Third place

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The term third place , engl. Third place or, more rarely, great good place , describes places in the community in sociology that are supposed to offer a balance to family and work.

Conceptual understanding according to Ray Oldenburg

In 1989 the American sociologist Ray Oldenburg published the work The Great Good Place , in which he presented his concept of the Third Place for the first time. In his opinion, the first place serves work, the second place family life. The third place offers a balance to both and is a meeting point for the neighborhood community.

According to Oldenburg, a third place should have eight characteristics: First, it is on neutral ground, so everyone except the people who work there can come and go as they please. Second, it is basically open to all social classes and social differences are weakened. Third, conversation is encouraged. Fourth, third places are easy to get to. Fifth, they have regulars. Sixth, the appearance of the third place is not above its function, Oldenburg speaks of a "low profile". Seventh, there is a playful atmosphere, overly serious topics are left outside the door. Eighth, the third place serves as a second home or second family.

criticism

The reception of the Third Place quickly caught on beyond sociology. However, he is also exposed to criticism. For example, Charles Soukup Oldenburg contradicts the assumption that third parties are able to remove hierarchies. Soukup also adds that it is a purely western concept. Guido Zurstiege, on the other hand, criticizes Oldenburg for neglecting the fact that the third places he mentions always serve consumption and that only people with the appropriate financial means are able to visit the places permanently and regularly. Oldenburg itself also names third places that are only accessible to adult men.

Front of a Starbucks
Starbucks in Doha: It is debatable whether the chain offers third-party locations.

In any case, it is a very idealized concept, which even many of Oldenburg's third locations could not withstand on closer inspection. Today this is all the more true: New work concepts and techniques that enable people to work from any location make the separation into three locations difficult. This becomes particularly clear with the example of Starbucks . These cafes are often referred to as modern third places, and many people also use them as a place of work, i.e. as a first place, even though Starbucks is not their employer.

Actual third places

According to Oldenburg, typical third places are, for example, German beer gardens, Viennese coffee houses or British pubs. The term is also used by libraries which, after spatial renovations, simply hand over and take back books, turn them into a meeting place with no obligation to consume or a forum for readings or lectures. By contrast, there are hardly any such third places in the USA due to the centralized urban development and the extensive suburbs. According to Oldenburg, the result is stress from the lack of compensation.

Virtual third party locations

In the meantime, the concept has often been applied to virtual places as well. However, the results are different: Constance Steinkuehler attributed all the characteristics of a third place to the MMOG Lineage II , but interpreted them rather freely. In their investigation of a virtual cantina , i.e. a bar, in the MMOG Star Wars Galaxies , on the other hand, Nicolas Ducheneaut, Robert J. Moore and Eric Nickell state that there is a lack of regular guests, so the fifth characteristic is not fulfilled.

However, several authors emphasize that virtual meeting points could, through their inclusiveness, fulfill functions of third places. They would be open to all users, regardless of age, gender or social status. They are easy to reach and there is a playful atmosphere. However, authors such as Soukup or Elizabeth Reid point out that virtual third-party locations require technical equipment and are therefore by no means open to everyone. In addition, there can be strict hierarchies, for example through game levels or forum roles. Likewise, the communication between neighbors in the virtual space, which Oldenburg focused on, mostly played no role and topics of conversation remained focused on certain areas of interest. Soukup in particular therefore advocates speaking of Virtual Third Places as an independent concept.

literature

  • Oldenburg, Ray: The Great Good Place. Cafés, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and other Hangouts at the Heart Community . Marlowe & Company, New York 1999 (first edition 1989).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Charles Soukup: Computer-mediated Communication as a Virtual Third Place: Building Oldenburg's Great Good Places on the World Wide Web . In: New Media Society . No. 8 , 2006, p. 430-431 .
  2. ↑ Guido Zurstiege: The consumption of third places . In: Guido Zurstiege, Kai-Uwe Hellmann (Ed.): Spaces of Consumption. About the functional change of space in the age of consumerism . VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, p. 139 .
  3. ↑ Dan Ritter: 3 reasons it's hard to hate Starbucks. In: USA Today. June 7, 2014, accessed July 21, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Starbucks unfiltered. In: ZDFInfo Doku. March 14, 2019, accessed July 22, 2019 .
  5. ^ Jan Sting: Unexpected windfall for the Burscheider city library. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , November 9, 2019, accessed on November 12, 2019 .
  6. ^ Constance A. Steinkuehler: The New Third Place: Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming in American Youth Culture . In: Journal of Research in Teacher Education . tape 3/2005 , 2005, p. 16-32 .
  7. ↑ Nicolas Duchenaut, Robert J. Moore, Eric Nickell: Virtual Third Places : A Case Study of sociability in massively multiplayer games . In: Computer Supported Cooperative Work 16 . No. April 16 , 2007, pp. 129-166 .
  8. ↑ Elizabeth Reid: Hierarchy and Power: Social Control in Cyberspace . In: Peter Kollock, Marc A. Smith (Ed.): Communities in Cyberspace . Routledge, London / New York 1999, pp. 109-120 .
  9. ^ Charles Soukup: Computer-mediated Communication as a Virtual Third Place: Building Oldenburg's Great Good Places on the World Wide Web. In: New Media Society . tape 8 , no. 8 , 2006, p. 424-429 .
  10. ^ Charles Soukup: Computer-mediated Communication as a Virtual Third Place: Building Oldenburg's Great Good Places on the World Wide Web. In: New Media Society . No. 8 , 2006, p. 432 .