Playing the News is an educational/artistic project by Nora Paul and Kathleen Hansen, designed to teach journalism through a gaming platform, seeking to promote a more interesting, intuitive, and interactive method of teaching the principles of journalistic integrity and efficiency. The purpose of the game is to simulate the decision-making process inherent in journalism, as well as show the implications of those decisions. Through the nonlinear dialogue system, Paul’s team attempted to reinforce good reporting practices amongst journalism majors.
Creating a game that teaches journalistic processes is an ample endeavor, though the more I imagine the product of this project, I can’t help but fantasize about a parallel application (not necessarily ‘game’ per se) – a virtual world platform for news consumers like myself. Imagine a scene recreated by real facts from global events; fed from tens of thousands of news feeds from around the world. Imagine journalists and designers together translating the real-world data which comes in a multitude of formats (text, pictures, audio and video) through a spatial format into a 3d virtual scene. Once created, any viewer can interact within the space, experience the event, talk to witnesses and leave feedback. Virtual actors can act as narrators, taking us through the different perspectives. If a person wants to formulate a fresh perspective, a new virtual actor can be created and placed on the spot. Good films are memorable through meticulous creative writing, cinematography and direction. Wikipedia works as an aggregation of many people’s truths into one document space, supported by a healthy discussion. Put the two together, creative narration + perspectives through discussion, and the result is a fantastic way to engage more people with a daily experience of newsworthy events!
All I need to do now is develop the technology.
:p
[tags]news,knight news challenge,games,virtual,3d[/tags]