Digital Games to Teach News Literacy to Children

Studying news media literacy and finding ways to improve it is extremely important in an age of information crisis. Games are a tool which allows teaching children in news making scenarios in an enjoyable way. Some researchers have been studying how games can contribute to improve news literacy. However most of those studies only consider games for college students (Aayeshah, 2012; Bogost, Ferrari, & Schweizer, 2010; Cameron, 2004; Frasca, 2003). There is a lack in the literature examining news literacy games for younger children, even though a few of those games exist too. This paper proposes to do a qualitative formative evaluation of six news literacy games for children, displayed at the Newseum in Washington D.C. (Digital Stemworks, 2013). We examined how game elements were incorporated to teach news literacy. We were particularly interested in seeking if the learning principles for news literacy education suggested by Renee Hobbs (2010) were followed and how. Our findings show that most of those principles were indeed present. For example, some games use real live case scenarios establishing a bridge between the learning experience and the world. With the renovated and growth interest in news literacy education, people may expect that more games of this sort will be created. Our work extends knowledge of how news literacy is being approached in interactive digital platforms and, ultimately, how those approaches can be improved.