Project:Filter - using applied games to engage secondary schoolchildren with public policy

Applied games present a twenty-first-century method of consuming information for a specific purpose beyond pure entertainment. Objectives such as awareness and engagement are often used as intended outcomes of applied games in alignment with strategic, organizational, or commercial purposes. Applied games were highlighted as an engagement-based outcome to explore noPILLS, a pan-European policy research project which presented policy pointers and suggested methods of interventions for reducing micropollution within the wastewater treatment process. This paper provides an assessment of a video game which was developed for the purpose of public engagement with policy-based research. The video game, Project:Filter, was developed as a means of communicating noPILLS to secondary school children in Scotland as part of a classroom-based activity. Knowledge development and engagement were identified using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to evidence topical awareness, depth of understanding, and suggested methods of intervention. Analysis of observations also provided insights into challenges surrounding logistics, pedagogy, social interactions, learning, and gender as contributing factors to the schoolchildren’s experiences of Project:Filter. The intention of this paper is two-fold: firstly, to provide an example of developing video games from policy-based research; and secondly, to suggest methods of phenomenological assessment for identifying play-based engagement

Going Beyond the Games with iCivics. A Response to “The Challenges of Gaming for Democratic Education: The Case of iCivics”

Stoddard, Banks, Nemacheck, and Wenska suggested that there is a tension between the goal of the iCivics games and the goals of democratic education. In this response, we suggest that iCivics can be utilized to help meet the goals of democratic education and to encourage our nation’s youth to become active civic participants if used alongside other instructional practices, such as Action Civics. We offer three important reasons for the use of iCivics as a tool for democratic education and engagement. Firstly, we describe the affordances of several other iCivics games not explored in Stoddard’s study as well as other elements of the iCivics program including lesson plans, impact points, and discussion boards. Secondly, we suggest that iCivics games should not be a stand-alone curriculum and describe ways to extend the iCivics games to inspire students to consider issues in their community and engage them in action civics. Thirdly, we describe the need for high quality professional development which is central in using iCivics games as part of a comprehensive civics curriculum. Our response extends the findings of Stoddard et al.’s study by suggesting ways educators can go beyond the games to utilize iCivics as a tool for democratic education

Experiencing Poverty in an Online Simulation: Effects on Players’ Beliefs, Attitudes and Behaviors about Poverty

Digital simulations are increasingly used to educate about the causes and effects of poverty, and inspire action to alleviate it. Drawing on research about attributions of poverty, subjective well-being, and relative income, this experimental study assesses the effects of an online poverty simulation (entitled Spent) on participants’ beliefs, attitudes, and actions. Results show that, compared with a control group, Spent players donated marginally more money to a charity serving the poor and expressed higher support for policies benefitting the poor, but were less likely to take immediate political action by signing an online petition to support a higher minimum wage. Spent players also expressed greater subjective well-being than the control group, but this was not associated with increased policy support or donations. Spent players who experienced greater presence (perceived realism of the simulation) had higher levels of empathy, which contributed to attributing poverty to structural causes and support for anti-poverty policies. We draw conclusions for theory about the psychological experience of playing online poverty simulations, and for how they could be designed to stimulate charity and support for anti-poverty policies

Explaining the Emergence of Indigenous-Local Intergovernmental Relations in Settler Societies: A Theoretical Framework

There has been growing interest among practitioners and academics in the emergence of intergovernmental relations between local and Aboriginal governments in Canada. Initial research has focused on describing the nature of these relations but has yet to develop any theoretical expectations regarding why some communities are more likely to cooperate than others. We addresses this lacuna by developing a theoretical framework for explaining the emergence of cooperation between Aboriginal and local governments. After identifying a set of variables and specifying how they are likely to affect the propensity of communities to cooperate, we conclude with a discussion of how future researchers might use this framework to investigate cooperation and noncooperation between Aboriginal and local governments in Canada and in other settler societies

Social media and self-curatorship : Reflections on identity and pedagogy through blogging on a masters module

El uso de los medios sociales se ha extendido notablemente y se considera ya como una oportunidad única para el diseño de entornos innovadores de aprendizaje, donde los estudiantes se conviertan en protagonistas de experiencias de multialfabetización participativas y entre iguales. El trabajo cuestiona la conexión entre los usos sociales de los nuevos medios y las prácticas educativas relevantes, y propone marcos teóricos más rigurosos que puedan orientar en futuras investigaciones sobre el papel de los medios sociales en la educación. El trabajo reflexiona sobre el estudio de caso llevado a cabo en un grupo de alumnos en un módulo on-line como parte de un programa de máster sobre medios de comunicación, cultura y comunicación. Se invitó a los estudiantes a desenvolverse en estrategias de evaluación más allá de las convencionales, con el fin de teorizar y reflexionar sobre sus experiencias con los medios sociales como soporte y materia del curso. El artículo analiza la experiencia de los estudiantes evaluados en el conjunto del proyecto. Durante la exposición de resultados, los autores situaron los argumentos en el contexto del debate sobre las nuevas alfabetizaciones, la pedagogía y los medios sociales, así como en el marco de la teoría emergente de la autogestión del individuo en estos contextos, como marco metafórico para comprender la producción y la representación de la identidad en los medios digitales.The widespread uses of social media have been celebrated as a unique opportunity to redesign innovative learning environments that position students at the center of a participatory, multiliteracy and peer learning experience. This article problemitizes the connection between the social uses of new media and relevant educational practices and proposes more rigorous theoretical frames that can be used to guide future research into the role of social media in education. This article reports on a case study of a small group of students who use an online module to study media, culture and communication as part of a wider master’s programme. The students were invited to reflect in a more reflexive and theoretical manner than is commonly used in a standard course evaluation about their experiences of engaging with social media as both the medium and the subject of the course. The article discusses the student experience as it unfolded in the context of an assessed piece of project work. In discussing the findings the authors locate the arguments in the context of debates about new literacies, pedagogy and social media as well as in an emergent theory of self-curatorship as a metaphorical frame for understanding the production and representation of identity in digital media

Becoming “Holistically Indigenous”: Young Muslims and Political Participation in Canada

While media and the government often focus on the supposed “radicalization” of Muslim youth in Canada, our research explores the more complicated and nuanced political identities among 20 young Canadian Muslims. Using semi-structured in-depth interviews with these youth in the Greater Toronto Area and in London, Ontario, we explore these young citizens' concepts of political participation; conceptions of the self as a political actor; formal, informal, and civic political involvement; and the relationship between their religious and Canadian identities. Our research is grounded in a positive and pluralistic politics of care, respect, and engagement. We treated Muslim youth as similar to other Canadian youth and designed our study guided by other contemporary research into Canadian youth and political participation. While our interviewees noted the impact of negative public discourse about Muslims and some experiences of racism, the research results revealed an overwhelming commitment to Canada and political engagement among Muslim youth, evidenced most fully by a high level of civic engagement

Amplifying Quiet Voices: Challenges and Opportunities for Participatory Design at an Urban Scale

Many Smart City projects are beginning to consider the role of citizens. However, current methods for engaging urban populations in participatory design activities are somewhat limited. In this paper, we describe an approach taken to empower socially disadvantaged citizens, using a variety of both social and technological tools, in a smart city project. Through analysing the nature of citizens’ concerns and proposed solutions, we explore the benefits of our approach, arguing that engaging citizens can uncover hyper-local concerns that provide a foundation for finding solutions to address citizen concerns. By reflecting on our approach, we identify four key challenges to utilising participatory design at an urban scale; balancing scale with the personal, who has control of the process, who is participating and integrating citizen-led work with local authorities. By addressing these challenges, we will be able to truly engage citizens as collaborators in co-designing their city

Media Engagement Boundaries and Political Influence in Europe

The aim of this article is to analyze the influence level and boundaries that media have on politics. Specifically, we study the power of media to set the public agenda, to set the political agenda determining the decision-making process, and to generate political disaffection through the politicians’ and journalists’ perceptions. We have used a methodology based on in-depth interviews applied to a wide sample of 45 individuals. The analysis is focused on the European context; the case study is based specifically on Spain. Results show a high level of mediatization of politics, but also reveal limits to the political influence of the media. These boundaries of the media influence on politics affects political agenda setting and its ability to generate civic engagement. Moreover, we have detected four media engagement boundaries that boost the citizens’ political cynicism

Gamification of E-Participation: A Literature Review

Gamification is one of the most commonly employed approaches for motivating individuals to participate in several types of activities. One of its largest application areas has been e-participation (i.e. citizen engagement in policy-making). Even though the required ICT infrastructure to facilitate e- participation mostly exists today, the focus of the problem has shifted towards humans; citizens are not motivated enough to participate. Gamification is a potential approach to increase motivation towards e- participation. However, currently there is a dearth in our understanding of how gamification is being applied and researched as well as what kinds of result there exist from gamification. The aim of this paper is to synthesize research and findings on gamified e-participation, providing directions for future research in this area

Local Uses of International Criminal Justice in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Transcending Divisions or Building Parallel Worlds?

Social interactions at the local level are crucial to the analysis of the transitional justice and peace-building process. The reason that various international organizations in Bosnia have not been as successful in achieving the admittedly lofty goals of reconciliation is precisely because most of international representatives underestimated the agency of the local population, focusing exclusively on the actions of various local ethnic and civic elites. However, the parallel existence of competing state and nation building projects in Bosnia and their dominance over externally-supported projects of reconciliation cannot be simply explained by relying on one overarching variable – Bosnian nationalist elites’ work towards their own selfish interests and against the interests of the people. The stories that people tell themselves are many and they compete with each other: some are inclusionary, some less so, and some are downright exclusionist. Nevertheless, in each and every case, they provide the meaningful frame of actions that allow members of various local communities to cope with the exigencies of everyday life in Bosnia. A more suitable approach to transitional justice requires an analysis of what makes these stories so powerful and what are the objective political, social and economic factors that continue to provide a fertile ground for their wide-spread support