One way to view journalism is as a combination of reporting and review. The first stage involves gathering and uncovering the information citizens need to know; the second stage involves contextualizing and interpreting that information in an engaging way.
Both stages are essential to the practice of journalism. Information without proper context and rigorous verification is just unreliable raw data; analysis without original reporting is just aggregation or editorial.
Of course, journalistic news media exists as a spectrum between these two poles. An interview typically focuses on reporting, whereas an editorial typically focuses on review. Nevertheless, we should note that the best interviewers contextualize and respond to the interviewee, and that the best editorial writers frequently incorporate their own reporting.
How do videogames fit into this spectrum?
Both stages are essential to the practice of journalism. Information without proper context and rigorous verification is just unreliable raw data; analysis without original reporting is just aggregation or editorial.
Of course, journalistic news media exists as a spectrum between these two poles. An interview typically focuses on reporting, whereas an editorial typically focuses on review. Nevertheless, we should note that the best interviewers contextualize and respond to the interviewee, and that the best editorial writers frequently incorporate their own reporting.
How do videogames fit into this spectrum?
Truth be told, it's been challenging to imagine how videogames might be used more journalistically. We've certainly witnessed many editorial games. But can games be used to report - to "capture" new information? Or can games only be used to draw attention to or analyze what has already been recorded?
Let's start by thinking about the written news article. Though a news article may try to avoid explicitly subjective analysis, a written summary is not a "direct" representation of reality. Rather, the story is crafted from quotations, data, and the journalist's own observations.
Seen this way, the written story might be just as "indirect" as any other media object that weaves together collected information. Phrased differently, the written article and the newsgame might be equally "simulational." Indeed, journalists are often taught that effective storytelling paints a whole world in the reader's imagination.
One counterargument is that the written article might be less indirect than other media forms. Because videogames tend to portray the world through a whole host of different informational channels (procedural, aural, visual), they only stand to misrepresent reality in a larger variety of ways. Writing, by contrast, is lower bandwidth and easier to control.
But what about the speech transcript? A transcript supposedly reports exactly what a person said, and therefore seems to directly capture some slice of reality. We might identify this same dynamic between the photograph (which is captured from light) and the editorial cartoon (created by a human mind).
Of course, any number of theorists might retort that no representation can ever convey reality in an "objective" way. The transcript, for example, changes depending on the specific transcription (e.g. are nervous "ums" removed?). But intuitively, a transcript still seems to capture reality more directly than a written story. Transcripts and photographs might be filtered through the subjective lens of the journalist, but the majority of us are willing to accept, "yeah, that really did happen."
What is the videogame equivalent of the transcript? Are there games or game-like expressions that exist out there in the world? Will newsworthy events have to be games themselves before we see the "videogame transcript" on The New York Times website? Do we have to wait until politicians start expressing themselves in virtual worlds?
The world is filled with images, words, and sounds. Games, on the other hand, don't seem to proliferate as naturally and ubiquitously. This helps explain why the idea of the videogame transcript seems so foreign, and even comical.
One answer is that people might already generate simulational or game-based expression data for us to analyze. Perhaps we could analyze a person's web searching habits, or their aggressiveness when playing Halo, or their Second Life avatar. Or perhaps we could use games to analyze physical world data, like motion capture data; after all, news outlets already write about the body language of politicians.
I admit that these ideas are absurd, but are they just a result of my lack of imagination, or do they reflect some deeper truth about the medium?
At the end of the day, perhaps we shouldn't take the concept of eyewitness games or videogame transcripts too literally. Perhaps the best we can hope for is a kind of CSPAN approach to games - games that present a data set or some kind of interactive audiovisual experience with a conscious minimum of analysis or "spin."
For a related (albeit less journalistic) thought experiment, check out Ian's brainstorm on "videogame snapshots."
Let's start by thinking about the written news article. Though a news article may try to avoid explicitly subjective analysis, a written summary is not a "direct" representation of reality. Rather, the story is crafted from quotations, data, and the journalist's own observations.
Seen this way, the written story might be just as "indirect" as any other media object that weaves together collected information. Phrased differently, the written article and the newsgame might be equally "simulational." Indeed, journalists are often taught that effective storytelling paints a whole world in the reader's imagination.
One counterargument is that the written article might be less indirect than other media forms. Because videogames tend to portray the world through a whole host of different informational channels (procedural, aural, visual), they only stand to misrepresent reality in a larger variety of ways. Writing, by contrast, is lower bandwidth and easier to control.
But what about the speech transcript? A transcript supposedly reports exactly what a person said, and therefore seems to directly capture some slice of reality. We might identify this same dynamic between the photograph (which is captured from light) and the editorial cartoon (created by a human mind).
Of course, any number of theorists might retort that no representation can ever convey reality in an "objective" way. The transcript, for example, changes depending on the specific transcription (e.g. are nervous "ums" removed?). But intuitively, a transcript still seems to capture reality more directly than a written story. Transcripts and photographs might be filtered through the subjective lens of the journalist, but the majority of us are willing to accept, "yeah, that really did happen."
What is the videogame equivalent of the transcript? Are there games or game-like expressions that exist out there in the world? Will newsworthy events have to be games themselves before we see the "videogame transcript" on The New York Times website? Do we have to wait until politicians start expressing themselves in virtual worlds?
The world is filled with images, words, and sounds. Games, on the other hand, don't seem to proliferate as naturally and ubiquitously. This helps explain why the idea of the videogame transcript seems so foreign, and even comical.
One answer is that people might already generate simulational or game-based expression data for us to analyze. Perhaps we could analyze a person's web searching habits, or their aggressiveness when playing Halo, or their Second Life avatar. Or perhaps we could use games to analyze physical world data, like motion capture data; after all, news outlets already write about the body language of politicians.
I admit that these ideas are absurd, but are they just a result of my lack of imagination, or do they reflect some deeper truth about the medium?
At the end of the day, perhaps we shouldn't take the concept of eyewitness games or videogame transcripts too literally. Perhaps the best we can hope for is a kind of CSPAN approach to games - games that present a data set or some kind of interactive audiovisual experience with a conscious minimum of analysis or "spin."
For a related (albeit less journalistic) thought experiment, check out Ian's brainstorm on "videogame snapshots."
"What is the videogame equivalent of the transcript?"
I attended Eric Zimmerman's presentation of The Ludic Century Friday evening in New York City and I'd surmise that a game's transcript would be its systemic view.
Perhaps one might say that a journalist's review of a event - the collapse of Wall Street - from a game-journalist perspective, would be to show the systemic motion of interactions that once succeeded and now are failing.
A journalist might show the credit crunch in a game format by first showing the system as it worked, I presume this would have to be graphically, and then where the glitch comes in.
Tom Lowenhaupt
Hi Tom,
I still think the idea you are proposing, while potentially valuable, sounds like a standard newsgame approach. That is to say, the journalist-designer would synthesize the data and present the process in a certain light. It seems more like a journalistic commentary on the existing data, rather than the gathering of new unreported data. I don't believe that's a fair use of the concept "transcript," which for me implies a much more raw, pre-synthesis "capturing" of reality.
Perhaps you could present the system in an unadulterated way, but that seems more like an infographic than a "game" to me.
Again, this could just reflect a lack of imagination, so I'd be interested to hear why I might be wrong!
- Doug -