Gamifying Media Literacy Education During the Pandemic of Fake News
An online conversation game using examples of misinformation around pigeons to gamify media literacy education.
Project Overview
Misinformation is much like a pandemic: fake news spreads faster than the truth. It is important for the people in our lives to work with us to unpack the information that filters through our online experiences.
Media literacy is often not taught explicitly in schools, leaving us to learn such skills for ourselves at varying paces. And in a media landscape riddled with false information, we are all vulnerable. In this online experience, visitors can learn what it takes to become the antibody by learning different forms of misinformation and useful media literacy tools.
How the project started
The theme of the Seattle Design Festival in 2020 was "About Time". My friend Cat Chang and I designed this game in light of pandemic, where people are inundated with media misinformation. Misinformation is much like a pandemic: fake news spreads faster than the truth. Thus, It is important for the friends and families in our lives to work with us to unpack the information that filters through our online experiences. It's about time to become the antibody to the pandemic of fake news.
The Solution
Research Highlight
Background: We are all vulnerable
Misinformation inundates our everyday life. It's in the radio, on TV, on social media, in people around you, and in ourselves. Yes, we are all vulnerable in front of misinformation, no matter how educated or experienced you are. Misinformation plays tricks on our cognition and psychology. It evolves and mutates like a virus.
- 62% of adults in the United States get news from social media.
- On average, people come across information that they believe is false once a week.
- Some research indicates that falsehoods are 70% more likely to be reposted than the truth.
- 46% of media consumers can’t identify media disinformation.
Misinformation is often conflated with the truth, making it hard to detect false information. Current events today harbor a great deal of fear and anger that is amplified by uncredited and unreliable sources.
Insight Highlight
Beyond intensive desk research, We interviewed 15 people, including journalism professionals, professors in media studies, researchers in information disorder, and general media consumers from teenagers to adults, to learn about their experience with misinformation. Here are some key insights:
1. Misinformation is much more complicated than "Fake News";
2. People need tools to be responsible for the news they consume;
3. Audiences love affirmation;
4. Media literacy has never been more important than now;
5. Intellectual modesty and honesty are more important than being right.
"Fake news is like a pandemic: It spreads faster than truth." — Jaime FlorCruz, CNN
Process Highlight
Empathize with the Characters
We started designing the game by designing the game characters. We designed four young people to make the characters relatable to our target audience. By giving them clear personalities and different challenges in media misinformation, we were able to empathize with them and make them "talk" in their own ways, instead of putting words in their mouths.
Why we didn't go with real-life examples of media misinformation
My initial concept was a progressive problem-solving game using real-life examples of misinformation and their consequences. For example, the misinformation of "5G tower spreading Coronavirus" has created a lot of racism and violence against Chinese people. However, after discussing the pros and cons of using real-life examples, we agreed that this approach could be anxiety-inducing and distracting people from paying attention to the important messages.
Moving on to light-hearted and relatable examples
After brainstorming alternative examples of misinformation that's light-hearted but relatable, I decided to bring in a Pigeon in this story. There are many myths and misinformation about pigeons that people are familiar with. Some have become jokes, such as "pigeons are government surveillance", others still linger in people's mind, like "pigeons are flying rats". By using these examples, we were able to create a story that's humorous yet relatable to our target audience.
Bringing everything to life
On top of having a pigeon to become the conflict of the story, we created a character who has a unique experience with misinformation: he falls prey to misinformation by succumbing to peer-pressure, instead of believing in something that's not true. We want to use his example and learning to show our audience that it's okay to be wrong and make mistakes. It's okay to say "I don't know". But you can always keep seeking for truth and be humble about what you don't know.
Outcome
Learning
Conversation design is about designing personalities
When designing this game, I realized this was not my first time designing conversations. I started as a kid by giving my Barbie dolls conversations. But before I helped them talk, I gave them personalities. The process was the same with this projects: I started by defining the characters' personalities, giving them challenges based on their personalities, and helped them overcome the challenges with different media literacy tools and the guidance of other characters. To me, the characters are beyond fictional: they have ideas and feelings, they make mistakes and they learn from it.
