding, puts it, when asked whether and how she individualizes her avatar: You are not going to believe this, but I have not learnt how to individualize my avatar yet. I just used the freebies which could be automatically attached to your avatar once you have ordered it. I never paid for customization of my avatar. Why I should when they (QQ) give out [free things] every month? Well, the freebies are not that great, but not that bad either. The best part is it is free.

Manipulated degree of virtuality
Virtuality has evolved from novels, comics and movies to MMORPG and later to the social virtual worlds. Thomas and Brown (2009)  Hangzhou revealed the "clustering pattern"players of the same team sitting togetherdescribed by Wang and Mainwaring (2008). Such experiences of changing the degree of virtuality is also described in Slater's study (2002)  Conversely, almost of all the participants reported that they want to find out others' real identities. Some of them would like to initiate a phone/video chat with the friends they made on QQ, which gives them a better sense of who he/she really is, and sometimes determines whether the relationship would continue further or end. Such desire to manipulate/manage virtuality is largely due to their realization that they have crossed the boundary of RL and entered the realm of virtuality where the truth takes extra effort to discover. Ding says: It is just risky. You never know for sure who you are going to meet via QQ. With their faces behind the screen, they can be anything but what they told you. I want to find out.
The manipulated virtuality experience described by the participants is consistent with the Slater's study (2012) that the experience in virtuality could be more embodied and "real", giving an authenticity to the one's presence by allowing verification of some identity claims.

"Embodied" virtuality and consumer ubiquity
In the era of Web 2.0 and ongoing Web 3.0, ubiquitous digital infrastructures (e.g., GPS, Bluetooth, RFID), and increasing adoption of smartphones (e.g., popularity of convergent mobile phones with multiple functionalities such as voice, media, GPS, and data), set the stage for ubiquitous computing and ubiquitous access to virtualityindependent of time and location. China has over 816 million smartphone users in 2015, which included over 170 million on its 4G network and 223 million on 3G (Perez 2015).
The Chinese post-1990 generation consumers represent the most active users of smartphones (Moshinsky 2015). In this dissertation research, among 13 participants who use social virtual worlds and/or online game worlds, 8 of them access virtuality via smartphone.
In contrast to virtuality that "seeks to create a world within a computer", ubiquitous computing "seeks to place computers throughout the world" (Boone 2008, p. 26). With the unfolding ubiquitous computing, virtuality becomes "embodied", because "the ubiquitous characteristics that spring from high levels of embeddedness and connectivity are present in virtual worlds" (Boone 2008, p.27). As such, virtuality is more a piece of real time and space integrated into the flow of mundane living of consumers in such a way that interacting with them cannot well be understood as a visit to another world. In a sense, the virtual and real are beginning to meldin spaces physical as well as electronic (Biehl-Missal and Saren 2012). And consumers are taking advantage of the ubiquitous computing to manipulate the degree of virtual. Qin points out: I like using the "people nearby" function on my QQ to find the random people nearby, if I am bored and have nothing better to do. It is still virtual, but I could choose the persons I would like to talk to, based on their location. As a matter of fact, I would say it is more real than communicating with strangers via telephone which does not have such functions.
Such ubiquitous and continuous access has created marketplace ubiquity, especially in virtual goods markets, because of virtual goods' intangible nature, making it possible for an average consumer to engage in the consumer role anytime and anywhere (Dholakia 2012). Previous studies (e.g., Banerjee and Dholakia 2010) show, however, that not all consumers choose to be ubiquitous. The concept of consumer ubiquity is defined as "an individual propensity to shop online independent of immediate physical situation" that captures individual differences in anytime, anywhere shopping orientation (Banerjee and Dholakia 2010). One participant, Ding, an "anytime-anywhere" type of consumers (Banerjee and Dholakia 2010), says: Another participant, Wang, a type of "domestically rooted" (Banerjee and Dholakia 2010) consumer, prefers to shop from private, controlled spaces in RL. She explains: I prefer to do any transaction on my own laptop which has the firewall and the anti-virus software installed. I play games and talk to my friends on QQ on cellphone, but I never bought any virtual goods on my cellphone. Better safe than sorry. For me, it is for peace of mind.

Video Game Arcade vs. Virtuality
Like in the western world where the gaming arcades provided the first consumptionscapes (i.e., culturally shared consumption styles and patterns, with discernible boundaries and connections, see Ger and Belk 1996) of shared gaming cultures in connective consumption settings, the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers were introduced to virtuality first through video gaming arcades. Some of the participants in this study had experience playing in video game arcades back in the day before the ban put on video game arcades by the Chinese government came into effect in 2000. When they described their experience with virtual goods in virtuality, they often compared it with their experience in video game arcades.
On the one hand, the participants enjoyed buying and trying various virtual goods and expressed their rationale for the purchase of the virtual goods: they noted that the primary difference in contemporary MMORPG (compared to video arcades) is that the virtual goods that were previously only accessible by level advancement in video games are now readily available for purchase in MMORPG. Many participants mentioned that they enjoyed the virtual swords, machine guns, etc., that help them to advance in the game. The effort-free advancement in the game is the motivator for many participants, especially those that are less skilled at the games. Liang explains: This negative perception toward the virtual goods in MMORPG came from the lack of fair competition and egalitarian spirit that the participants usually found in the games they played in video game arcadesthe games in arcades were designed to test players' skills, and arcades became places where people "were able to enter a world based purely on talent and hard work, not social status. The resulting social element of game play has always been one of the medium's appeals" (Williams 2006, p. 234). Such negative experience also could be contributed to the mirror image of RL in virtuality where the Chinese post-1990 generation lost their cultural capital advantage and had to turn to the economic capital they possessed or lacked.

Identity Conflicts
The Chinese post-1990 generation consumers are challenged to maintain a trajectory of simultaneous growth of identities in both RL and virtuality. Many participants described their challenges as being "betwixt and between" fragmented/aggregated selves (Newman 1997 Besides identity conflict that is related to time and money concerns, the cultural contradiction between collectivism and individualism also creates a contradictory experience of self with a consistent theme of "guilty" and "struggling". Such cultural contradiction specific to the self is the conflict between "me" culture and "we" culture, and the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers are pulled in different directions. On the one hand, virtual worlds provide the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers opportunities to be individual, where their virtual consumption centers on the free selection of identitiesa collection of avatars of their choices in different virtual worlds. On the other hand, the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers have been socialized in the cultural belief of collectivism that emphasizes interdependent self, selfcontrol (Ho 1994), thriftiness, suppression of desire, delay in gratification through consumption (Pan et al. 1994), and images portrayed by the media about their role of self as a member of group. As the product of one child policy, they are fully aware of their responsibility as a son/ daughter to the family. Even though since 1979, the economic reforms have considerably diminished the danwei's role in the construction of Chinese consumers' identity, the Chinese government continues to demand that individuals have unified group identities and uses the hukou registration system (based on the family origin) to implement collectivism in China (Cheng and Selden 1994). Hukou system categorizes the population into different social groupsrural vs. urban (Cheng and Seldon 1994), and places restrictions on where consumers can live, what type of benefits they can enjoy (Afridi et al. 2015), and what kind of consumption options are available to them. For example, migrant children from countryside are not allowed the education opportunities in cities due to their inherited hukou, which limits their cultural capital growth and upward social mobility and consequently the chance to change their identities in the Chinese society. Finally, the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers were expected by family, college, and other social institutions to have unified and homogeneous group identity (e.g., a good son/daughter in family, a good student in college, etc.) as well.
As the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers increasingly navigate between virtuality and RL, which is premised on their different identities, they struggle with the competing cultural ideologies and demands between virtual worlds and RL -the "me" culture in virtuality is reflected in their desires, and characterized by the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers' fantasy and variety seeking experiences in the consumption of virtual goods (as discussed in section 4.5.1virtuality as new institution Such boundary-work, termed by Nippert-Eng (1996) as "never ending, hands-on, largely visible process through which boundaries are negotiated, placed, maintained, and transformed" (p. xii), is practiced by the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers to reconstruct the boundaries between virtuality and RL, between work and play, and between two spheresone is to earn money (or to study, in order for the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers to get prepared to earn money), and the other (virtuality) is for consuming that money (Fırat and Dholakia 1998).

Classification of Virtual Goods
Over half of virtual consumption in China is on virtual goods for instant messaging service and QQ Space, as opposed to other countries where most spending on virtual goods is in social games and in online MMORPG categories (Su 2010). The Chinese cultural ideology plays a role in this consumption pattern difference.
The consuming-as-classification metaphor in Holt's consumption typology describes how objects are used for classification when consumers use the meanings associated with the objects; also, manners in which the consumers experience the consumption object can serve to classify (Holt 1995 In contrast with the virtual goods for MMORPG category that has negative cultural meanings in the Chinese context, the virtual goods used in social games represent an alternative as it involves similar kind of fun consumer can get from MMORPG, and in the meantime helps consumers develop and sustain the relationship with their friends. In contrast with virtual goods in social virtual worlds, the virtual goods used in social games expand on self-expression by layering on even more social features (Su 2010).
Overall, the interviews revealed that the way that virtual goods gain meaning and are consumed is a constant negotiation between the understanding of the dominant culture and the reinterpretation of meanings by the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers.

Segmentation of Social Others and Virtual Gifting
With over 150 friends in virtual worlds, Liang says: While several other participants also are proud of many friends they have in virtuality, they constantly used the expression of "virtual" vs. "real", and made a distinction between these two friend groups, when they described their relationship with social others in virtuality.
When asked whether they have had met any "virtual friend" offline and attempted to develop into real friend, one participant, Xie says: I tried with a virtual friend who happened to be based in Hangzhou city as well, but that did not turn out well as when I finally met him in person… he acted like another person, different than the person I knew from QQ.
Most of participants said they did not have such experiences, citing different reasons. Some mentioned economic concerns that they do not have money to meet the virtual friends or they do not want to spend money on meeting with virtual friends they do not know in person. Two of the participants said the reason was their safety concern that raised from local media coverage of the tragic incidents of meeting with virtual friends resulting in robbery. Interestingly, one participants also related his concern to his one-child status which entails the social responsibility to go back hometown to take care of the family and he would like to meet a girl of the same city or surrounding area.
Despite different reasons cited by the participants, the practice by the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers to segment virtual from real friends is similar to that found in the western world. Previous research shows that while virtuality has enabled teens to reach out to people from all over the world, the vast majority of them, however, still define their friends as "peers they met in school, summer camps, sports activities, and places of worship" (Arum and Beattie 1999). The finding is also consistent with previous study (e.g., Livingstone and Bober 2005) that the young consumers use virtuality to build local networks rather than extending their networks beyond, although it has that potential.
This does not mean that the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers do not value the virtual worlds as a site for socializing and building social capital. As one-child of the family, they would like to build relationships with others in virtuality. The findings of this dissertation research show, however, that they do not usually invest much time or money in it. This approach to social relationship refers to bridging social capital that relates to social ties between individuals with weaker tiesthe loose connection between individuals without emotional support (Parks 2011).
In China's market, one important way for consumers to maintain, harmonize and enhance interpersonal relationships is through gift giving (Belk and Coon 1993), which now extends to virtuality, as the technology makes bridging social capital cheaper and easier (Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 2007). As one of the participants, Li, says: On the other hand, participants revealed that the virtual gifting is not that common among their real friends, because "gifts can partially represent or reflect the quality of the relationship between gift giver and receiver" (Sherry 1983)

Save money, Save time -Utilitarian Approach/Excuse to Virtual Consumption of Hedonic Nature
As the interviews went on, a theme began to emerge, that can be termed "save money, save time". Many participants reported that the reason to engage in virtual worlds and purchase and use of virtual goods is to save money, save time. Tan says: For entertainment, playing (online) games is the cheapest. A movie of 1.5 hour long could easily cost me over 70 yuan, playing game or talking to my friends via QQ avatar costs me far less.
Another participant, Qin, expressed a similar rationalethat purchasing and using virtual goods is to help save money: The virtual goods I got from game were truly amazing. The sword in Journey to the West is really a bargain and only costs me 15 yuan. It is like a saving of 10 hours of mine digging in the game to get the same type of sword. Considering the Internet access fee in the Internet Café I go to is 2 yuan per hour, this purchase is a good buy.
Behind such a theme of "saving money" in virtual consumption of hedonic nature is a mismatch between aspirations and their economic capital in RL. On the one hand, the economic growth in China since 1979 has led many of the post-1990 generation Chinese consumers to aspire to high life, and indeed, more and Chinese consumers are engaging in consumption for hedonic reasons rather than for only utilitarian needs, especially the younger generation (Chu and Ju 1993). On the other hand, their economic capital was not enough for them to live their aspired life in RL and they are under constant economic pressure. So, many of the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers channel their aspirations into virtuality, which is affordable and accessible and provides immediate access to their desired high life in an imagined wonderland. Thus, they have an ambivalent feeling and practices towards virtuality consumptionvalidating spending the real money on virtual goods of hedonic nature that is associated with pleasure, arousal (Campbell 1987), fantasies, feelings, and fun (Hirschman and Holbrook 1982), while simultaneously taking a utilitarian approach (e.g., constantly calculating the cost and benefit, saving money, etc.) they learnt from their parents in RL to virtual consumption in virtual worlds.
Some participants expressed the similar utilitarian orientation that is related to the "save time" idea. According to Fırat and Dholakia (1998), there are two spheres of times, one is for work to earn money and the other is for consuming that money to play. In industrial society, however, consumers constantly are under time pressures from work (in case of students interviewed for this dissertation, work in the form of the study tasks in schools and colleges) even during time they are supposed to play and consume. As some participants described, when they go online and enter virtual worlds, their experience is a type of "frenetic leisure -leisure over conscious of its forthcoming rendezvous with work time" (Appadurai 1996, p. 79 The observations conducted during the fieldwork also show that participants constantly used multiple media concurrently in order to squeeze more "play" from the limited hours they set aside, away from their study tasks. As such, the "play" started to take the nature of "work" (Appadurai 1996 I quitted playing game, chat on QQ and purchase the virtual goods altogether, as I realized it is the ultimate way to save money and time.
All of those using virtual goods to save time and save money playing game and QQ I used before to comfort myself are just excuses, because the assumption is still I play the games and QQ that cost money and time.
While Ma is just one of two participants who did not purchase virtual goods, her total stop on spending on virtual goods revealed that participants' "utilitarian approach" to virtual consumption is also a compromise they made. In China's market context, Tse's study (1996) found that "consumption tends to carry negative associations in the traditional Chinese value system . . such anti-hedonic consumption norms may have motivated the Chinese people not to accept consumption as a normative life goal" (p. 353). So, to reconcile the cultural conflicts between two different orientationsutilitarian vs. hedonic, the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers consciously/unconsciously compromise by using the "save money, save time" excuse for their virtual consumption of hedonic nature.

Construction of Coherent Self
"Identity" is defined as a consumer's subjectively perceived sense of self (Belk 1988). Historically, there have been "tensions between considerations of consumers as postmodern fragmented selves and consumers as seekers of a coherent sense of self in CCT" (consumer culture theory) (Patterson and Schroeder 2010, p. 253).
Given increasingly wide selection of consumption choices available to consumers in postmodern society, and consumers increasingly using consumption to construct, project, and communicate their identities to social others, one school of thought (e.g.,  argues that the postmodern consumers are fragmented individuals who live a serial of fragmented and paradoxical consumption moments, rather than to construct a coherent self and/or reconcile identity contradictions. As such, "the individual is freed from seeking or conforming to one sense or experience of being" (Fırat and Venkatesh 1995, p. 253). In contrast, another school of thought (e.g., Belk 1988;Knights and Willmott 1989;Thompson and Hirschman 1995;Ahuvia 2005) considers there is a consistent structure for the self and the possession of consumption objects is part of an extend self. They acknowledge that social forces (e.g., market and consumption) are pushing consumers toward identity fragmentation with more consumption choices (Thompson and Hirschman 1995), but argue that consumers use consumption strategies to overcome the difficulties and create coherent selves (Ahuvia 2005).
In terms of empirical research, the school of thought of consumer construction of coherent self argues that there have "not been many examples of consumers abandoning the desire for a coherent identity" (Ahuvia 2005, p. 172) or of becoming postmodern fragmented selves (Thompson and Hirschman 1995;Murry 2002). In the field of virtuality and virtual consumption research, however, previous studies (e.g., Denegri-Knott and Molesworth2010; Nakamura 2000), from the perspective of virtuality as place of "de-realization", have documented extensively that consumers detach themselves from their real identities in RL and take on various virtual identities of their choice to go on "identity tours" (Nakamura 2000), which resonates with the postmodern theorists' idea of consumers as fragmented individuals (e.g., . As Denegri-Knott and Molesworth (2010)  generation consumers with the opportunities to be the individuals, and for them the virtual consumption revolves around the free selection of identities, which is desirable but otherwise not achievable in China's environment that lacks the social support for individualization. In that sense, such themes partially validate the argument of consumers as postmodern fragmented individuals (e.g., . On the other hand, however, from the perspective of virtuality as practice of "rerealization", the theme has emerged with regards to contradictions among the Chinese consumers' virtual identities and identity in RL when crossing the boundary, due to the long-standing cultural narratives in China -"we" culture, and their practices to reconcile the seemingly paradoxical consumption moments through maintaining/reconstructing the boundary between virtuality and RL. Such practices in this study are in line with the consumption strategies discussed in Ahuvia's study (2005) of consumers' construction of coherent self, including demarcating, compromising, and synthesizing solutions. Table   4.3 maps participants of this study onto these three strategies. Mapping the participants of this study onto three strategies (Ahuvia 2005) not only provides the empirical support to the school of thought of consumer construction of coherent self in general, but also further illustrates that, despite the competing cultural ideologies between RL and virtuality in China, and consequently the different demands and expectation from RL and virtuality, most Chinese consumers could strike a balance between their virtual world experience and their offline daily lives, and develop a coherent perception of self, through the self-control, compromise, and negotiation in the process of virtual consumption.

Summary and Discussion of Field-based Findings
This section discusses virtuality, virtual consumption and the role of virtual goods in the settings of interconnectedness of online and offline lives of the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers not only as users of virtual goods, but also as people whose lives are embedded in unique social, cultural, historical and institutional contexts in China.
Based on the earlier developed theoretical framethe 3P view of virtual consumption (see Figure 2.3)this section views growth in virtual consumption in China that results from and sustains two opposing sociocultural ideologies existing in virtuality and RL: the "me" culture in virtual worlds, reflected in the desire, characterized by fantasy and variety-seeking experiences in the consumption of virtual goods, and the traditionally persistent "we" culture deeply rooted in Chinese society, reflected in the anxiety and distress when facing the different (me-style online) consumption choices and, more importantly, associated coping strategies and practices.
Virtuality is not a given, but is an ongoing "social achievement" (Slater 2002), which takes "reflexive skill" and culture capital. This study shows that the Virtual goods have been adopted rapidly over the past decade by the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers, but in a restrained manner as to resolve the conflicts with the daily responsibilities and traditional cultural values of the offline physical world. One extreme is found in the non-users of virtuality and virtual goods; the other extreme is found in those fully engaged in virtual worlds and consumption, sometimes exhibiting total departure from the real worlds that the construction of self-identity and social relationships with other is in jeopardy (e.g., obsessive gamers called "gold famers", which are beyond the scope of this dissertation). Findings from this study indicate the attitudes toward to virtual consumption is in between these two extremes.
For the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers, everyday life entails moving between different places, including both virtuality (e.g., different virtual worlds of social or gaming kind) and RL (the college, home, etc.). Such navigation between virtuality and RL entails a complex system of cultural meaning-conflicts (e.g., collectivism vs. individualism, thriftiness vs. conspicuous consumption, suppressing vs. liberating of desire), many of which are reflected in the different consumption demands, ambivalent feelings, obligations and responsibilities, and the desires to integrate the virtuality into the RL. Through strategies of self-control, compromise, and negotiation in the process of virtual consumption, the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers strike a balance between their virtual world experience and their offline daily lives, and managein almost all casesto develop a coherent perception of self.

Implications for Marketing Strategies and Actions
With the emergence of broadband internet, and later mobile internet and the  (Slater 2002), and by firms to manage the virtual worlds and consumers Reyes 2013, 2015). Answering those questions requires greater attention to the continuities (re-localization) and connections (re-realization) between the online and offline (Slater 2002, Dholakia and, and the research angle of virtuality as a "social accomplishment" accomplished by consumer through practice (Slater 2002) and as a "social construct" by which marketers mange the virtual worlds and consumers . In other words, the "re-perspective" is a very crucial supplement to the "de-perspective", in order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the intersections of virtuality and RL, the journeys between the two, and the embeddedness of virtuality in RL.

Implications from Perspective of Virtuality as Place
Slater (2002) argues that the dynamics of virtuality cannot be fully understood without an in-depth analysis of the reality such as political economy of access, material and symbolic power, and social conditions that structure the communication and sociality that go on inside virtual domains as well as in RL.
Many companies, however, have been focusing their efforts on designing immersive virtual worlds to engage the consumers, and paying little attention to RL, a bigger place that envelops virtuality and, in the case of China, creates conditions for certain types of virtuality to thrive while also thwarting other forms of virtuality. Grand Theft Auto is the best example here, which was a highly popular game in western world but was banned by Chinese government when introduced to China's market (Andre 2015), because it was perceived by the Chinese authorities as not in line with the Chinese sociocultural values (Nyhart 2012;Andre 2015).
Thus, for the game-makers, virtual world creators, and virtual goods marketing firms, the major implication of reality in China, as a larger place that envelops virtuality, is that companies, in addition to paying attention to the usual virtual design elements, should also focus on the Chinese traditional cultural ideology that focuses on harmony and collectivism and the influences of Chinese social institutions such as government, family, and media.

Implications from Perspective of Virtuality as Practice
Slater (2002)  Marketers need to understand virtual consumption and virtual worlds more holistically and recognize that, as consumers increasingly navigate between virtuality and RL, they have dual presences and dual rolesas both consumption units in virtuality (except for the extreme "gold farmers" that are beyond the scope of this dissertation research) as well as production units (expected for the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers) in RL. The Chinese post-1990 generation consumers face the contradiction of dual presences because of the dual role of being students (and later, as young workers) and consumers.
With rise of "me" culture, and the increased discretionary income and consumption power, the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers, have been able and eager to present in virtual worlds and engage in virtual consumption, as the largest consumer group in China's market. On the other hand, offline social "real" reality, the predominant "we" culture, and the traditional and even bigger responsibilities for the family, however, have dominated and constrained the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers' consumer behaviors, as they were required to be productive students in college and later to be a productive and earning members for society and family. Such suspensions of the dual roles and dual presences in virtuality and RL have been reflected in the concern of time and money they allocate between different demands from virtuality and RL. As such, the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers make consumption decisions concerning expenditures of time and money in virtuality (e.g., spent in games and QQ and various virtual goods), and opportunity costs that represent alternative ways the time and money could have been used in RL (e.g., in studying).
Therefore, besides margin improvement to create intense engagement in MMORPG to appeal to hardcore skilled gamers, marketers need to realize that saving time and money (in virtuality as well as in RL) could be significant motivators for the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers, and there is huge market potential for simple games that are not that time-consuming and thus could attract unwilling-to-spend-majortime-and-money type consumers to enter the virtual worldthe first step towards possible purchase and use of more elaborate and expensive virtual goods. For example, some general-purpose, metaverse style virtual worldssuch as some of the Zynga environmentsattempt to simplify their features and usage so as to attract a large mass of users, and then to sell the virtual goods to consumers. Compared to SimCity and Second Life, game developer Zynga created virtual worlds that were much easier to access for the non-expert users, in other words 'not-so-thick' virtual worlds. Zynga's games such as FarmVille were hailed as strategic ways to cleverly attract consumers (Zichermann 2012). In China, unlike the World of Warcraft (ranked 6 th most played game in China) that has deep storylines and may take gamers three hours to finish a quest, the top three League of Legends , Dungeon and Fighter, and CrossFire, all have simple storylines, and the battle could be finished within thirty minutes (Hanson 2014). In addition, as interviews revealed, some Chinese post-1990 generation consumers do not have time to engage in games that take high learning curve to master the skill of using virtual goods purchased. For such semi-serious users, marketers need to consider simplifying the usage of the virtual goods. In the context of QQ type of social virtual worlds, marketers also need to consider simplifying the process of customizing the avatars. The virtual goods that can be used easily will help the consumers better overcome the time constraints and accommodate their schedule in RL.
The theme of virtual game arcade revealed that the interactions between RL with virtuality create meanings that are both responses to the present (e.g., MMORPG game experience) and reflections of the past (e.g., video game arcade experience) and lead to consumer practices that link culture (e.g., fair play, egalitarian spirit) to particular locations (virtual worlds vs. video game arcade). As such, it is important for virtual goods marketers to better understand the possible other aspects of virtuality in the great context of RL and strike a balance between virtual goods sold and virtual goods earned through effort and skill. This dissertation research provides further evidence for the findings in previous research (e.g., Lehdonvirta 2005) that virtual goods may give unfair advantage to unskilled gamers and alienate some skilled gamers as result, and virtual goods breaks "immersion" experience for gamers. Some possible solutions include only selling decorative virtual goods, not selling functional virtual goods, or for the functional virtual goods sold to have expiration dates (Lin and Sun 2007).
Consumers' approach to technology in general, and internet media in particular, is partly related to their feelings regarding the "ability" and "need" to control their environments (Dholakia 2012). In terms of "ability" to control, some Chinese post-1990 generation consumers do not have the required cultural capital/ability (digital literacy and/or virtual literacy) to engage in virtual worlds and virtual consumption. For example, one of the participants, Ho mentioned he was not able to use the weapon he bought in World of Warcraft properly, and another participant, Tan, mentioned he was not able to make sense out of the maps in World of Warcraft. Previous research indicates that negative consumption experiences could lead consumers to avoid subsequent exposure to situations that could be incongruent with their existing self-concepts (Banister and Hogg 2004). These negative experiences can result in many reactions including consumer resistance . For example, Hou quitted playing World of Warcraft, because experience of losing the game in virtuality did not fit into his self-concept as a smart person in RL. In terms of "need" to control, some consumers, such as Ding mentioned that she continued using the freebies, not feeling the need to control and embellish her virtual environment. She experimented very little with the virtual goods, and was reluctant to develop cultural capital to higher level to better customize her avatar. On the other hand, some other consumers, such as Liu, are highly skilled gamers and would like to better control the virtual environment, and they enjoy spending the time and money on the game and customize QQ avatars. As such, the findings show that consumers' need for control and level of digital literacy and/or virtual literacy, or cultural capital, could be used as an effective market segmentation variable(s), instead of only looking at income and education level, etc. Beyond the individual consumers themselves, it is also worthwhile to take advantage of the internet to collect the data about the consumers' internet connections, and to reach out to such networks to market effectively.

Chapter Abstract
Drawing from previous chapters, this last chapter summarizes and integrates the discussions and the most significant findings from this dissertation research. This final chapter highlights the theoretical, methodological, and empirical implications of the research on virtuality and virtual consumption in general and in China's market context in particular. The chapter concludes with discussion of the limitations of this dissertation research and suggestions for future research directions.

Integrating Discussions and Contributions
The primary objectives of this dissertation research are twofold. First, its purposes is to start a process of theoretical and methodological renewal for study of virtuality and virtual consumption in general. Secondly, the purpose is to apply the theoretical and methodological approachesdeveloped from existing literature and extended via newer theoretical concepts and methodological directionsto analyze virtuality and virtual consumption in China.
Specifically, chapter two and chapter three addressed the research question 1 laid out in chapter one, regarding the current status of research on virtuality and virtual consumption, in terms of theoretical and methodological developments. Chapter two first reviewed and evaluated merits and limitations of two perspectives toward virtualityvirtuality as "place of de-localization and de-realization" and virtuality as "practice/process of re-localization and re-realization", in the context of studies of virtual consumption. The review and discussions revealed that previous studies, from perspective of virtuality as place, have focused on virtual worlds in terms of their particular technical features or content, and their correlation with virtual consumption; and/or virtual worlds as a distinct and imagined culture that is independent from the social context; and on how virtual consumption helps with the realization of identity tourism. Combining somewhat different perspective of virtuality as practice (by consumers) and as process (by firms), this dissertation research focused on the role of consumers in engineering their own virtual consumption experience and developed an integrated conceptual frame to study virtual consumption in their associated social contexts. Such a conceptual frame makes modest theoretical contribution to the existing literature by providing a broader theoretical lens and new research direction that focuses on both virtuality and RL as place instead of only the 'magic circle' of virtuality, consumers' dual presence and dual roles in virtuality and RL instead of presence in virtuality only, and marketing's broader roles in managing the virtual goods and consumersembedded as they are in the broader social-cultural-political contexts in which they resideinstead of focusing solely on design elements that enhance "representation" only.
Chapter three focused the discussion on the methodological challenge and adaptation of ethnography, which is the dominant qualitative research approach to virtuality. From the perspective of increasingly connected and converged virtuality and RL, three forms of online ethnographynetnography, virtual ethnography and digital ethnographywere compared and contrasted, in terms of theoretical assumptions towards the relationship between virtuality and RL (e.g., connected vs. disconnected), methodological procedures and fieldwork (e.g., focus on observation vs. participant selfreporting), and data collection (e.g., data collected from online vs. from both online and offline settings; text-based data vs. graphic data and multimedia data). This dissertation research demonstrated the benefits of using digital ethnography to take advantage of the opportunities offered by Web 2.0 and the unfolding Web 3.0 (e.g., multimedia data), and addressed the emergent methodological challenges. The review and evaluation in chapter two further contributed to the study of virtuality and virtual consumption by suggesting the choosing of methodology based on the research question at hand, collecting various formats of (multimedia) data to generate richer contentwith greater involvement of those studied, and paying special attention to the connection between virtuality and RL.
This dissertation is both conceptual and empirical. After addressing the theoretical and methodological concerns in study of virtuality and virtual consumption, chapter four applied the renewed theoretical and methodological approaches and started an empirical investigation of virtuality and virtual consumption in China, the largest virtual goods market in the world, with special focus on the Chinese post-1990 generation consumers, the largest market segment for virtual goods in China.
Following the 3Ps view of virtual consumption conceptual framework, the investigation was conducted at three levels. The first level of analysis used the historical method to build a narrative of rapidly changing (or dynamic) and persistently unchanged On the other hand, persistent Chinese traditional values (e.g., collectivism/ "we" culture) and constraints from social institutions such as government (e.g., Confucianism glorified and championed by government as national code of conduct), media (e.g., intensive media coverage of collectivism), and family (e.g., traditional values passed down from parents, high family expectation in RL for upward social mobility) have hindered the growth of virtuality and virtual consumption. As such, the historic narrative provided a picture of the mixed forces at work and set the stage for the analysis of consumer practices later in chapter four.
The second level of analysis is to use the observation, digital ethnography, and interviews to collect data and then to examine the research question 3 and 4 (laid out at The third level of analysis is related to the discussion of multiple implications to marketing firms, such as segmenting the consumers based on their cultural capital and need for control, and recognizing the Chinese consumers' dual presence and dual roles in RL and virtuality, etc. While such discussion addressed the research question 5, this dissertation research did not fully delve into virtual consumption from the perspective of virtuality as a process (by firms). This aspect requires further investigation, and offers opportunities to extend the work of this dissertation.
Multiple levels of analysis of virtuality and virtual consumption, put together, contribute to the literature of virtuality and virtual consumption. Also, with these levels of analysis, this dissertation research responded calls for research dealing with suspension between virtuality and RL to demythologize virtuality , research dealing with possible extra links between virtuality and RL (Belk 2013), the way the virtuality is integrated into consumers' daily life (Slater 2002), the research dealing with market context other than western (Belk 2013), and the research dealing with the proper role of marketing in virtuality (Dholakia and Reyes 2013).

Limitations and Future Research
Given the limited time and resources (and access, in the Chinese context), the fieldwork of this dissertation research was only conducted in Hangzhou, a typical major city in China that exemplifies many other cities that have been rapidly changing economically, technologically, and politically since China's economic reform in 1979. This dissertation research utilized the digital ethnography method that focuses on participants self-reporting. Although such self-reporting benefits this research dissertation by allowing participants to convey the real-time richness of their own lives and environments, both online and offline, the data collected has obvious biases, due to social desirability fallacy (Bhatnagar and Chose 2004;Bernardi 2006), especially in the Chinese context where mianzi ("face") has special cultural implications. Future research needs to be conducted with this in mind, seeking ways to go beyond such cultural barriers.
This dissertation research was conducted with the background of China that has been experiencing radical changes over many decades. It is likely that such types of changes will just continue in foreseeable future, but not into an indefinite future. The analysis of this dissertation is based on historical methods and thus can only apply to the particular period of time in history under study. As such, the ongoing changes in China's market, and the larger national context need to be closely monitored and taken into consideration in future research. For example, the one child policy has recently been abandoned and a new two-child policy just came in 2015 (Xinhua 2015), and Chinese government has recently removed the ban that it has put on manufacture and sale of video game consoles since 2000 (CNN 2015).
The focus of this dissertation research is on the consumer practice of virtuality and virtual consumption. While implications of such "practice" to the "process" have been discussed extensively, it still left much space for further investigation that examines the perspectives of marketing firms by interviewing their managers and professionals.
Such study would further add value to the understanding of virtuality and virtual consumption.