20 July 2024
NewsArcade introduces global stakeholders to Author: an immersive new tool to counter news avoidance
From Elsinore and Copenhagen in Denmark, to Lithuania – and online – NewsArcade is connecting with global news leaders and Gen Z’ers, to show how gamification can revolutionise news consumption in young adults.
A Global Youth News Lab in Denmark at the end of May was the springboard for a series of presentations that saw NewsArcade – Seriously Play the News, the world’s first game based on real, verified news, demonstrate the value and appeal of its Author Tool.
Led by journalism lecturer, author and media project developer Aslak Gottlieb, the interactive workshop was designed to both determine 7 Global Youth News Values, dubbed The Copenhagen Criteria, and to introduce NewsArcade’s Author Tool, a game aimed at boosting media literacy and critical thinking skills in youth – and so, address the increasing challenge of news avoidance.
“The game is based on the same journalistic principles as daily newsrooms, with verifiable research and trusted sources – and some of the algorithms in the game are actually based on news values,” explains Gottlieb.
Meeting the world at the Congress
Gottlieb also introduced NewsArcade-Seriously Play the News to attendees at a World Editors Forum session on How to Sell Your Journalism to News Avoiders at WAN-IFRA’s 75th World News Media Congress.
The session was attended by global journalists, newsroom leaders and industry professionals, and featured news media experts Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, UK and Dr. Ruth Palmer, his co-author of Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism, as well as a representation of global Gen-Z’ers, who presented The Copenhagen Criteria.
Beyond borders: extending our reach
In June, NewsArcade project leaders Elena Perotti and George Ioannidis gave the same presentation to global participants at the hybrid Youth Dialogue on Internet Governance (YOUthDIG) event in Vilnius, Lithuania. YOUthDIG is an annual pre-event to EuroDIG – the European iteration of the Internet Governance Forum – aimed to foster active young adult (ages 18–30) participation.
About 30 participants from various European countries, representing various disciplines – such as engineers and lawyers – had to undergo a rigorous selection process, including detailing their experience and motivation. As most were new to the Internet Governance field, they also had to complete four webinars prior to the event, to introduce the topic.
At the end of June, NewsArcade extended its reach, and presented two identical webinars (24 June, and 1 July) to a selection of European publishers within the WAN-IFRA community, to encourage early adoption of what will soon be the only game on the market based on real, evolving news.
The interactive Author Tool is designed by a collaborative team of game developers, researchers, publishers and educators to promote critical thinking by uniting journalism and news consumption in gamification.
What’s more, the game provides a fresh approach to education and training for newsrooms and journalism educators.
What we learned
Gen Z wants news content, and even actively seeks it – but not in the shape and form that legacy media is delivering, and with transparent values that are important to them. A trial run of NewsArcade’s Author Tool challenges common conceptions of how news is produced.
About NewsArcade-Seriously Play the News
NewsArcade is a European project aimed at addressing the rising challenge of news avoidance by combining journalism with gamification. Now in prototype phase, this two-year project, started in October 2022, has undergone stringent trials, pilot tests and iterations ahead of its official launch in August.
NewsArcade is co-funded by the European Education and Culture Executive Agency as part of Creative Europe- Media, and involves eight partners from five European countries.
They are: DIAS Publishing House (Project Coordinator, Cyprus); Portaplay (Denmark); Sud Ouest (France); WAN-IFRA (France); L’Association de la presse d’information générale (APIG, France); The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, (NISV); University of Southern Denmark (SDU) & IN2 (Germany).