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Home , Advocacy journalism, Editing, News design, The Verge, Vox (website), Vox Media

A TOOLKIT Innovation in Through Engagement

In our quest to find ways to make journalism more interactive and engaging, the JoLT team at American University concluded that the design principles that make gaming so captivating and lucrative can be applied to the challenges facing the industry.

DECEMBER 2017

JOLT: A TOOKIT 1 I. The engagement challenge for news

A unique group of professionals, students, ac- ademics and experts at American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C., asked this question: Can game-design tech- niques deepen reader engagement in news? We say yes. But arriving at that answer wasn’t easy. For some participants, the exploration meant letting go of the limitations of various profes- sional cultures -- let’s just say game and don’t think the same way. For others, it meant learning new ways of viewing, talking about and measuring success. For all, it meant embracing the ways tech- niques could build interaction, verification, feedback and trust into journalism. We followed several paths over the three years it took to reach our conclusions. Through a generous grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, we pulled together a team that included three student Fellows earning a Master’s in Game Design and six Professional Fellows, some from major media companies. We embedded team members in several Washington-area ; we staged con- ferences and workshops; we developed digital experience an event, discover solutions, create and live games; and we held a NewsJam in empathy or learn skills. Florida with the University of , challeng- But most important, games put the user in ing teams to produce a handful of news-related the center of the story, reward learning, and are games during the three-day event. inherently engaging. Engagement design is something that news- rooms need to take more seriously, especially Enter Engagement Design as a way to attract and retain younger audienc- es, says Anika Gupta, a product manager who We call the result of our efforts “engagement has worked on community-focused products. design.” Engagement design goes beyond “Being able to participate in news is a huge newsgames. While the term “games” tends loyalty driver,” she says. “You are dealing with to elicit a dismissive response in the news a niche audience that wants to interact.” industry, the concepts behind games are not only serious, but share many intentions with journalism. How Engagement Design Helps Games are not just about fun. Games can News serve certain kinds of storytelling better than traditional journalistic forms. Games give us Anyone in the news business already knows the the opportunity to play with systems. They challenges. At the Oct. 20-22, 2017, NewsJam at give us a safe to embrace ambiguity the University of Miami, Gupta asked the young and to take risks. They offer a playful way to participants to name the positive attributes of NewsPark, 2015

2 JOLT: A TOOKIT games. The answers flew. Games build engage- handwritten lists of charities, shared his prog- ment! Foster community! Invite participation! ress on stories, and asked readers for tips that She asked the same question about journalism. guided his work. That investigation, in part, She was met with silence. garnered him the Pulitzer Prize. Journalists should know they have work to do. Although experiments are ongoing, we have • Shares information about your readers -- identified several areas where engagement and your content. “Game designers are experience designers. While Newsrooms also can gain insight about their constituents by understanding how those users readers read, and viewers watch, game players interact with the content. “We can tell editors, ‘this is how people are engage. Sometimes, experiencing the story is perceiving your stories, and this is how you more persuasive and impactful.” can adjust them to better meet their needs,’” LINDSAY GRACE, DIRECTOR OF THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY GAME LAB says Lindsay Grace, the founding director of the American University Game Lab and Studio. already has been effective. This Newsrooms can post a problem within a game, report outlines those ideas and best practices and readers’ game play can help build a data- for the . base, parse a document dump, identify a place or person or detect . In playing our game Factitious, for example, Engagement design: users learn to identify red flags about fake news. The way users play the game reveals how • Builds trust by sharing your sources and the , headlines and article format sig- data, and letting users interact with them. nal veracity. For each article, we can see how many people understood or misunderstood the News organizations are facing growing is- article as real or fake, how long they took to sues of trust and transparency, as traditional make the decision, and at what point they were audiences turn to niche sources that tend to convinced either way. reaffirm their beliefs. A recent study by the Media Insight Project shows that readers’ trust • Provides a better way to tell some kinds of in content is determined more by who shares stories. a story than by who creates it. That means that a story passed on by a friend Games and interactives can be better than tra- can trump CNN. This phenomenon is further ditional linear narratives for some kinds of sto- complicated because more and more people ries. Games and interactive visualizations can are encountering news in their social media more concretely explain complex systems such feeds, where there is less context to help de- as the health care system, global warming and termine credibility. conflict negotiation by allowing users to make Our experiments with game-inspired engage- choices, tweak inputs and see the outcomes. ment design suggest that individuals who see Allowing the user to simulate an experience or how a story is made, analyze it -- even contrib- view an issue from an unfamiliar perspective ute to it -- are more likely to trust it and engage. can create empathy and understanding. When users can see data, explore, manipulate “Games allow the audience to participate in and play with the elements, they can draw the news,” says Melissa Bell, the publisher at their own conclusions. Media. “That old saying: ‘Walk around in “Anything that’s really interactive really someone else’s shoes?’ Games let you do that heightens the users’ of trust. It becomes – and how much better is your understanding a two-way conversation,” says Joey Marburger, when you do?” the head of product for . Games can engagingly convey new informa- All these factors help build trust and create tion or teach skills, such as how to distinguish engagement. As Washington Post reporter fake news from real news, or what to do if you David Farenthold investigated ’s are detained at immigration. Our Commuter philanthropic history, he posted images of his Challenge game produced in collaboration with

JOLT: A TOOKIT 3 NPR-member station WAMU allowed players What They Do For a Living?” to learn about the challenges faced by differ- Chris Chester, WAMU’s audience editor, said ent communities when the Washington, D.C., that in 2016, Hearken stories accounted for the is closed for repairs. No. 2, 3, 4, and 10 top-viewed stories by unique page views. By August, Hearken-sourced sto- • Transforms your audience into participants ries were No. 5, 6, and 10. and contributors. Games can be used to crowdsource informa- “Anything that’s really interactive really heightens tion, involve readers, and organize their feed- the users’ level of trust. It becomes a two-way back, which can be helpful in analyzing huge amounts of information such as a WikiLeaks conversation,” upload. The British news site The Guardian JOEY MARBURGER, HEAD OF PRODUCT FOR THE WASHINGTON POST. involved about 20,000 readers in just three days to help analyze 170,000 documents about On WAMU’s What’s With Washington, “even politicians’ expenses. The key, developer the worst-performing of those Hearken-sourced Simon Willison told Nieman Lab, was not only stories registered about 10 times the unique to make it feel like a narrative with characters’ page views of a typical story,” Chester says. mugshots, but also like a competitive game. “It’s a force-multiplier for sure.” Other examples of the successful use of gaming techniques include the way Pandora’s “name-that-tune” game adds to a database of music or how Ingress and Pokemon Go players II. Why game-design on a digital scavenger hunt submit photos and GPS data that can help map an under-articulat- thinking works ed area – and build another game. “Games are good at creating loyalty,” Gupta Engagement design applies game-design tech- says. “If you show people the news, they trust niques to keeping people interested in content, it more. If they can participate, they are more putting users at the center of the design pro- likely to stay involved.” cess, leading them through difficult informa- tion to create an experience that makes them • Provides evidence that this type of format want to explore, respond and share. works. “Game designers are experience designers,” says Grace of AU’s Game Lab. “While readers Stories that originate through audience en- read, and viewers watch, game players engage. gagement are top performers, trust-builders Sometimes, experiencing the story is more and subscription generators. Involving the user persuasive and impactful.” drives engagement. News organizations can certainly admire Hearken, a platform that helps news organi- the statistics cited by the game industry: U.S. zations collect questions their audience would consumers in 2015 spent $16.5 billion on game like to see a reporter answer, boasts that the re- content, spending more than 3 billion hours sulting stories tend to be more relevant, share- every week playing digital games. News groups able and lasting. Readers and listeners who can learn from the mechanics and principles vote on the best questions to be asked become that make games so compelling to find unique more invested. ways to tell stories, be more responsive and Kate Lesniak, the publisher of Bitch Media, better serve news consumers. writes: “Hearken-engaged readers are between two and five times more likely to convert to sus- taining membership than ordinary readers.” Engagement from experience, WAMU 88.5, the American University- agency, play owned NPR affiliate, won a 2017 Edward R. Murrow Award with a question submitted We identified three key elements of game design by a listener through Hearken: “Why Can’t that may prove useful for improving audience Washingtonians Resist Asking Each Other engagement: experience, agency and play.

4 JOLT: A TOOKIT “The difference between other types of sto- Sites such as Vox, , The rytelling and games is that players act,” Grace Washington Post, , NPR, ProPublica, says. “It posits you as responsible for what Mother Jones and AL.com are taking the lead happens. It creates a more engaged relation- in creating interactive tools to help readers ship to the story. It doesn’t move without you. engage more deeply with stories. Nothing happens if you stop doing. While some newsrooms became interested Building on previous work While it used to take weeks or months to develop Academics are examining this transformative area, and the AU JoLT program boasts one of a game, production time for a streamlined team the leaders in persuasive games, Grace, as can almost keep up with a news cycle. well as Professor Mike Treanor, a pioneer in newsgames. in the potential of newsgames in the mid- Our real-life collaborations with newsrooms 2000s, enthusiasm waned because of internal benefit from and are building on overlapping politics, the paucity of embedded develop- research. ers in the newsroom and lack of ownership A 2015 paper by Maxwell Foxman of of the games’ development. While some of Columbia’s Tow Center, takes a thorough look the obstacles chronicled by game at the role of games and play in news and the and professor Ian Bogost in his 2010 , implications for . The Guide Newsgames: Journalism at Play, still exist, to Journalism and Design by NYU guru Heather many have fallen away. Chaplin offers concrete ways to use design Many newsrooms still face obstacles to processes as a foundation for news innovation. change – tight budgets, lack of staff with dig- Retha Hill, a professor at Arizona State ital skills and difficulty in figuring out how a University, created templates for newsrooms to traditional newsroom can incorporate experi- use to make quick games. Gonzalo Frasca mental forms. created the first newsgames site. In his New technology in the last decade has great- overview of games in 2010, Ian Bogost wrote ly simplified the game-making process and that using games as a form of journalism was game-making tools are more accessible. The in- not a question of tech-nology, but rather a dependent game community is more developed question of will. and the coders more populous and prolific. The technology has evolved. Now we are addressing the will. Tools, templates are improving Many templates and platforms don’t require III. Case Studies knowledge of code, including GameSalad, Game Maker, Construct2, and Twine. Sites such Engagement design is not a recipe; it is a as Kenney provide free game assets. process. We are able to highlight concrete While it used to take weeks or months to ways others may take inspiration for news develop a game, production time for a stream- innovation through case studies -- projects lined team can almost keep up with a news the JoLT team produced with WAMU, Vox, The cycle. Groups of developers get together for Undefeated, and at our own News Summit hack-a-thons and game jams, to bash out and program. usable games and solutions (just for fun!) over It’s not enough these days simply to broadcast a weekend. This year’s Global Game Jam, a news to a general audience. We looked at how 48-hour hackathon in 95 countries, resulted in to create an experience that encouraged the 7,000 rapid-production games. participants to opt in to a system to understand “As game jams demonstrate, it is completely information in a playful, yet meaningful way. reasonable to make quick games at the pace of The JoLT fellows designed an information news now,” Grace says. experience aimed at establishing formal news Newsrooms, too, are rapidly evolving. They dialogues in today’s new commons — malls, are learning to listen to their audiences more , museums, train stations, termi- actively to identify and respond to their needs. nals, and even at food trucks. The game-like

JOLT: A TOOKIT 5 environment aimed to help attract participants playing, 96 percent of participants said they NewsPark, 2015 and further their retention and interest in news liked the format and would like to participate and information that affects their daily lives. in a pop-up news experience again. When asked to rate on a 1-10 scale whether NewsPark increased their interest or curiosity about water NewsPark scarcity issues, the average response was 7.9. The JoLT team’s first foray, NewsPark, allowed people literally to consume news. Passersby Takeaways stopped by its pop-up location at the Newseum • Bring the news to your audience. NewsPark in D.C. to play a card game designed to enlight- was set up in front of the Newseum in en them about the amount of water required to Washington, D.C., where there was a make their favorite foods. Each card described greater likelihood of appealing to self- the number of gallons it took to produce a spe- selected groups interested in news. cific dish. One card noted that it took 850 gal- However, many participants were not lons of water to produce 8 ounces of beef and visiting the museum. 16 gallons for 8 ounces of soybeans. Players • Make the experience attractive and had to create a meal using the cards in their rewarding. Free food may have lured players hand, trading with other players to achieve the in, but the experience kept them there. lowest possible water consumption. The design calls for the game to be played at • People like to play. Participants spent about a food truck, with the winning meal served as a five minutes playing, whether they were prize, becoming consumable news that creates interested in water consumption issues or a direct, relevant connection to information not. That compares favorably to the amount about water consumption. The magnetic side of time the average reader spends on an of the truck can be used to post further infor- online article (under a minute). mation, actionable ideas and player commen- • The pop-up news experience lends itself to tary to further the dialogue and interaction community engagement as well as solution sparked by the game. Using gaming techniques and . The more time such as those in NewsPark could persuade people spend on the experience, the news consumers to take part in “actionable more interested they are in learning more journalism,” which offers participants ways to and, perhaps, doing something about it. act on information. News groups could use pop-ups to engage communities and find out more about NewsPark stats and feedback issues consumer care about. It is service journalism in action. Responses to a survey distributed at NewsPark showed that people stopped to play because • The game is available to print and play here of the colorful pop-up display, free food and (http://bit.ly/2BhK9E8). the sense that people were having fun. After

6 JOLT: A TOOKIT “I commute from PG [Prince George’s County] to downtown with a daycare drop-off every day. This game was so similar to my real life in terms of prob- lems with the bus and being on time that it actually stressed me out to click through. … I appreciate this game bringing to life what my experience as an east-to-west trip-chaining transit commuter is like.”

WAMU’s of Broadcast Kathy Goldgeier says the game was “an enhancement for our digital and a big traffic driver.”Commuter Challenge attracted coverage in local for its approach, which in turn brought first-time visitors to WAMU’s website. Atlantic Media’s CityLab called it “a lavishly illustrated choose-your- own-adventure” and said that the game helped “close the perception gap.” The game received more than 15,000 unique page views, and has an impressively long tail: nine months after the launch the game is still Commuter getting between two and four dozen unique Challenge, 2016 WAMU’s Commuter Challenge visits per day. Most important for WAMU, it Residents and visitors regularly complain brought 6,225 new users to the website. about the Washington, D.C., Metro, but re- One thing both the JoLT and WAMU teams cent shutdowns of major portions of the grid learned was that the story and the interactive to make repairs provided new headaches for piece should be developed simultaneously. users. NPR affiliate WAMU wanted to deep- After the game was developed, the WAMU team en reader involvement in ongoing coverage leaders decided they would like a companion about the how the service cuts affected some piece story to highlight how commuters with communities more than others. The result the least income and job flexibility were much was Commuter Challenge, a simulation or more affected by public transit disruptions. empathy game that allowed players to ex- Integrating the story development with the perience the daily choices a minimum-wage game development would have resulted in a worker faced when their public transit was stronger outcome. Adding a link to the story interrupted. from the game would also have elevated reader A reporter rode the trains, interviewing about and listener numbers. three dozen commuters in several locations to “Could we improve on the formula?” get a sense of the real consequences for those Goldgeier asks. “Sure. I think our story was who depend on the Metro to get to work, school a little bit of an afterthought to the game. If or other appointments, such as dropping off or it had been a bit more integrated, I think the picking up a child on time. One man, who lost boost to the journalism would have been that his restaurant job because service disruptions much more, but that’s how we learn.” made him late three times in two weeks, was Commuter Challenge is a good example the inspiration for the game’s main character. of how making a story interactive does not The interviews helped determine that the key have to be difficult. We used a simple, open- tension factors in the game – as in real life source tool for telling stories called Twine, in a -- would be time and budget. In the game, all choose-your-own-adventure type format. A re- of the costs, penalties and obstacles were real, porter or multimedia person without program- drawn from the reporting. Player Tracy Loh ming experience can quickly figure it out, and noted how much the game resonated with her: a skilled programmer can make the experience

JOLT: A TOOKIT 7 much richer by using variables, conditional logic, images, CSS, and JavaScript. We used an illustrator to create art for the game, but a news group could use its own photos or art.

Takeaways • News groups can make an effective interactive narrative or game with open- source tools, such as Twine. • The format can be as simple as a text- based game, or enriched with art and branching narratives. • Interactive narratives work well to enhance engagement with long-term or ongoing stories. • Interactive narratives and games offer a way to explore a system, simulate a story and its dilemmas or explore choices. • In the design and production process, category. The more they play, the more familiar Factitious, 2017 have clear editorial goals, include both they become with common news conventions designers and reporters and keep iterating versus the signifiers of stories posing as news. with feedback. Future levels may have players judge further whether the “fake news” is satire, spin, an Factitious advertisement or commentary. The experience of making Factitious led us Real or fake? Today’s tsunami of information to a key conclusion: Games are a novel way to can confuse readers by the blurring of bound- crowdsource feedback on your content. The aries between what is verified news and what game engine can be adapted for other uses, is not. To increase news consumers’ sense of such as polling or A/B testing. agency in detecting fake news, we designed The design process started with putting Factitious. the user in the center of the game and asking Designed first as a paper prototype and then what we wanted them to do. Unlike tradition- developed as an online and mobile game, al journalism, which is designed to transmit Factitious presents players with stories culled information, game design is centered around from sites. The player decides wheth- active verbs: to play, to learn, to detect, to er it’s an actual news story. The mobile inter- share. Good games empower the player to face, inspired by the Tinder dating app, asks act, and action -- in games and news -- is users to swipe right for a real story and left engagement. for fake. One news report dubbed it, “Tinder In Factitious, the players must judge. After Meets Fake News.” they swipe right for real news or left for fake, The mobile version has so far attracted they get immediate feedback. As the players 541,000 users who played 1.1 million rounds. level up, the categories get more specific and The game was reported on by NPR, Newsweek, challenging. Nieman Lab and about a dozen other outlets. To afford agency, Factitious equips players University researchers have asked to work with with a set of criteria to measure quickly whether our data sets, and the game will be offered a story is believable, sensationalized or made to the News Literacy Project for high schools up: what is the source, who is quoted, what is to use along with its checkology® digital the story’s intention, is it verifiable? Players curriculum. interested in learning more can ultimately find In Factitious, players receive immediate quick tutorials on how to check out a story, feedback, and see which elements of the story or to understand as a news creator what the should have tipped them off to its veracity or hallmarks of veracity are. By analyzing their

8 JOLT: A TOOKIT reactions, we can also understand which ele- first round asked players to present a story ments of a story might cause distrust or skepti- in only 140 characters, like a post on . cism, and how to better signal veracity. In each round, the game director introduces The hidden beauty of Factitious is its open a new constraint, such as “You can’t use the and adaptable database engine. The game, on letter ‘e,’” or “Your story must relate to outer the , is an enhanced quiz. But players’ space and use a GIF.” The game’s underlying responses can be analyzed to understand how goal is to recharge players’ ability to identify they perceive stories, and what signals credibil- and react to a rapidly changing environment ity to them. Another important benefit allows and help them embrace opportunities. In a the database template to be simply adapted work environment, it can reveal the creativity for other uses: for simple A/B testing, to gar- of younger staff and their command of novel ner feedback on stories, and to crowdsource tools, giving them a chance to flatten the tradi- information. tional newsroom hierarchy and to work across We learned a few things: Games are a novel typical divisions of reporters vs. designers vs. way to crowdsource feedback on your content; programmers. players were intimidated by large blocks of text; game players hate asking for hints so we Takeaways changed “hint” to “source.” We also learned we needed a mobile ver- • Constraints can spark creativity. sion because most people get their news on • A playful warm-up can give permission their phones and younger audiences expect to break the rules, and highlight staff’s interactivity. hidden skills or ideas. The most satisfying learning? Players got • Combining reporters, designers and better at detecting fake news. As in any game, programmers invites collaboration across it takes a bit of play to figure out the rules and hierarchies and traditional divisions. what to look for, but pre- and post-play surveys showed that players felt they had acquired detection skills. Final Fantasy 7 Square Off The JoLT team partnered with ’s Takeaways Storytelling Studio to create a game to engage • Decide what you want the participant to the audience with a major story by Vox Media’s DO. gaming brand, . Final Fantasy 7: An Oral History, about the • Design in feedback for guidance or positive making of blockbuster , was a reinforcement. • Make it playful and interactive. • Test it out, welcome feedback, and iterate. Spark Play allows people to experiment safely in a contained environment. The news production process, delivery and consumption can all ben- efit from a playful approach. This might work at a staff retreat. The JoLT fellows created Spark to introduce quick-thinking, out-of-the-box adaptation to ever-changing constraints. The aim is to help create an environment in the newsroom that encourages risk-taking and collaboration. It’s played live, in a workshop type setting. Groups are asked to write headlines or stories Spark, 2015 on a given theme – but with constraints. The

JOLT: A TOOKIT 9 massive journalistic undertaking. Matt Leone, that, we usually think about Polygon’s features editor, had been reporting navigation, not storytelling. on the story for more than two years. JoLT I don’t think journalism ex- fellows Cherisse Datu, Kelli Dunlap and Joyce plores that enough.” Rice describe the process behind the project: Katie O’Dowd, the se- “Final Fantasy 7 is a name that holds a lot of nior project manager of nostalgia for RPG [role-playing game] players. Storytelling Studio, says that Therefore, the first game verb that we thought its Storytelling team has add- about was ‘share.’ In addition, we wanted play- ed that element to its design ers to use Matt’s oral history to win the game, process. “We have added so ‘learn’ also became a key verb. We played a question to our kickoff – a word association game with the storytelling what do we want the reader team. We asked what they’d like players to do. to do?” she says. After that, we went to work. Square Off was an oppor- “A lot of our initial concepts echoed mechan- tunity to collect more data ics from the original game. We played with the about how reader-players idea of mixing up materia to summon develop- interact with this kind of ment team members. Another idea was based content. About 44 percent on finding characters on a map resembling of readers clicked through Final Fantasy 7’s Gaia. We also thought about from the story about Final having players share how old they were and Fantasy 7 to play the related where they were when they first played Final game. “That’s a pretty good Fantasy 7. After a round of , we conversion rate,” says JoLT came up with a turn-based battle trivia game. fellow Kelli Dunlap. “It’s also “Square Off was a happy marriage of Matt’s cool to note that Square Off Square Off, two-year investigation and a playful tribute to was the top next page view after the Polygon 2016 Final Fantasy 7. Our verb was ‘attack,’ but also homepage.” ‘attack correctly.’ Coupled with the feature to Next time, team members say, they would share answers on social media, our main verbs put the link to the game higher in the story or of ‘share’ and ‘learn’ were achieved.” link to it on the home page. They would also measure how long players spent playing the Collaborating with a creative newsroom game and at which points they left it. Every experience is feedback for the next Vox Media was a good partner for this ex- iteration. periment because the group already pushes boundaries with its design and user interface. Vox Media has eight covering news, food, sports, video games and other niches, and across several platforms, includ- ing Facebook, Apple News, News and . Kainaz Amaria, executive of storytelling at Vox Media, says that “with new technology comes a whole host of problems that you have to solve. Our motto is ‘Thrive on change.’ It’s sort of baked in here.” Even so, both teams learned from each other. Amaria says the JoLT team “brought a different way of thinking to us. When we went into the brainstorm and you explained your process, ‘What do we want our audiences to DO?’ That sort of broke open a new process for us as a way to tell our story. What action do you want Square Off, your audience to take? When we do think of 2016

10 JOLT: A TOOKIT Takeaways the pace of global warming, separating “bots” from humans, stopping sexual harassment, • Collaboration works best if it is regularly and fighting fake news. scheduled and in-person, at least at first. “One of the most impressive things about • “Hiring someone to be in the actual this experiment is that many participants had building and collaborate with your desk is never made a digital game before,” Grace says. really important,” Amaria says. “Years ago these kinds of games would have taken five or 10 times longer to design and im- plement.” Now, he says, “these types of games “You brought a different way of thinking to us . . . can easily fill the space of political cartoons or ‘What do we want our audiences to DO?’ That sort crosswords.” Several teams used game-making tools such of broke open a new process for us as a way to as GameSalad or Construct 2, which have built- tell our story.” in blocks of code. KAINAZ AMARIA, EXECUTIVE DESIGN DIRECTOR OF STORYTELLING AT VOX MEDIA “Hurl the Harasser,” addressed sexual ha- rassment, trapping women who have been ha- • If the collaborator is a contractor, nail rassed in a bubble of isolation and shame that down the contracts and fine print. This they can burst by speaking out. When enough project was delayed while Vox Media, women are freed to speak, their collective mass American University and the Knight tips the balance of power and hurls the bath- Foundation created a pioneering contract robe-clad harasser off his teeter-totter perch. agreement for this new kind of work. The game highlights how difficult it can be for women to speak out, while reflecting the power • Define clear parameters and end goals, in numbers women hold when they do. especially if you are working on two related but different products, like the game and the oral history. Takeaways • Dare to take risks. Both sides said they • Newsgames can be made quickly would like to work together again to try to with open-source tools that simplify create something that pushes boundaries a programming and game creation. little more. • Newsgames can act as an interactive • Know how you’ll incorporate the game editorial cartoon or a puzzle that suggests or tool into the story. Place it at the top or real solutions to a topical problem. on the landing page for best engagement. • Newsgames can enliven and explain Don’t make people stumble upon it. a trending topic and enhance readers’ interest. NewsJam

In October 2017, American University and the University of Miami’s Center for Communication, Culture and Change co-spon- sored a NewsJam on the Miami campus. The challenge: Make a news-related game in 36 hours. Participants were UM Interactive Media grad students, members of a gamers’ meetup, professors and folks who were simply curious. Only a few had game design or programming skills. From Friday afternoon to noon Sunday, participants developed games based on trend- Newsjam, 2017 ing news topics: battling blazing fires, slowing

JOLT: A TOOKIT 11 IV. Toolkit for news games Design is a process, not a recipe. For newsrooms to start, consider these steps:

1. Identify your story goals 6. Trust your dream team Why are you telling this story? Collaborate on vision, but don’t try to design To inspire empathy, convey information, spark by committee. “If you try to do a single panel action, persuade, experience a story, explore a cartoon and have a single artist creating it with system? the feedback of eight people, it won’t work,” Grace says. “Let designers do their thing and What do you want the user to DO? run with it.” Then iterate with feedback. Share, learn, explore, understand, commit, orga- nize, connect, return? 7. Playtest it Which interactive form is best to tell it on each Adjust. Test it again. Iterate. platform? What will best enhance the storytelling beyond 8. Stay playful prose or video? Interactive, toy, or game? The bottom line: Is it engaging?

2. Build your dream team 9. Don’t neglect the art Whom do you need for the platforms? Integrate Visual design can make or break the appeal. with the newsroom; don’t be a separate pod of tech and design folks, or have people working 10. Think about scale in silos. Can the template or platform be used for other stories? Do you need to contract talent? Have 3. Workshop it to start speaking the someone on staff? same language Agree on game verbs (what you want the user 11. Design in an owner to do), how the team will collaborate and Who is responsible for follow through, mainte- editorial goals. How will you make the design nance, iteration? cohesive across platforms? Define the prod- uct’s scope and its business role to know what 12. Do a post-launch review resources it needs. What worked? What unforeseen challenges 4. Project manage cropped up? What would you do differently JoLT Workshop, next time? Document and share your learnings. 2015 Have one person direct traffic. Have clear goals, benchmarks and timelines.

5. Make a prototype It’s much easier to build a paper prototype, playtest it and adjust it before you sink invest- ment into the real thing. “Make a quick model to demonstrate the idea, and iterate quickly,” says AU Game Lab’s Lindsay Grace. “People don’t always understand abstractly, but they can understand and amend a model.”

12 JOLT: A TOOKIT articles and book chapters on games since 2009. His creative work has been selected for showcase internationally including New York, Paris, Sao Paolo, Singapore, , Vancouver, Istanbul, and others. He has given talks at the Game Developers Conference, SXSW, Games for Change Festival, the Online News Association, the Society for , and many other industry events.

Maggie Farley was a professional fellow at American University’s Journalism and Leadership Transformation program from 2015-2017, and is now an adjunct professor at This report was prepared through the generous grant AU in the School of Communication. She is a of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which co-creator of Factitious, Hurl the Harasser and supported the JoLT team effort at the School of Commuter Challenge. Farley spent 14 years as Communication at American University as it explored an award-winning foreign for the intersection of game design and journalism. the Times. She was based in Hong The effort was launched by SOC Dean Jeffrey Kong and Shanghai, covering Southeast Asia Rutenbeck and run by SOC’s Lindsay Grace of the and then China before returning to New York to Game Lab and Amy Eisman in Journalism. The effort head the U.N. Bureau just in time to cover 9/11 included a team of professional fellows -- including and the invasion of Iraq. Farley hopped to new Matt Thompson, now at , Mitch Gelman, media from old media in 2009, as a partner in now at the Newseum, Tory Hargro, now at Facebook, Lucky G Media, creating digital educational and Bob Hone and Maggie Farley, both at American University —Hone in the Game Lab and Farley as an content. Lucky Grasshopper, an animated app adjunct instructor. for learning Chinese characters, hit the App Store’s top ten in educational apps in 2010. The games have been built, designed and debated by Farley has designed digital education projects the three JoLT fellows, who received Master of Arts for Pearson Foundation, bgC3, and the News degrees in Game Design —Cherisse Datu, Kelli Dunlap and Joyce Rice —and by Maggie Farley and Bob Hone. Literacy Project. The final report was written by Maggie Farley and designed by Joyce Rice. Bob Hone is currently a Designer-In-Residence — and Visiting Scholar in Lindsay Grace is an associ- American University’s ate professor at American School of Communication. University and founding He teaches “Designing director of the American Health Games” in the University Game Lab and spring and the inaugural class resulted in Studio. He is the Fall 2017 four ‘fundable’ game concepts developed by Visiting Knight Chair at AU Game Lab students. He is also the acting the University of Miami. His work has received Game Studio Manager and has designed and awards and recognition from the Games for managed two game projects in the past year. JoLT Change Festival, the Digital Diversity Network, He recently presented his design of a “gam- Professional the Association of Computing Machinery’s ing therapy” for anxiety, “Seeing the Good and Student digital arts community, Black Enterprise and Side,” at the Games for Change conference in Fellows, 2015 others. He has published more than 50 papers, June. Prior to joining the Game Lab in 2015,

JOLT: A TOOKIT 13 Hone was the Creative Director for a boutique to improving the mental well-being of teens interactive design company, Red Hill Studios, through games. Dr. Dunlap presents regularly that received numerous grants from the NIH at psychological and games industry confer- and the NSF to develop innovative software. ences on games and mental health, and her Prior to that, he was an award-winning PBS research has been published in scholarly jour- Science Television Producer/Director/ nals including Games for Health and Carnegie (Peabody/Emmy). Prior to that, he was an Mellon ETC Press. Dr. Dunlap has collaborated MIT-educated Chemical Engineer with stints with non-profit organizations including the at duPont, General Electric, and Exxon. He en- National Institute of Mental Health and NOVA joys learning new skills and switching careers Labs to develop games that address mental every so often :) health issues. She has also developed her own digital game about the therapeutic process Joyce Rice is a cartoonist which was recognized by Games for Change. and game designer with a focus in journalism and Amy Eisman is the incoming education. She cofounded director of the Journalism Symbolia, was a Fellow Division at American in American University’s University’s School of JoLT program, and teaches Communication, where digital comics at the California College of the she teaches journalism, Arts. She’s spoken about media innovation at entrepreneurship and SXSW, Game Developer’s Conference, and on digital content. Eisman facilitated the JoLT ’s Top Shelf, and she’s worked with project, which focused on the intersection of the fine folks at Vox Media, Showtime, and games and journalism. She is former director American Public Media to produce powerful of the MA in Interactive Journalism, the MA in stories. Media Entrepreneurship and the Writing for Communication classes in SOC. In 2015, she Cherisse Datu is a video was named among the 100 Tech Titans in dig- producer and game de- ital Washington by Washingtonian . signer. She received her Eisman was with Gannett for 17 years, first as Masters in Game Design a Cover Story editor at USA TODAY’s launch from American University, and later as Executive Editor of USA WEEKEND. and was a JoLT (Journalism Eisman was also a managing editor at AOL, and Leadership a Fulbright lecturer in Moscow and trained Transformation) Fellow studying the the newsrooms worldwide on web content and Intersection of Game Design and Journalism writing after an earlier reporting with a grant from the Knight Foundation. and career. She co-authored online She’s worked with ESPN’s The Undefeated, training modules for Gannett about break- Al Jazeera’s The Stream, Extra Credits, and ing news online, interactivity and database Fusion. She’s a game designer for The Girl journalism and co-wrote a module for Knight Who Sees, a Filipino fantasy-adventure game. Citizen News Network about online journal- She was chosen as Google Jump Ambassador, ism. Eisman co-chaired the 2010 Online News and is currently working on a VR project on Association conference and in 2011 presented Asian-American experiences and identity. in Vladivostok about digital journalism. She chairs ONA’s MJ Bear Fellowship committee, Kelli Dunlap, PsyD is a honoring rising digital journalists under 30, psychologist and game de- and judges the White House ’ signer. She currently works Association Awards. as a freelance researcher at iThrive Games, a non-profit organization dedicated

14 JOLT: A TOOKIT