For the final draft of our game, Newsroom Sensation, we made a few changes. First, since we had more time, we made it a bit nicer to look at - we added a background image (credit below), as well as changed some of the colors to better contrast with the theme color.
More substantial changes we made had to do with content. We edited the Mr. S scenarios to include headlines that players can choose whether or not to publish. We also modified the beginning instructions by splitting them into two slides to make them a bit clearer. The point system remained the same, but we played around with the gains and losses throughout the scenarios to make them more consistent (for the most part, a point change will only occur once an article is published).

If we had more time, we probably could have made this game a bit more visually pleasing or paid more attention to graphics. It's definitely not ugly as it stands right now, but with more time we may have been able to reorganize things in such away that would allow us to include more images.
We also would have used a different program to allow us to make the point system automatic. But as it stands, doing so would take a truly disgusting amount of time-consuming work, as well as a huge transfer of data from slides to a new tool, so we decided to forego it.

We learned a lot while making this game. Individually, we had an idea of what sensationalism is, but the research we put into creating this game gave that understanding more depth. We learned strategies for better identifying it in headlines, as well as the different kinds of sensationalism and the methods of using it. We also learned about the motivations behind it, which were surprisingly not all monetary - as you can tell from a scenario in the game, sometimes there are nobler or at least slightly less deceptive motivations behind it. Finally, we looked a lot into how opting for or against sensationalism can impact an organization, and we learned of all the ways such things could be tackled.

A lot of work went into this game in terms of research and execution, so we hope you'll have fun playing it! Click here to try it out!

Background image for the game:
"Newspapers B&W (5)" by NS Newsflash is licensed under CC BY 2.0, https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/22824b31-dcb2-42e7-9301-0b15ec9e8039

​Links to articles:
https://theconversation.com/aiming-for-novelty-in-coronavirus-coverage-journalists-end-up-sensationalizing-the-trivial-and-untrue-138506 
https://examples.yourdictionary.com/brilliant-clickbait-examples-and-why-they-work.html 
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1178220.shtml
https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-u-s-medias-problems-are-much-bigger-than-fake-news-and-filter-bubbles 
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/porn-model-murder-the-secret-life-of-zoey-zane/ 

Scholarly Sources:
Garrett, L. (2020). COVID-19: the medium is the message. The lancet, 395(10228), 942-943.
Lowe, L. (2016). Crying wolf: An analysis of the use of sensational content within the media and the desensitizing effects it has on audiences.
Scacco, Joshua and Muddiman, Ashley. (2015, December). The Current State of News Headlines. Center for Media Engagement. https://mediaengagement.org/research/the-current-state-of-news-headlines/ 

In the event of low integrity and good popularity...
​The paper has finally started to get back on its feet after a slow few weeks. You’ve had to publish some articles that are a bit less objective than you were initially comfortable with, but your readership is on the rise. The paper is stable.
You come to work to find the newsroom in a frenzy - they’ve got a scoop for a globally-followed running story, and the information is yet to become public knowledge. An article is written up and the editors are tasked with giving it a headline. Time is of the essence! But you have a problem. Will you…

1. Assign it a sensational headline? After all, chances like this don’t come by often. Do it, and you can forget just being “stable” - you could really catch some attention with this story! 
2. Give the article a more appropriate headline? It may be big news, but that isn’t a reason to blow it up. And we don’t need to beg for readers anymore. Won’t the story garner enough attention on its own?

​
Choosing 1 really will boost your popularity, but your integrity will take a hit. Your choice to sensationalize, while profitable, has lessened your credibility - especially because you sensationalized such a serious topic.
Choosing 2 will still boost your popularity while also increasing your integrity. The addition to the running story really was substantial enough to let the article stand on its own without any bells or whistles.

The Takeaway: As was previously stated, the business model for the media truly does reward sensationalism with its exciting and dramatic titles. So, it follows that even stable news agencies would seek to increase their ratings by taking up the practice whenever they’re able. The topic of sensationalism is especially relevant to running stories (like COVID-19 right now) because it is even more prone to misleading audiences than in regular coverage. Taking the example of COVID again, we’re always getting the most up-to-date information regarding safety measures, so it’s important that when such news does come out, it comes out clearly. Speed also factors into this, because oftentimes news agencies will publish first and make corrections later in order to catch the first readers. This, too, is rewarded by the system, even if it causes more chaos in the relay of information - doubly so when sensationalism is involved.

We decided to do our digital narrative game on sensationalism in the news, specifically in headlines. The general idea is to create a game to bring attention to exaggerated headlines, especially those related to COVID-19 and similarly popular news topics, and to show the negative effects that they can have on greater audiences.​

According to the Oxford Languages Dictionary, sensationalism is "the presentation of stories in a way that is intended to provoke public interest or excitement, at the expense of accuracy."

As such, it makes sense why companies or networks would opt for it; most of the time (unfortunately) news is not so much about information as it is about getting users to click on the article so they may be taken to their website. It's very profit-driven, and when the general motto is "publish first, verify later," you can bet a lot of exaggeration falls through the cracks.

​One might think that hyperbole is not nearly so detrimental as I might make it out to be, but I assure you this is wrong. Consider this: some media professional wants to publish some news about the pandemic. But the density of COVID news right now (and for the past year for that matter) makes such an article negligible, just another title in the crowd. So, how to make it stand out? Well, with an attention grabbing headline, of course!

And herein lies the problem: depending on what the professional decides to emphasize in their headline, potential audiences can be terribly misled. Take what Scacco and Muddiman (2015) have to say about this in the context of trials: "Headlines can, for instance, influence how news readers think about a whether a suspect is guilty of a crime. An early study of news headlines conducted by Percy H. Tannenbaum found that headlines suggesting that a person on trial was guilty led people who read a news story to think that person was guilty. A headline suggesting that a person was innocent led people who read the exact same news story to think that the person was innocent. In other words, changing only the headline led news readers to reach different conclusions about a person’s guilt or innocence."

As can be gathered from this passage, a headline can easily sway - and so easily mislead - an audience. And this is precisely what we wish to bring attention to with our game.

Another dangerous aspect of sensationalism lies on the other side of the spectrum of people's responses to news. While some might react strongly to every new COVID headline, for example, others may become desensitized by the sensationalism. If an alarm bell is constantly, constantly ringing to alert us to something, eventually it will fade into background noise. It may even become exhausting to follow especially because of the over-the-top sensationalism, thus resulting in pandemic fatigue, which could lead to general apathy towards the situation. 

This, in turn, is also bad because it means that when significant news does actually come in to play, people will not be able to pay attention to it as much as they should.

We found some relevant examples of exaggerated headlines, courtesy of YourDictionary.com

From Mother Jones, an article titled The Scary New Science That Shows Milk Is Bad For You, which ultimately "talks about how adults don't need as much calcium as previously suggested"

From CNN, the headline Ebola in the Air? A Nightmare That Could Happen, which leads to an article that explains how "the World Health Organization actually says that type of virus mutation is highly unlikely and is only speculation"

From Bloomberg, the alarming cover page Ebola is Coming, which resultingly "greatly exaggerated what was a very real threat without having to be sensationalized"

We were tasked with playing 6 total digital narrative games. The ones I ended up choosing besides Spent and BBC Syrian Refugees were Factitious, Responsible Partying, Domestic Violence in Egypt, and A Mother's Dilemma.
​

All these games had certain features in common and other features that made them unique, so I think it would be interesting to reflect on them by comparing them in terms of how educational they are vs how efficiently they mess with the player emotionally.

In my opinion, the games that were the most informative were probably Spent and Domestic Violence in Egypt. Each of them had an abundance of facts - after practically every choice made, information was offered to let you know if the action you just committed to was wise or unadvisable. Both games used the choices you made to inform you about the consequences and/or related facts, which really helps if you don't know the specifics of financial struggles or being with an abuser. A Mother's dilemma also did this quite well, and I personally really liked having more information about the possible steps you can take when a kid is getting bullied. Do you intervene at the risk of making it worse for the kid? If you intervene will it be with the school or the bully's parents? These questions are answered with reasons as to why each decision in the options given would be best. Next in terms of educational value would be the Syrian Refugee game and Responsible partying. While both did have facts and statistics in their narratives, I don't think they stood out as strongly as in the other games. And somehow Factitious turns up last. Not that it wasn't entertaining and objectively informative in the headlines it provides, it's just that the information provided regarding identifying fake news was relatively brief.
​
In terms of emotional impact, which I feel is also important to making sure a game "sticks" with you, I think I'll tie Syrian Refugees and A Mother's Dilemma. Like I said before playing the former game was just very upsetting. It makes me sad to think that people have to go through so much in order to live safely and that even those efforts are countered by media narratives against refugees. Truly, it's tragic. A Mother's Dilemma serves to make me similarly upset and angry because it reminds me of how easily harassment and bullying can be overlooked, excused, or dismissed at schools. Being put in the place of the mother was also a swift kick to the heart. Next up would be Spent and the Domestic Violence game. Again, it's the subject matter that gets me here - in both games the frustration with the situation is really played upon. While Spent tests your patience by throwing every conceivable unfavorable situation in your financially-strained face, the other game tries it by showing what people think they can get away with in a relationship. And it's even worse in this setting! Finally, the least emotionally impactful games were Responsible Partying and Factitious. I don't think either intended to have much of an emotional impact, but as a result they were each less memorable for me. The only non-information based criteria they offered was a story and the satisfaction of choosing correctly, but (likely due to the subject matter) they lacked an emotional hook.