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Playing with empathy: digital role-playing games in public meetings

Published: 29 June 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Digital role-playing games can be an effective tool for augmenting deliberation in a community planning process. We study the implementation of a game called Participatory Chinatown---a 3D, multiplayer game designed to be played in the shared physical space of a master planning meeting in Boston's Chinatown neighborhood. This research examines how role-play can affect the way people understand local issues and engage with their community. It also points to the challenges of extending player empathy from the magic circle of gameplay to the larger context of a community meeting. It suggests that emotional engagement with character and or space does not easily translate into a rational decision-making process. The authors make suggestions for future research that might address this challenge.

References

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Barnes, W., and Mann, B. Making local democracy work: Municipal officials' views about public engagement. Research report from the National League of Cities Center for Research and Innovation, Washington, DC (2009).
[2]
Gordon E., and Koo, G. Placeworlds: Using virtual worlds to foster civic engagement. Space & Culture, 11, 3 (2008), 204--221.
[3]
Gordon, E., and Manosevitch, E. Augmented deliberation: merging physical and virtual interaction to engage communities in urban planning. New Media & Society, 13, 1, (2011), 75--95.
[4]
Huizinga, J. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1950
[5]
Light, J. Taking games seriously. Technology and Culture, 49, 2 (2008), 347--375.
[6]
McComas, K. Trivial pursuits: Participant views of public meetings. Journal of Public Relations Research, 15, 2 (2003), 91--115.
[7]
Schively, C. Understanding the NIMBY and LULU phenomena: Reassessing our knowledge base and informing future research. Journal of Planning Literature, 21, 3 (2007), 255--266.

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  • (2024)Model Pembelajaran Kooperatif Tipe Role Playing Berbantuan Media E-Komik terhadap Keterampilan Berbicara Bahasa Indonesia Siswa Kelas IV SDIndonesian Journal of Instruction10.23887/iji.v5i3.802815:3(343-353)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2024
  • (2024)Urban Gentri: Serious Game on Learning about GentrificationJournal of Planning Education and Research10.1177/0739456X241280179Online publication date: 20-Sep-2024
  • (2024)Situating Empathy in HCI/CSCW: A Scoping ReviewProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36870528:CSCW2(1-37)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
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                  cover image ACM Other conferences
                  C&T '11: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies
                  June 2011
                  193 pages
                  ISBN:9781450308243
                  DOI:10.1145/2103354
                  Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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                  • Queensland University of Technology

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                  Association for Computing Machinery

                  New York, NY, United States

                  Publication History

                  Published: 29 June 2011

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                  Author Tags

                  1. deliberation
                  2. digital games
                  3. empathy
                  4. participatory planning
                  5. role-play

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                  C&T '11
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                  C&T '11: Communities and Technologies
                  June 29 - July 2, 2011
                  Brisbane, Australia

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                  Overall Acceptance Rate 80 of 183 submissions, 44%

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                  View all
                  • (2024)Model Pembelajaran Kooperatif Tipe Role Playing Berbantuan Media E-Komik terhadap Keterampilan Berbicara Bahasa Indonesia Siswa Kelas IV SDIndonesian Journal of Instruction10.23887/iji.v5i3.802815:3(343-353)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2024
                  • (2024)Urban Gentri: Serious Game on Learning about GentrificationJournal of Planning Education and Research10.1177/0739456X241280179Online publication date: 20-Sep-2024
                  • (2024)Situating Empathy in HCI/CSCW: A Scoping ReviewProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36870528:CSCW2(1-37)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
                  • (2024)Moving Towards Mobility Justice: Challenges and Considerations for Supporting AdvocacyProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373738:CSCW1(1-22)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
                  • (2024)LegacySphere: Facilitating Intergenerational Communication Through Perspective-Taking and Storytelling in Embodied VRProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641923(1-16)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
                  • (2024)Digitally gamified co-creation: enhancing community engagement in urban design through a participant-centric frameworkDesign Science10.1017/dsj.2024.1710Online publication date: 10-Oct-2024
                  • (2023)Applications, Approaches, and Ethics of the Extended Reality in Urban Design and PlanningJournal of the American Planning Association10.1080/01944363.2023.227512390:3(551-567)Online publication date: 11-Dec-2023
                  • (2022)Unstable Wormholes: Communications Between Urban Planning and Game StudiesUrban Planning10.17645/up.v7i2.49537:2Online publication date: 16-May-2022
                  • (2022)Values throughout the Game SpaceProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35495206:CHI PLAY(1-27)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2022
                  • (2022)How Should I Respond to “Good Morning?”: Understanding Choice in Narrative-Rich GamesProceedings of the 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3532106.3533459(726-744)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2022
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