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This hypertext report addresses the mobile frontier for civic games, which is fragmented across the applied domains of activism, art and learning. We argue that these three domains can and should speak jointly–an approach we call the civic "tripod." Our site structure is part of its contribution, with a curated database of projects and interviews f...
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E-learning could be carried out with any theory of learning by applying electronic devices. Skinner, for example, introduced programmed instructions in the 50's by the aid of mechanical devices that made immediate reinforcement for the right answer possible. In the frame of cognitivism, students could use a computer as a device for experimenting an...
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... In most prior forms of urban play, such as mixed reality games, location-based games, and interactive installations, content is primarily crafted by designers. Although some designs invite citizens to contribute, these contributions are restricted to text [67,72], photographs [71], or graffiti projections with specified themes [25]. In comparison, GAI could empower citizens to co-create their own play by offering the ability to render everyday cityscapes into alternatives with a wide array of themes. ...
Play is pivotal in fostering the emotional, social, and cultural dimensions of urban spaces. While generative AI (GAI) potentially supports playful urban interaction, a balanced and critical approach to the design opportunities and challenges is needed. This work develops iWonder, an image-to-image GAI tool engaging fourteen designers in urban explorations to identify GAI's playful features and create design ideas. Fourteen citizens then evaluated these ideas, providing expectations and critical concerns from a bottom-up perspective. Our findings reveal the dynamic interplay between users, GAI, and urban contexts, highlighting GAI's potential to facilitate playful urban experiences through \textit{generative agency}, \textit{meaningful unpredictability}, \textit{social performativity}, and the associated offensive qualities. We propose design considerations to address citizen concerns and the `tourist metaphor' to deepen our understanding of GAI's impact, offering insights to enhance cities' socio-cultural fabric. Overall, this research contributes to the effort to harness GAI's capabilities for urban enrichment.
... This study supports a view of protest as an extension of the social relations that include video games, beyond narrow demographics and formal politics. Of course, learning about civics is still valuable-and there is promising work on games for civic learning (e.g., Raphael, Bachen, Lynn, Baldwin-Philippi, & McKee, 2009;Ruiz, Stokes, & Watson, 2012). ...
Commercial games are rarely studied for their links to civic behavior. Yet small-group games online can affect the social networks that spill into civic life (and vice versa). This study examined players of the world’s most popular personal computer game, League of Legends. Such games are theorized as mirrors that reflect civic tendencies and help some players to retain social resources. Using models of civic voluntarism, the attitudes and behaviors of more than 9,000 gamers were investigated. Gamers were shown to have relatively typical civic lives, except for unusually high rates of peaceful protest. Which gamers protest? As predicted, models for protest improved when considering how players approach their gaming (including recruiting and collaboration preferences). Dispelling some civic fears, there was no evidence that video games distracted from civic life when played in moderation. The findings support an emerging notion of protest as a playful and “expressive” civic mode.
... Individuals now have the ability to come together to learn, cooperate and take action in unprecedented ways (Ito, 2012). Some of this literature focuses on the specific affordances of games (Gordon & Baldwin-Philippi, 2013;Gordon & Schirra, 2011;Kahne, Middaugh, & Evans, 2008;Ruiz, Stokes, & Watson, 2011), but play itself, outside of its structure in games, has the most direct bearing on mediated civic engagement. ...
As digital communication technologies have evolved over the past few decades, the convergence of network structure and accessibility with hardware and software advances has allowed individuals to interact in various, even contradictory, ways. They can explore, hide, reach out, evaluate, connect, negotiate, exchange, and coordinate to a greater degree than ever before. Furthermore, this has translated to an ever-increasing number of users interacting with information in unprecedented ways and, due to device portability, in totally new physical locations. Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare update each other simultaneously across application platforms with near-real time photos and impressions of places; mobile exercise applications allow users to track their own movements as well as view where others in their geographic vicinity went running; Yelp users can read selective reviews from social network friends and strangers in their community on a specific restaurant; and Facebook friends can see what their peers bought, listened to, and read - from anywhere they are able to access the Internet. Most of these apps update across platforms enabling both maximum reach across a user’s social group as well as a highly selective direction of information to a subset of their social network. Just as the rapidly evolving landscape of connectivity and communications technology is transforming the individual’s experience of the social sphere, what it means to participate in civic life is also changing, both in how people do it and how it is measured. Civic engagement includes all the ways in which individuals attend to the concerns of public life, how one learns about and participates in all of the issues and contexts beyond one’s immediate private or intimate sphere. New technologies and corresponding social practices, from social media to mobile reporting, are providing different ways to record, share, and amplify that attentiveness. Media objects or tools that impact civic life can be understood within two broad types: those designed specifically with the purpose of community engagement in mind (for instance, a digital game for local planning or an app to give feedback to city council) or generic tools that are subsequently appropriated for engaging a community (such as Twitter or Facebook’s role in the Arab Spring or London riots). Moreover, these tools can mediate any number of relationships between or among citizens, local organizations, or government institutions. Digitally mediated civic engagement runs the gamut of phenomena from organizing physical protests using social media (e.g., Occupy), to using digital tools to hack institutions (e.g., Anonymous), to using city-produced mobile applications to access and coproduce government services, to using digital platforms for deliberating. Rather than try to identify what civic media tools look like in the midst of such an array of possibilities (by focusing on in depth examples or case studies), going forward we will instead focus on how digital tools expand the context of civic life and motivations for engagement, and what participating in civic life looks like in a digital era. We present this literature review as a means of exploring the intersection of theories of human behavior with the motivations for and benefits of engaging in civic life. We bring together literature from behavioral economics, sociology, psychology and communication studies to reveal how civic actors, institutions, and decision-making processes have been traditionally understood, and how emerging media tools and practices are forcing their reconsideration.
This chapter discusses the participatory flair of transmedia journalism within the concreteness of urban spaces by examining The Great British Property Scandal (TGBPS), a transmedia experience designed to inform and engage the public and offer alternative solutions to the long-standing housing crisis in the United Kingdom. The theoretical framework is centered on transmedia storytelling applied to journalism in the scope of urban spaces and participatory culture. The methodological approach of the case study is based on Gambarato's (2013) transmedia analytical model and applied to TGBPS to depict how transmedia strategies within urban spaces collaborated to influence social change. TGBPS is a pertinent example of transmedia journalism within the liquid society, integrating mobile technologies into daily processes with the potential for enhanced localness, customization, and mobility within the urban fabric.
Public engagement in government decision-making is often hindered by a lack of diversity, underutilization of digital tools, and unclear feedback mechanisms â a problem made acute in the context of historically low levels of trust in American government [5]. But one thread of democratic innovation is in mini-publics for deliberation and discussion. Games are a productive mechanism for this. @Stake is a game designed to build deliberative capacity through role-play and ideation. The present research examines the use of @Stake within a Participatory Budgeting process and presents evidence that it leads to increased empathy and creativity in the civic process.
New technologies are changing how and when we learn about events and choose to respond to them. Mobile phones and the internet have altered how we engage with the world. With technology usage expanding rapidly in the developing world, new avenues of participation, engagement, and accountability are emerging. Globally, more people now have the opportunity to actively make use of these tools to participate in processes that impact their societies. This opportunity for participation is also an opportunity for engaging in new ways with peacebuilding processes. As the field of technology for peacebuilding grows, most attention has been paid to the potential of new technologies for bridging the gap between warning and response. Whilst the focus on the use of technology for early warning and response is important, there is more to this growing field. The empowerment of people to participate in localized conflict management efforts is one of the most significant innovations and opportunities created by new technologies. Technology can contribute to peacebuilding processes by offering tools that foster collaboration, transform attitudes, and give a stronger voice to communities. This article aims to give practitioners two related frameworks to understand how new technologies can enhance peacebuilding. The first section looks at the functions that technology can have in a peacebuilding program as a tool for data processing, communication, engagement, and gaming. We then examine the program areas that new technologies can best contribute to, covering early warning/early response systems, programs that allow citizens to voice their opinions and experiences, collaboration efforts, and programs aimed at transforming attitudes.
A delicate touch is required to empower neighborhoods using civic media. Funding is persistently scarce. Especially in marginalized neighborhoods, blunt designs can be counterproductive and even entrench complex problems. New metaphors may be needed to guide design and empower local neighborhoods. Urban acupuncture is used as the basis for this study, emphasizing a light-touch strategy that has shown success in Brazil with urban transit, and more recently in Europe with urban design. We specifically propose “neighborhood acupuncture” to address the local level, tapping the sociology of place-based communication. To investigate the implications for systematic design, a case study is probed in South Los Angeles using mobile media for community mapping. Using qualitative methods, three tactics were investigated for the potential to “poke” the network into action, including one to bridge diverse storytelling networks. Each tactic ultimately seeks to build the capacity for collective action around neighborhood issues. Acupuncture is broadly argued to sustain two design shifts: first to help approach neighborhoods as ecosystems, and second, to design for circulation rather than any single technology platform.
