New journalistic narratives between information and playful simulation: Docuwebs and newsgames

Abstract

This article aims to discuss how digital journalism and the culture of modern videogames interface in two forms of playful simulation and journalistic immersion: docuwebs and newsgames. For this, a qualitative analysis method has been used with a double perspective: the level of informative-journalistic discourse (i.e., contents and their projections) and the level of procedural rhetoric (i.e., through game mechanics). This is applied to two RTVE Lab case studies: newsgame MonteLaband docuweb Guerra a la mentira. The main results show how the design of MonteLab opens a dialogue between a rich journalistic source system and some game dynamics that enable decision-making regarding today’s social problems. Likewise, Guerra a la mentira offers a set of real cases and uses fact-checking and fake news as the journalistic foundations on which to build a playful proposal for puzzle solving and narrative momentum. In conclusion, we could verify that the contemporary newsgame seeks to empower the player as an informed citizen who takes advantage of playful dynamics to provide social solutions based on journalistic information. At the same time, the docuweb goes beyond hypertextual staticism and the mere journalistic description of reality to get into more complex dynamics and more immersive playful designs.