Karthika Muthukumaraswamy looks at how games have been used in online journalism.

BlackBerrys, iPods and Kindles are not enough anymore. Let’s add a joystick to the expanding repertoire of tools available to news consumers.

Gaming is often overlooked as a tool for disseminating news. Online games are attempting to explain the economy through the politics of oil, educate users on disaster readiness in the context of Hurricane Katrina and, perhaps more in line with traditional video games, some are exploring the various military operations implemented in the Iraq war. In a strange likeness to fantasy sports, one game allowed people to draft their own cabinet picks for Obama’s then-new administration.

Nick Diakopoulos, a researcher at the Georgia Tech Journalism and Games Project, gives one compelling reason for the media to turn to online games: they offer a format that would wean away from the current emphasis on unusual and inopportune events, focusing instead on more process-oriented journalism. How many times do you hear about a specific incident or event that killed troops or civilians in Iraq, without any knowledge whatsoever of the military operation that caused it?

Interpretive reporting

Another specific application of games is in the particular genre of investigative journalism called “interpretive” reporting. Framing it in the context of traditional interactive news stories, Adam Rice of the Games Project explains how online gaming could take these interactions a few steps further.

In 2005, The New York Times published “Class Matters,” an interactive and highly elaborate infographic detailing financial and social classes in America. The story came to the conclusion that financial classes are surprisingly stagnant in the US, often through several generations.

Rice convincingly envisions this exercise in the format of an online game with an avatar that can toggle between various parameters such as income, education, and occupation to determine his place in society.

If I were to learn the horrifying truth that I am destined to remain in the same financial class as the one I was born into, I might as well have some fun doing it!

This sort of gaming may help inspire the interest of general readers in more serious subjects, and also allow them to determine the stories’ relevance to their own lives.

Educative gaming

Games such as Ars Regendi and Our Courts, produced by Games for Change, on the other hand, are purely educative, providing users a glimpse into the workings of legislative and legal systems respectively.

Other games, including Global Conflicts: Palestine and Latin America allow gamers to understand and interpret complex issues by planting them in the region of interest as virtual scribes with pen and paper.

These exercises take users through a series of real-life events, including bombs, explosions, and personal narratives of people present on scene.

The idea is to allow the reader to be part of the story rather than merely a passive spectator, according to Serious Games Interactive, the Danish company that developed them.

However, games such as these may run the risk of taking the “personal narrative” angle to a whole new level, thus making news one-dimensional and person-centric based on their narrative.

But as Mark Luckie reasons, not every news story can fit into the game format. Nonetheless, the ones that do can garner the kind of interest than no amount of text and pictures probably would.

Relevance and preaching

Diakopoulos points out that, perhaps, games may not be the ideal format for so-called serious journalism. Instead, what if games were used for news items that were more relevant to people in their daily lives, such as, health and financial information?

For instance, Consumer Consequences teaches users about sustainable living, and this animated video produced by the University of Utah educates people on the effects of drugs on the brain.

Educating youth about HIV and AIDS appears to be another useful application of videogame technology since it targets the right demographic while offering useful information.

One of the arguments against online games is that many of them tend to preach. Consumer Consequences has been accused of imposing its environmental views on people. But one might argue that no game is trying to coerce a viewer into doing anything against his will, and moreover, how different is this from the subjectivity of opinion pieces in the mainstream media?

On the other hand, some games allow people to be proactive and take action for causes they care about. For instance, the Darfur video game offers the audience ways to volunteer help, either by sending a message to their local representative or raising awareness in their communities.

Simon Ferrari rightly questions the relevance of some online games in journalism. Is an exercise testing your ability to pass through a virtual security checkpoint really of much journalistic value?

More importantly, could such a game begin to counter the depth of investigative reporting that went into Jeffrey Goldberg’s account of lax security checks in last November’s issue of The Atlantic?

As much as a political game like Ars Regendi may be based on real data and realistic estimations of demographics and budgets, how much are you going to learn about the actual world by creating a fictional nation state, forming alliances, and keeping your virtual populations happy?

Also, could such games be trivializing the grave problems in the real world out there? “PeaceMaker challenges you to succeed as a leader where others have failed,” states a blurb on the home page of this online game, urging users to try and bring peace to the Middle East.

Darfur is Dying attempts to give gamers a glimpse into the life of a civilian in the troubled African region. Users pick a Darfurian avatar and forage for food and water while dodging military attacks.

While this might give an unwitting individual some idea of living conditions in Darfur, could it possibly compare with detailed investigative reports from the region, or the powerful videos here of real Darfurian refugees speaking out to the world?

Not an either-or

The point to consider here is that the two processes do not have to be mutually exclusive, and may even be complementary. Just a couple of years ago, we were wondering if the blogosphere was trivializing journalism; now, most of us, including traditional journalists, are willing to accept the fact that the two can not only live in harmony but also play off of each other.

Similarly, online games could help break down complex topics, and stimulate audience interest in the more mundane ones.

While the significance and relevance of news games is important, so is their format of delivery. MSNBC, one of the few mainstream news sites to try out this concept, has made the gross error of making the game itself unrelated to news content.

In NewsBreaker and NewsBlaster, a user tries to “clear as many bricks or bubbles” as possible while collecting news headlines that have little to do with the game itself. The problem with this approach is that such news is not only easier obtained by surfing the home page, but no more entertaining.

Sites such as Newseum and the New York Times News Quiz use trivia games to engage readers.

SexyPolitics makes it slightly more interesting by offering a virtual striptease for correct answers; however, it’s been observed that users tend to either avoid the striptease altogether to focus on the quiz, or ignore the information on account of the entertainment value.

In order to interest readers and keep them interested, news organizations should come up with ways to incorporate news in video game format without extricating the two.

Nora Paul of MediaShift aptly summarizes the challenges in harnessing the power of gaming technology to disseminate information: keeping gamers happy, while inviting non-gamers into the fold, and imparting useful information without trivializing issues of grave consequence.

The news industry might have its work cut out for it, if it should decide to take this path, but the potential advantages in luring readers, and keeping them may be huge.

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Elections bring out the best in online journalism. News organisations have plenty of time to plan, there’s a global audience up for grabs, and the material lends itself to interactive treatment (voter opinions; candidates’ stances on various issues; statistics and databases; constant updates; personalisation).

Not only that, but the electorate is using the internet for election news more than any other medium apart from television (and here are some reasons why).

PaidContent has a good roundup of various UK editors’ views, and decides blogs, Twitter and data are the themes (more specifically, liveblogging and mapping).

Choice picks include the Telegraph teaming up with the New York Times and RealClearPolitics.com; the Independent teaming up with LiveJournal.; and MSN teaming up with Populus for a “wisdom-of-crowds” predictor. Sky’s interactive map is quite fun too.

Innovation in Newspapers has been running an ‘Election Journalism Caviar’ series, mainly focusing on the journalism itself, but interactive highlights include the New York Times’ Electopedia of candidates’ views and PolitiFact’s ‘Attack File’ scoring the attacks made on candidates.

Chrys Wu has an overview of where to follow the results live online:

“Editors at Yahoo News will be culling election-related photos from [Flickr] and posting them on yahoo.com and news.yahoo.com. Put the word “election” somewhere in the title, comment or tag to be part of the search.

“If you’re going to be out and about, bookmark the Online NewsHour’s mobile site. In addition to updates on the election, there’s a handy list of poll closing times and electoral votes.”

And Reuters has a piece on the use of user generated content:

“The New York Times is asking its Web site visitors to take pictures of their polling places and upload them … Nonprofit group Video the Vote plans to post up to 1,000 video reports, focusing on any problems at the polls … [and] Current TV … through a partnership with social networking sites Digg and Twitter will rely on Internet users to provide its news content. The channel’s TV screen will be a crowded and sometimes disconnected “dashboard” of text and video created or chosen by Internet users.”

Distributed journalism, personalisation, and maps

Current.tv, in fact, is “throwing a social media election party” across a number of platforms – the best example of distributed journalism I’ve so far seen – and also the most fun-sounding.

MSNBC’s results widget is another, more obvious, example.

Yahoo has its own flashy election page, with some interesting indicators, including ‘most blogged about’, and how many people are searching for each candidate. If you’ve read Click, you’ll know how important search patterns are. You can also ‘Create your own scenario’ – personalising the map which you can then email, compare or link to from your blog. (hat tip to Matthew Solle)

CNN also does personalisation with CNN YourRaces: a customisable tracking tool that allows you to follow selected races in real time. The service is also available via CNN’s mobile interface.

And I’ve already written about Google’s creep into content creation with its InQuotes project comparing candidates’ quotes on selected issues.

YouTube is doing Video Your Vote, with a map for navigation and colour coding including ‘Voter intimidation’ and ‘Registration problems’.

And two university students started Map the Candidates, which uses a Google Map to present information about candidates’ visits around the US, and is now hosted at Slate.

Map junkies can get more at 270towin.com (h/t Matthew Solle again) and data junkies can get a stronger fix at Perspctv (thanks EricScherer and Joeri Rodenburg).

Text junkies can get SMS updates from the BBC and the New York Times.

Twitter followers Matthew Bennett, John383 and 10000words also mentioned the Huffington Post, FiveThirtyEight.com, and The New York Times’ ‘Choosing a President’ video.

I’ve said elsewhere that 2004 was the blogged election, 2006 the YouTube election, and this year’s Super Tuesday was the mashup election, so what does that make the 2008 election?

The Twitter Election, if replies on Twitter are anything to go by. Building on its success during Super Tuesday, it has a dedicated Election 2008 site (if only it did the same for similar events outside the US), and has partnered with the likes of Current.tv and techPresident for their coverage, while dozens of organisations are using Twitter for their updates, including the Washington Post and TwitterVoteReport. Also watch out for lost of organisations using liveblogging tool CoverItLive, and a few, including St. Louis Post-Dispatch, using live mobile video streaming tools Qik and Bambuser.

Those are just some of the highlights I can find – I’m sure you have more (particularly from non-English language sources). What’s impressed you in the online coverage? What’s disappointed? 

UPDATE: Gabriela Zago adds: g1 (news portal from Globo) has several interesting infographs explaining the US elections, but they don’t seem to have done one especially for today. O Globo (from the same news organization) has 3 maps (they’re in the bottom of the screen). One of them has quotes from Brazilian people living in the US on what they think about the elections.

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Allison White has written this wonderful roundup of last week’s news for the OJB. But now she’s got a job. Persuade her to do this again in the comments…

Google

-Announced no desire to create content and will respect copyright.

It added face-blur technology to its Street View mapping serivce to protect privacy. Also speculation from Groves Media on whether this technology is more of a threat to civil liberties than CCTV.

Microsoft

-Looking to limit the kinds of computers that can use their low-cost OS, making them poor computers even if they could be better and still be as cheap.

-The Microsoft/Yahoo struggle is still ongoing – rumor has it that Carl Ichan is buying up stocks in Yahoo to replace board members
who will sell to Microsoft. Seems he is replacing board members but his plans are not evident

Twitter

-Poynter did a good roundup of the Twitter coverage of the Chinese earthquake. Also gave news of situation and stories in Burma.

-Twitterfone is a new app for mobiles that allows users to call and leave a voice message, which is translated to text and then posted on Twitter. Has issues like knowing how to end the call.

-Funny meme on Twitter is finishing this sentence: “When Obama wins, …” Mine was “When Obama wins, college will be free and pizza will be subsidized”

Tech

-AP trying to get a button on the iPhone

-Effort underway to make clickstream tracking opt-in only in US. Marketers say it will be the death of their industry, but will most likely be like opting out of telemarketers.

-RIAA and MPAA still insist on using DRM on content bought to limit customer .Microsoft may also be planning to use a copyright ‘cop’ on the Zune for NBC. EA backs down on using DRM after user outcry at the idea

-Wikipedia to become a print edition, some debate about if the authors should get paid but Techdirt says it is non-controversial and they should not be paid.

-The FBI backs off of the Internet Archive – they wanted records of who used it now journalists can rest more at ease

-In the case against Ray Niro, writer of Troll Tracker blog, tried to prove he was not a “real” journalist and could not claim rights as one because he wasn’t trained, was bias and that he was a corporate mouthpiece. Defense took apart the claim of what it really means to be a journalist.

Nimbuzz moving in on Skype’s territory by making an app for both mobile and PC

Comcast bought Plaxo Inc., the social networking site. It turns online address books into online networks.

Other

Bush gave his first online interview Tuesday

Adrian Monck moved to WordPress http://adrianmonck.com/

Social

Quarter of social net users are using their mobiles to be social online in the UK.

Social Networks boom in Europe, projected to reach 107.4 million people in 2012. UK expected to be largest with 27.1 million projected.

How marketers are using social media and how often

Employers continue to ban Facebook and other social media sites at work without recognizing the possible benefits from these sites.

A new social site for health issues is iMedix, and although in beta is pretty poor in the community department. The people on it now are rather ‘happy-go-lucky’ as is some of the content which may not be appropriate for the kind of users it wants to attract (people with health problems)

-Social Networking Sites are now allowing people to basically export their data to other sites: MySpace with a few other partnered sites, Facebook to anyone, and Google to anyone. Although Facebook is closing access to journalists and is looking to take off its 5000 friends limit.

Web

Two sites, Newstrust and Newscred, have set up a system to rate the credibility of Web sites. Buzz Machine says it won’t work because there is just too much bad stuff and too easily discredited good stuff.

LiveNewsCamera.com allows viewers to see the news as it’s happening, uncut. Pope speeches, Iraqi parliament hearings, and the like.

PRWeb now allows users to search for their press releases, although this may bring fewer balanced results in a search

Harry McCracken from PC World has left to start his own tech web site.

A lot of talk going on about Seesmic: consensus seems to be that it is rough now with great potential and it is hard to imbed on some sites.

MSNBC has created a new widget to scroll news and also two games to see main news headlines. Not sure if they’re effective, but they’re trying

Media

Time Warner may be looking to unload that do not transfer well to web (i.e. Coffee table mags)

Using video to truly enhance a story – not having it be a stand alone piece but a short snipit filled with things print can’t show, like emotion.

The BBC will be using the Parliamentary channel coverage to instead cover the Olympics

From Thoughts of Nigel: 3 ways China should handle Western media – give access to reporters, don’t freak out on negative coverage, and work on building a worldwide reputation

ReinventingClassifieds.com is looking to create a new business model to keep the classified section alive

Dutch free dailies are increasing circulation and so are free Italian papers

Irish paper group, River Media, appears to be in trouble and is looking for $16 million in help.

Guatemalan journalist, Jorge Merida Perez, shot dead in his home. He worked for the Prensa Libre.

From Adam Tinworth: The possibility of journalists being paid for increasing defined traffic online is being looked at, although still skeptically

The Liverpool Daily Post liveblogged the making of the paper Tuesday

The INMA drops “newspaper” from their title and adds “newsmedia”

Cablevision buys Newsweek over Rupert Murdoch, but it is also speculated Murdoch might end up with it in a few years anyways

Upcoming book Super Media has some chapters free online and discusses how journalism can save itself and the world through network journalism

Daily Mail site just pulled Flickr photos to write an article about fat pets without asking permission or attributing credit.

Boston NOW closed

Andy Bull writes on the blandness of sports journalism with the double speak and untruthfulness of players, teams and journalists

Wall Street Journal hires on chief technology officer, Sarabjit “Ruby” Walia

But London Evening just cut their media reporter, which is just the beginning of changes there they stated

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MSNBC has a nice ‘Rate the Candidates’ feature on the Democratic candidate debate which shows how the candidates rated before and after the debate. Users can click on any candidate to see a key video passage, and there are links to their pages.

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