When News Becomes a Game: What will happen to Journalism?

Abstract

Aim of the Study: The rate of evolution of digital and interactive technologies has transformed the way of how the news is consumed by audiences. With the shrinking attention spans getting out of concern and information overload threatening to put their dark clouds over traditional journalism, the use of gamification as a technique that suggests the introduction of game-like behaviors such as points, badges, interactivity, and stories to the news platforms is also something being looked at by the news organizations. Despite the fact that gamification has been more involving, interactive, and engaging to the listener, there exist concerns of de-professionalizing serious news information, thus losing credibility, and altering the view of journalism as being a civic profession among the experts. This paper discussed gamification implementation on Pakistani online news sources and its implications for the seriousness and credibility of journalism.

Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six media practitioners to study the impact of gamified features on the audience, the sustainability of their newsroom, and its effect on credibility of this profession. It is discussed in the context of Media Effects Theory and Uses and Gratifications Theory, as the gamification had two consequences: more people have participated and learned, and, on the other hand, serious content may be trivialized.

Findings: The results reveal that gamification strengthens the audience retention and youth involvement but can be incompatible with the normative journalistic values especially when the entertainment gratifications overpower the informational or civic agendas.

Conclusion: It ends up concluding that strategic execution, informed by editorial structures, is necessary to maintain a balance between the innovation and credibility and present implications to media practice and research in new digital news ecosystems.