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PN 048 Engaging the Readers: An Experimental Study of the Effects of Gamification in News Consumption
R. Ferrer Conill1, C. Uppal1
1 Karlstad University, Media and Communication Studies, Karlstad, Sweden
New forms of storytelling that include game mechanics, such as newsgames and gamification have steadily been incorporated into digital journalism
(Bogost, Ferrari, and Schweizer 2010). By adding game-like features that act as persuasive actors in order to motivate young readers to consume news,
digital publishers aim to attract readers and foster the habit of reading the news. Games cater to specific gratifications, but most importantly feedback to
the user’s experience that fulfil psychological needs and provide intrinsic motivation to seek a more interactive medium (Przybylski, Rigby, and Ryan 2010;
Sherry et al. 2006). This has potential ambivalent implications for journalism and how it is perceived by the public. However, there are currently no empir‑
ical studies that research on how users are affected by gamified news stories and whether reader engagement with the news increases or not. In the fall
of 2014 Al Jazeera release the award-winning news story Pirate Fishing: An Interactive Investigation. Set in the context of illegal fishing in Sierra Leone, this
gamified news story turns readers into players by creating a storytelling interface in which the reader is prompted to consume multifarious types of content,
from text, video, and photos, to different maps, documents, and audio clips. This paper investigates the effects that the use of game mechanics as news
storytelling technique has on readers in terms of interest, motivation, credibility, and content retention. To do so this paper gathers data by conducting
an experiment where the treatment group (n=30) is asked to read Al Jazeera’s article in its original gamified format, while the control group (n=30) reads
the same news story but using the non-gamified traditional news format of the digital news site. This paper aims to empirically test how users react to such
a gamified storytelling technique, and whether journalistic content is experienced and understood differently by creating a playful interface that immerses
the reader in the story. Literature Bogost, I., Ferrari, S., & Schweizer, B. (2010). Newsgames: Journalism at play. Cambridge: MIT Press. Przybylski, A.K., Rigby,
C.S., & Ryan, R.M. (2010). A motivational model of video game engagement. Review of General Psychology, 14(2), 154. Sherry, J. L., Lucas, K., Greenberg,
B. S., & Lachlan, K. (2006). Video game uses and gratifications as predictors of use and game preference. Playing video games: Motives, responses, and
consequences, 24, 213–224.
PN 049 Negotiating the Tension Between News Frame and Game Frame
M. Siitonen1, S.K. Launonen 1
1 University of Jyväskylä, Department of Communication, Jyväskylä, Finland
It has been a little more than ten years since the initial experiments in combining news and digital games, such as September 12th (Frasca, 2003) and
Madrid (El País, 2004). These ”newsgames”, which, broadly speaking, can be understood as an interplay between news and games, or ”news gamified”
have had their share of hope and hype not unlike that of the more general concept of gamification. However, until so far few empirical studies exist looking
into questions of how audiences might react to and interpret newsgames. In this paper, we follow Huotari and Hamari’s (2012) approach to gamification,
where the focus is on the experiential level. Put short, instead of focusing on systemic elements (game design), a central question is what do people do with
the affordances presented to them - whether they see a game there, and if so, what do they make of it? For this study, four focus groups (23 interviewees)
familiarized themselves with select newsgames. Following an open-ended thematic analysis of their group discussions, the results are discussed through
the theoretical lens of framing (e.g. Entman, 1993; Reese, 2001). The analysis focuses especially on the tensions resulting from (partially) overlapping
and conflicting frames, and on the question of truthfulness and credibility as they are constructed in participants’ discussions. The results illustrate how
the problematic in understanding newsgames can be similar to the one journalism faces when approaching audience either as citizens or as consumers
(e.g. Ferrer Conill & Karlsson, 2015). It is within the intersection between the news frame and the game frame that both the great promises and the great
risks lie. Ludography Frasca, G. (2012). September 12th. Available at El País (2004). Madrid. Available
at Literature Ferrer Conill, R. & Karlsson, M. (2015). The Gamification of Journalism. In H. Gangadharbatla &
D. Z. Davis (Eds.) Emerging research trends in gamification (pp. 356–383). Hershey PA, USA: IGI Global. Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward Clarification
of a Fractured Paradigm. Journal of Communication 43(4), 51–58. Huotari, K. & Hamari, J. (2012). Defining Gamification - A Service Marketing Perspec‑
tive. In Proceedings of Mindtrek 2012, October 3–5, 2012, Tampere, Finland. pp. 17–22. Retrieved January 29th, 2012 from
Defining_Gamification-A_Service_Marketing_Perspective.pdf Reese, S. D. (2001). Prologue – Framing Public Life: A Bridging Model for Media Research.
In Stephen D. Reese, Oscar H. Gandy Jr. & August E. Grant (Eds.), Framing Public Life: Perspectives on Media and Our Understanding of the Social World.
Mahwah (pp. 7–31). N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.