The Metaverse of Digital Municipalities: BLD 4.0 V22 / An Analysis of Ankara Metropolitan Municipality

Abstract

The term “metaverse,” which combines the words “meta” and “universe”, refers to a threedimensional virtual world in which constructed avatars engage in political, economic, social, and cultural activities. The word “Metaverse” was coined in 1992 by Neil Stevenson in his science fiction novel Snow Crash and later appeared in the 2011 novel “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline. Metaverse encompasses all types of virtual worlds in which virtual and real worlds interact and create value through diverse social activities. In the Metaverse, digital and physical life coexist, with elements such as wealth, socialisation, productivity, shopping and entertainment, reality and virtuality. Digital municipalities also employ metaverse applications. The Ankara Metropolitan Municipality's “BLD 4.0 V22” Metaverse project, ranked as the world's fourthlargest city after Los Angeles, Bari and Helsinki by the Open Ar Cloud Association, the establishment to set standards for Metaverse, was investigated in this study. The study was conducted by analysing the videos in the BLD 4.0 V22 project as well as the shares in the popular tweet category by entering the keyword “BLD 4.0 V22” in the Twitter application between December 31, 2021, and January 31, 2022. The "content analysis" technique was employed in the research.