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Section IV
Software-Driven Content
A media user has many motivesâa need to be momentarily entertained, a hedge against temporary boredom, a quick accounting of the dayâs news, a suggestion for a restaurant and a movie, a way of saving money, and no doubt many others. Content producers must be aware and prepared for several possible consumer incentives that dictate desire. The five chapters in this section use specially designed software that have the potential to satisfy most consumer demands.
Games
Quiz games provide users with tests of their knowledge within a supportive, educational environment in the spirit of social constructivism that encourages collaborative activities. Games related to news stories can be seen in The New York Times and other publication websites in which a player competes against the computer or other users. âA Google a Dayâ challenges participants to find answers to cryptic clues using the popular search engine.
Simulations
With the best simulations, a goal is to help a user understand more fully the complicated aspects of a story by enmeshing the player into a reality different from her own. âCity Councilâ helps a participant understand the journalism process, while âSPENTâ explains the effects of poverty on individuals. These two types of simulations, professional practice and issue-oriented, have one aspect in commonâthey both create engaging first-person experiences.
QR Codes
One of the most prevalent examples of software-driven content is the Quick Response (QR) code. Created by a Japanese company in 1996, the graphic collection of black and white squares printed on billboards, advertisements, window displays, and so on can be links to phone numbers, special offers, videos, and websites for users with a smartphone or tablet app. Graphic designers and artists continue to produce visually creative QR codes within unique contextsâon dinner plates at restaurants that link to drink and dessert specials, behind-the-scene access for the promotion of a movie or television show, and as part of a news photograph that allows users to see video.
3D Displays
As a gimmick to attract attention, the 2009 cover of Esquire did its job. With downloaded software and a built-in camera, the actor Robert Downey, Jr. led computer users to the magazineâs 3D features. Although many found the âin your faceâ displays initially charming, the effect had little long-term influence because of the superficial nature of the content. If used more thoughtfully, mass communicators who produce serious stories on social problems might consider this technology as a way to further engage traditional readers.
Apps
Location-specific applications downloaded for free or at a modest cost to a personâs smart-phone or tablet pinpoint a userâs location to provide immediate links to commercial and cultural establishments imposed on a map and/or floating over a view of an area provided by the built-in camera. These environmental-specific apps provided by Acrossair, Junaio, Layar, Wikitude, and others allow users to interact with their environment. Apps could also include a list of news stories that occurred near a smartphone userâs location.
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11
Games
There are usually two types of persons who use computers for the first time in a serious way to complete projects within a mass communications context:
Those who get frustrated early and expect answers to be readily offered and explicit
Or
Those who enjoy the intellectual stimulation in which frustration simply becomes a necessary component of a game-playing exercise.
Once you learn that the use of a computer can be thought of as a game in which the rules change daily, a much more pleasurable and rewarding experience waitsâas long as you make regular backups of the work you produce.
Social constructivism theory can help understand your role within a learning environment. Because we acquire knowledge through challenges, designing and playing games have been established as necessary components to a personâs education. An individualâs specific and separate experiences up to this point dictate how successful the game is.
More importantly, digital innovations as described in this textbook require a collaborative or social approach. Although it is possible to achieve satisfactory results alone, teaming up with another or with members of a discrete group creates the best chance to produce work with lasting impact for others. Consider these two-person teams that were successful because of their collaboration:
- Marie Sklodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie, a married couple that shared a Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on radiology.
- Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat de Guillebon, a married couple known for their colorful environmental artistic displays.
- Elton Hercules John and Bernard John Taupin were a singer and lyricist team that became one of the most successful pop song duos in history.
- Steven Paul Jobs and Stephen Gary Wozniak were cofounders of the Apple Computer Company.
- Sergey Brin and Larry Page were cofounders of Google, Inc.
Consequently, you should never feel you are alone when designing games or other presentations related to your particular mass communications field. In fact, working in a social, collaborative environment within a classroom, lab, or online should be a regular working requirement.
One of the best resources for games is the website of the High School Journalism Initiative (HSJ) with its office at the prestigious Missouri School of Journalism. Established in 2000, it serves to train young reporters as well as educate all in the importance of the First Amendment. HSJ currently is connected to more than 3,500 student news websites.
Several websites offer grammar exercises in the form of interactive quizzes. HSJ offers a âTest Your Skillsâ game that includes the question:
Which Sentence Has the Error?
- That dog is so ugly itâs owner has to walk it in the dark.
- âI think itâs a shame,â said the Venusian, âthat you earthlings donât understand my language.â
- The flea could hardly contain his enthusiasm: âMore than six square feet of Dalmatian, and itâs mine, all mine!â
Whether you are correct or not, there is a brief explanation of the proper use of possessives.
âNewsroom 101â contains more than 2,000 exercises designed for journalism students and professionals who need to learn or take a refresher course in the Associated Press writing style and in grammar, usage, and spelling. Developed by Gerald Grow, a retired professor from Florida A&M University who is better known for his musing on such diverse topics as Buddhism, food, and computers, the elaborate site is a witty exploration of the written rules that makes journalism unique.
Perhaps as a way to encourage more tactical web searches, but more likely a clever marketing strategy, the web browser Google initiated its âA Google a Dayâ game in 2011. The New York Times ran the feature next to its workday crossword puzzle with the questions getting harder as the week progressed. For example, one dayâs clue was:
âMy name is Robert. One day before my brother Rohanâs 19th birthday, our father had an album on the Billboard 200. Name the album.â
(Try the keywords Robert, Rohan, and Billboard if you donât know.)
Other variations of quiz games included one that was provided by CNN on Beatles trivia while MSNBC and the Scripps Howard newspaper chain offered a âspelling beeâ game based on the rules of the National Spelling Bee. Both were included as sidebars connected to a news story about each topic.
While a student at Washington State University, Vancouver, Matt Johnson developed a PowerPoint program inspired by the popular answer-then-question television game show âJeopardy!â hosted by the amicable Alex Trebek. Depending on your mass communication professional interest, you can use the free website to write specific categories and answers within each dollar amount. To continue with the answers-first format, every Friday, the online magazine Slate presents a 12-question news quiz by 74-time âJeopardy!â winner Ken Jennings. (He couldnât win one more game?) At the end, you can see how your score compared with the average player and one from the magazine. For Parade magazine, Jennings also produces a game called âKonnectionsâ in which players answer questions and try to determine the links between them. (Itâs good that Jennings never encountered a spelling category on the game show.)
For some, checking your score against others is a powerful incentive to play. âThe News IQ Quizâ offered by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan âfact tankâ more known...
