Newsgames
Subtitle: journalism at play
By: Ian Bogost, Simon Ferrari, and Bobby Schweizer
Contributors: Ferrari, Simon; Schweizer, Bobby
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 235
ISBN-13: 9780262014878
Subjects: Online journalism; Interactive multimedia; Video games
Description: Journalism has embraced digital media in its struggle to survive. But most online journalism just translates existing practices to the Web: stories are written and edited as they are for print; video and audio features are produced as they would be for television and radio. The authors of Newsgames propose a new way of doing good journalism: videogames. Videogames are native to computers rather than a digitized form of prior media. Games simulate how things work by constructing interactive models; journalism as game involves more than just revisiting old forms of news production. The book describes newsgames that can persuade, inform, and titillate; make information interactive; re-create a historical event; put news content into a puzzle; teach journalism; and build a community. Wired magazine's game Cutthroat Capitalism, for example, explains the economics of Somali piracy by putting the player in command of a pirate ship, offering choices for hostage negotiation strategies. And Powerful Robot's game September 12th offers a model for a short, quickly produced, and widely distributed editorial newsgame. Videogames do not offer a panacea for the ills of contemporary news organizations. But if the industry embraces them as a viable method of doing journalism--not just an occasional treat for online readers--newsgames can make a valuable contribution.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [205]-223) and index.
Table of contents: title: Newsgames; title: Current events; title: Infographics; title: Documentary; title: Puzzles; title: Literacy; title: Community; title: Platforms; title: Journalism at play.