Disruptive Technologies: Social, Civic, News and Gaming Networks

I sat in on session at NewsTools2008 about gaming principles applied to news. Jim Moore co-facilitated and described how a massively multiplayer game designer he had talked to really seemed to understand engaging people in a way the news tends to miss. He said he was surprised how much social psychology was being applied in game communities, but not in political communities and even less in the news.

Moore outlined three gaming principles that could be applied to the news:
1. Games allow the player to take on a glamorous role.
2. Games dole out points for positive behaviors in their worlds.
3. Games are fun to play.

Gabriel Coan from KQED mentioned a story bringing together all of these that was done by WNYC in New York. The goal was to use the crowd to cover price gouging in the city. Listeners were asked to go to upload local shop prices for milk, lettuce and beer. The result was a map mashup of gougy businesses and a citizen force that felt like part of the WNYC team.

The session included other cool ideas like a real life game that gave points to students for getting involved in community coverage of local gentrification and geocache games to get people to explore parts of their community they wouldn't otherwise go.

Sidenote: Gabriel, someone found your name badge outside the room.