“NewsTools2008: A concept/design mashup for journalists, technologists and entrepreneurs”
“Arizona State University student blogger Josh Constine reports on the “10 disruptive technologies” after-dinner discussion on Wed., April 30, 2008 at NewsTools2008 / Sunnyvale.”
Our group on social and civic engagement and gaming saw a number of
bright minds floating ideas about how to tempt an audience into
sustained interaction with a news source. The problem raised was that
as people move to the internet for their news, there are a multitude of
easily accessible free sources.
Therefore, keeping the user engaged to
a single source is the goal. The leader of the group explained that
people enjoy being rewarded through point and other systems for their
interaction and completion of tasks. World of Warcraft, a massively
multiplayer online role playing game known for the huge tracts of time
players spend in the game world, gives points to players for
accomplishments or even just for spending time in game.
A representative from the company Social Chord was in attendance and he
explained his company’s attempt at using gaming to engage a small
community. The company is trying to find a way to engage the community
of New Brunswick, N.J., hoping to pull together educational, social,
religious, and other organizations to address the issue of
gentrification.
The rep explained that New Brunswick is being divided. Moving the city in a direction of higher priced housing and less
authentic culture are Rutgers University, hosting primarily middle to
upper socioeconomic class students, and Johnson and Johnson bringing in
mostly white middle to upper class employees from other locations. The
traditional community, primarily the families connected to the public
school system, many of which are of African or Latino decent, are
attempting to rally against this change, which is eroding existing small
businesses and driving families to the outskirts of the city through
increased home prices.
To encourage involvement in civil planning
decisions and discussion on the issue, the company has created a game
where participants are rewarded with points for attending PTA and town
planning meetings and conducting interviews with citizens and posting
them to a central site. Local high-school students are focused on to do
the legwork and primary reporting. College students from Rutgers are
then asked to edit the work of the high school students before a final
review by editors employed by Social Chord.
In theory, this game
should raise awareness and involvement in the community, while being fun
to participate in for the students. Other members of our group were
impressed with this idea, but had lot of questions about how the game
would actually be scored to make it enjoyable as well as a natural
extension of civic involvement.
I thought the basic method was sound,
but that it needed more incentives to get players involved, such as a
prize of a journalism internship or a feature article in a local paper. Otherwise, I imagined there would be too few players to make the game
and the goals viable.
The problem of luring users could also be solved
when the model is tried in a different market, possibly with an issue
more attractive or dynamic than gentrification at the center of the
game.
Overall, I thought the group spent too much of our limited time
discussing both general questions, and very specific inquiries into the
methods of a certain engagement gaming method. I instead would have
liked to see time spent looking at possible solutions and the stumbling
blocks certain models have circumvented or overcame.