NewsArcade has a clear goal in mind: bringing together journalism and news consumption closely by means of gamification, creating a new format and necessary tools. And to achieve this we have set up a two-year plan. But much was not known at the start of our journey and we already had to take many important decisions along the day. For instance balancing the needs of the casual news consumers with those of educators (more on this in a future post).
To guide us and make sure the project stays relevant the project benefits from the active involvement of an Advisory Board comprised of distinguished experts from various fields and organisations. While we started out with 4 members, we have enlarged it to 6 during the first months of the project. In selecting the members we aimed for balance and diversity. So, who are the external experts advising us?
- Christian Lade Broch-Lips, Editorial Office Director at TV 2 ECHO, who has worked most of his professional career as a journalist producing for younger audiences
- Christos Karpasitis, Assistant Professor in Digital Media at the University of Central Lancashire, who is an expert on UX/UI design for media and user engagement
- Irena Zagajšek, a public relations /communications specialist and journalist with 15 years experience in all media
- Kleovoulos Stylianou, President at Youth for Exchange and Understanding – YEU Cyprus, who has over 10 years of involvement in civil society in progressively responsible roles
- Madelaine Pitt, Journalist & Host at Deutsche Welle
- Raul Ferrer-Conill, Associate Professor at University of Stavanger, whose PhD thesis “Gamifying the news. Exploring the introduction of game elements into digital journalism” provided an important insight into journalism and gamification.
- Simona De Rosa, partner at T6 Ecosystem Srl and an expert on media and creative industry, having been deeply involved in the Italian Digital Media Observatory
Involving the Advisory Board
At the start of the year the NewsArcade consortium met with the Advisory Board members virtually. While individual discussions had been ongoing before, it was the first time that all members were present in the same meeting. At that point in the project we had just finished the research that led to the initial design brief of NewsArcade. So, following a round of introductions and an overview of the project, the design options for the gamified news format were explained. The vast know-how and expertise of the Board became evident during the very interactive discussion which helped shape the final version of the design brief (which you can check for yourself on our website here: https://newsarcade.eu/project-results/).
The Advisors continued to follow the project and got to provide feedback again just as the first prototype was launched. We involved our Advisors in an evaluation workshop to help us answer important questions about the NewsArcade Minimum Viable Product. Their advice during this session was indeed very appreciated as it complemented well the insights gained from journalists, young people and educators.
Follow the project more closely too!
The Advisory Board members are engaged with the project partners also in a Linked-in group and Linked-in Page. You too could join this professional network and get to know us better and gain more insights into the latest work we carry out to mix gamification and news. Or stay up to date with our news by following us on X (@NewsArcade).