Interactive documentary and the reinvention of digital journalism, 2015–2020

2021 ◽  
pp. 135485652110594
Author(s):  
David O Dowling
Keyword(s):  
Game Design ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Hybrid Form ◽  
Evolutionary Trajectory ◽  
Digital Journalism ◽  
Advocacy Journalism ◽  
Immersive Media

Interactive documentary (i-docs), an innovative hybrid form at the intersection of film, journalism, and digital games, has matured beyond its first wave of experimentation, gaining distinction among the most highly evolved immersive media of the twenty-first century. The latest generation of i-docs is currently winning accolades at both major film festivals and game design summits. This study charts the evolutionary trajectory of North America’s most recent and influential wave of i-docs in works mostly appearing since 2015. It culturally situates i-docs as immersive media that extend experimentation with narrative journalism into the realm of fine art and social activism. Building on the foundation of activist, highly empathic news experiences established in the early 2010s, the most recent advances in i-docs range from live action VR to animated digital games. Such works include the Canadian National Film Board’s 2018 AR (augmented reality) experience East of the Rockies, Occupied’s 2019 Cannes entry The Holy City VR, Roger Ross Williams’ 2019 Tribeca debut Traveling While Black, and iNK Stories Verité VR Series’ 2017 Blindfold and Hero, winner of the prestigious Storyscapes Award at Tribeca in 2018. The vanguard of i-docs has expanded collaboration between film, news, and digital game industries to provide new forms of citizen engagement through advocacy journalism aimed at social and political change. Through the use of John Pavlik’s (2019) critical framework for understanding immersive journalism, this article examines the texts, producers, and industrial contexts of the most recent and influential North American i-docs, as one branch of the form defined by Gaudenzi, Aston, and Rose. Principles of transparency, social responsibility, and a commitment to veracity in i-docs epitomize the esthetic and political potential of digital journalism as an empathic alternative to traditional news coverage.

Will Love Tear Us Apart: Adapting the Lyrical to the Ludic

CounterText ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-235
Author(s):  
Gordon Calleja
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
The Core ◽  
Lyrical Poetry ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Made In

This paper gives an insight into the design process of a game adaptation of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart (1980). It outlines the challenges faced in attempting to reconcile the diverging qualities of lyrical poetry and digital games. In so doing, the paper examines the design decisions made in every segment of the game with a particular focus on the tension between the core concerns of the lyrical work being adapted and established tenets of game design.

Player Types, Play Styles, and Play Complexity

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Javier Rademacher Mena
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Main Work ◽  
Play Styles

In a previous work the author created the Education and Entertainment Grid by combining various taxonomies from the fields of play and learning. In this paper, a section of this grid known as the Entertainment Grid will be extended by including previously unused elements of Richard Bartle’s online player types and Robert Caillois’ play complexity. This Extended Entertainment Grid is then analyzed, revealing an interesting synergy between both men’s ideas. The main work of this paper, the Updated Entertainment Grid, is then created as a result of this analysis. This grid can be used by teachers as an interesting introduction and application of these taxonomies, by researchers interested in better understanding digital games and their players, and by designers interested in using the grid as part of their game design process.

Ruins of Excess: Computer Game Images and the Rendering of Technological Obsolescence

2021 ◽  
pp. 155541202110053
Author(s):  
Eduardo H Luersen ◽  
Mathias Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Surface Layer ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Industrial Design ◽  
Electronic Waste ◽  
Computer Game ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Design Model ◽  
Design Tools ◽  
Design Models ◽  
Technological Obsolescence

In this article, we describe three layers of ruins related to computer game technology: in a surface layer, we examine the imagery of ruins in digital games, highlighting game design tools for developing in-game ruination. Secondly, we approach the industrial design model of technological obsolescence as an infrastructural layer that intrinsically demands the production of new provisional spaces for material decay. Lastly, through a waste layer, we unfold the geopolitical dimension of technological obsolescence, calling attention to the transcontinental flows of electronic waste, which also underscores a geological stage of ruination. While exploring these different layers of ruins, we wish to perceive how game design models might relate to different forms of contemporary ruination, inquiring what such material traces have to say as strata of the complex deterioration processes of present-day media.

Gerontoludic Design

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob De Schutter
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Population Ageing ◽  
Design Approach ◽  
Design Framework ◽  
Physical Decline

Considering the popularity of digital games among older adults and the challenge of population ageing, this article identified a need for an integrated game design framework aimed at older audiences. An analysis of the literature on play in later life demonstrated how the literature is dominated by two themes, i.e., the benefits of playing digital games and the issue of accessibility. While this underlying model has been demonstrated to contribute to successful designs, it also risks reducing games to its motivational characteristics and ageing to cognitive and physical decline. The author therefore reviewed the literature on game design and later life to develop a design approach that considers the multi-faceted nature of ageing as well as the intrinsic value of digital games. The resulting “Gerontoludic Design Framework” sets meaningful play as the intended outcome of game design for older adults, identifies iterative player-centered design as its preferred design approach, and extends the MDA framework by suggesting age-specific aesthetics and mechanics.

scholarly journals Digital games, cognitive skills, and motivation:

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 123-135
Author(s):  
Daniela Ramos ◽  
Bruna Santana Anastácio ◽  
Gleice Assunção da Silva ◽  
Clarissa Venturieri ◽  
Naomi Stange ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Game Design ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
School Year ◽  
Active Player ◽  
School Learning ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Level Of Motivation

In addition to entertainment, games have been recognized as enhancers of cognition and associated with increased motivation in the school learning context. The possibility of immersion and active player participation is considered a distinguished aspects of game design. Therefore, this study proposed the application of Brain School’s digital games using tablets during a school year, with weekly interventions of 50 minutes in a class of the second year of elementary school. Twenty-five students were analyzed with an average of eight years old. At the end of the interventions, the evaluation was carried out through individual interviews. The results revealed that most of children felt motivated to participate in the games activities. However, there was no association between level of motivation and cognitive skills investigated (attention and problem solving), nor between preferred games and cognitive skills trained. However, qualitative data showed that children liked using games and acknowledged that the activity contributed with the exercise of their abilities. In general, this research contributed to reinforcing the importance of the diversification of methodological strategies which include the use of digital games in education.

Game Design as Part of Disciplinary Curriculum on Pedagogy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Guaracy Silveira
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Abstract Model ◽  
Digital Game ◽  
Graduate Courses ◽  
Interdisciplinary Project ◽  
And Training

Guided by the principles of digital game design, the author proposes a reformulation of the pedagogical objectives and focuses of the pedagogical graduate courses, especially in relation to internship and training stages, in a problem-solving model based on digital games intending to shift the formation of future teachers from an abstract model to a real-life-based problem, thus proposing guidelines for an interdisciplinary project. The chapter summaries this proposal enlisting the necessary structural changes needed to achieve this goal to guide those wishing to adjust their pedagogical projects in a way to insert the digital games as educational devices in their courses without having to remodel the entire existing course. An introduction to the problem is made, its theorical background presented, followed by a contextualization of the Brazilian educational area with the proposition delineated and a conclusion.

scholarly journals Supporting engagement in research through a game design competition

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioanna Iacovides ◽  
Anna Cox ◽  
Dominic Furniss ◽  
Katarzyna Stawarz ◽  
Charlene Jennett ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
University Students ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
Human Error ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Health Care Teams ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Design Competition ◽  
Public Audience

Digital games are an engaging medium that have previously been used for communicating research to a variety of audiences. However, there is an opportunity for engaging people more deeply by involving them in creating games. This article reports on a game design competition, based on participatory design principles and game jam practices, which challenged university students to design games within the context of a research project. Based on their interpretations of research on human error in health care, teams created four games to be disseminated online to a wider public audience. We outline the competition format and reflect on the extent to which it was successful.

Objectivity, False Balance, and Advocacy in News Coverage of Climate Change

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Declan Fahy
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Environmental Journalism ◽  
Advocacy Journalism ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Over Time

Objectivity and advocacy have been contentious topics within environmental journalism since the specialism was formed in the 1960s. Objectivity is a broad term, but has been commonly interpreted to mean the reporting of news in an impartial and unbiased way by finding and verifying facts, reporting facts accurately, separating facts from values, and giving two sides of an issue equal attention to make news reports balanced. Advocacy journalism, by contrast, presents news from a distinct point of view, a perspective that often aligns with a specific political ideology. It does not separate facts from values and is less concerned with presenting reports that are conventionally balanced. Environmental reporters have found it difficult to categorize their work as either objective or advocacy journalism, because studies show that many of them are sympathetic to environmental values even as they strive to be rigorously professional in their reporting. Journalists have struggled historically to apply the notion of balance to the reporting of climate change science, because even though the overwhelming majority of the world’s experts agree that human-driven climate change is real and will have major future impacts, a minority of scientists dispute this consensus. Reporters aimed to be fair by giving both viewpoints equal attention, a practice scholars have labeled false balance. The reporting of climate change has changed over time, especially as the topic moved from the scientific domain to encompass also the political, social, legal, and economic realms. Objectivity and advocacy remain important guiding concepts for environmental journalism today, but they have been reconfigured in the digital era that has transformed climate change news. Objectivity in climate reporting can be viewed as going beyond the need to present both sides of an issue to the application in reports of a journalist’s trained judgment, where reporters use their training and knowledge to interpret evidence on a climate-related topic. Objectivity can also be viewed as a transparent method for finding, verifying, and communicating facts. Objectivity can also be seen as the synthesis and curation of multiple points of view. In a pluralistic media ecosystem, there are now multiple forms of advocacy journalism that present climate coverage from various points of view—various forms of climate coverage with a worldview. False balance had declined dramatically over time in mainstream reportorial sources, but it remains a pitfall for reporters to avoid in coverage of two climate change topics: the presentation of the many potential future impacts or risks and the coverage of different policy responses in a climate-challenged society.

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