Games and Quizzes in Online Journalism

Abstract

The competition for online news page views increasingly involves strategies designed to promote the “viral” nature of content, and to capitalize on the content's spread by ensuring that the content does not quickly lose timeliness or relevance. As a result of the pressure for these stories, news experiences which can be revisited by consumers are at a premium. In this ecosystem, interactive games and quizzes which can be played to receive different feedback or reach a different ending offer promise for news organizations to receive ongoing and widespread reward for their efforts. This chapter provides an overview of the state of gamification in journalism, challenges and opportunities for the growth of games in online news, and discusses evidence for the impact of increasingly gamified news content on how users process and perceive news information.