Newsgames: Experiential Reality, Ludenic News Reading, Conflict of Purposes and Norms

Abstract

Journalism is influenced by the convergence of the diversity of media production due to the development of information and communication technologies. The adoption of participatory culture in production relations and the effectiveness of transmedia storytelling in journalistic forms have also transformed news narratives. In this context, the sectoral convergence of entertainment (hedonistic) and information acquisition (utilitarian) needs has provided an environment for the production of newsgames. This review study aims to discuss newsgames, which journalistic motivations and game motivations reveal in multidisciplinary relationships with the concepts of production and consumption relations, narrative structure, temporality, ethical concerns, ideological doubts and compassion fatigue based on the ludenic theory of news reading. Overlapping goals and conflicting norms coexist in newsgame production environments, a new narrative form for journalism. Newsgame, a new form of narrative for journalism, contains overlapping goals and conflicting norms in production environments. In this sense, despite the innovation that newsgames will bring to journalism and the gains that they can provide to the reader, it has been seen that newsgames have doubts about reality and compassion in research in the field of literature. Despite these doubts, newsgames can turn into an effective way of producing content that combines rigor in content with attractiveness in form by incorporating fun or experiential elements of games into the news narrative and preserving the nature of journalism.