Final Masters Project : Home
Research Results
Abstract
Introduction
Fiction has been shown to be an effective way to influence people towards attitude and behavioural changes (Appel & Richter, 2010; Green, Garst, & Brock, 2004; Prentice & Gerrig, 1999; Wheeler, Green, & Brock, 1999). This is something that is sorely needed when it comes to climate change mitigation. Urgent warnings dominate our media (IPCC, 2018) yet lack of sufficient action to assuage the worst of the impacts (Mike Hulme, 2018) persists. It appears that traditional methods of science communication are seemingly inadequate in their ability to inspire change (Sturgis & Allum, 2004). More creative methods may be what is needed to deal with this wicked problem.
There are many forms of climate fiction. We may often think of literature or perhaps films as the main forms of “cli-fi” (Tuhus-Dubrow, 2013) as these are what we think of when we think of science fiction mediums. Cli-fi stories can also be told through creative means such as theatre, poetry, or other creative works (Johns‐Putra, 2016). With so many ways of telling the same story, it is natural to wonder if any are particularly up to the task of influencing attitudes and behaviours.
In this paper, I will be focusing on two mediums, short stories and computer gaming. These two methods, from the literature, appear to be particularly apt to tackle this issue due to accessibility, popularity, and many other factors that I will be exploring in detail in this paper. Both offer an immersive, engaging experience for the audience, ideal for connecting with them in a meaningful way such as creating empathy for the characters in the story. In this paper, I will be asking what is more important: The story that is being told or the means of telling the story. And if the means of telling the story is important, are people more impacted by the imaginative nature of a written story, or the visual and interactive nature of playing a computer game?
The aim of this project is to tell the same climate fiction story through two different mediums, a short written story and a computer game, and to see how the audience responds. This will be through a qualitative analysis of open-ended survey questions looking for how engaged participants feel about the story/game and if they feel empathy towards the characters. These are two important factors as to why fiction is persuasive (Appel & Richter, 2010; Belman & Flanagan, 2010; Benjamins, 2013; Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009; Koopman & Hakemulder, 2015; Wu & Lee, 2015) and therefore I feel they will be a good indication of how effective the story is in terms of science communication purposes for attitudinal and behavioural changes.
Challenges
Climate change is an especially complex area of science, making communicating the facts to non-scientists a difficult feat. Not only is the science complicated, but due to the number of interconnecting factors making accurate predictions is a virtually impossible task (Rind, 1999). One of the main obstacles to overcome is the invisibility of the issue. Not only are greenhouse gas emissions invisible to the naked eye but so are many of the impacts at this stage, such as the currently immeasurable health impacts (Moser, 2010). Along with this, there is also the issue of our own physical distance from the worst of the impacts. These impacts are currently most evident in places most of us do not live such as at the poles, on top of mountains, and in the oceans. We also have distance in time as the most serious impacts are far into the future (Zwiers & Hegerl, 2008). Another factor is the lack of instant gratification that comes with changing behaviour (Solomon, Plattner, Knutti, & Friedlingstein, 2009), as the positive changes that result would likely not even occur in the person’s lifetime. All these reasons may be what is contributing to the seeming lack of action.
The news media has made people aware of the issue and the majority of these people accept the fact that climate change is a result of human interference (Nerlich, Koteyko, & Brown, 2010). This acceptance has not translated into changes that would mitigate the issue as demonstrated by continually rising carbon emissions (Hulme, 2018). This could be due to the fact that traditional means of science communication still rely on the “deficit model”. This model suggests that positive attitudes towards science come simply from the information. The experts have the responsibility to relay their knowledge to the public in a clear and simple way, often through an intermediary such as the media (Bucchi & Trench, 2008). This has been shown to be faulty logic as more knowledge does not correlate with a change in attitude or behaviour (Sturgis & Allum, 2004).
Being bombarded with the facts and figures about climate change can even lead to “climate fatigue”. This will shut the audience off from any new information as they will disengage completely from the issue (Kerr, 2009). The way the media frames the message can further backfire on the intention (T. Cheng, Woon, & Lynes, 2011; Spence, 2010). Negative framing, which is often used, is when the message focuses on what is lost should action not occur, rather than what will be gained if the action does occur. The media also relies on fear narratives (O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009). Fear narratives go along with negative framing, but illicit a particularly strong response by showing the audience a “doomsday” scenario of our future. These methods have been shown to be counterproductive, as it leads the audience to feel hopeless. This hopelessness only leads to further inaction (O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009).
Solutions
Clear and simple information, use of imagery, and appropriate framing are all important ways to effectively communicate science. These methods are particularly crucial with an issue as complex as climate change as they may help get across the message in a meaningful way (Moser, 2010). This is an issue that will always have some level of ambivalence to most of the public as other issues that have a more direct impact on the person will be prioritised. This makes it important that the science communicator relates the issue to the audience’s own personal experiences in some way (Moser, 2010). This includes addressing varying world views and cultural beliefs (Hoffman, 2011) and considering the values, attitudes, and emotions of the audience (Ockwell, Whitmarsh, & O’Neill, 2009). The message needs not only to be relevant to the audience but stimulating as well (Nerlich et al., 2010).
Non-threatening imagery and icons that are connected to what the audience is concerned about or feel emotion towards in their daily lives can be very successful (O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009). For instance, polar bears have been an icon for climate change since 2006 (Garfield, 2007). While it does put an image to an invisible issue and signifies vulnerability (Manzo, 2010) it is not something most people can connect with at a personal level (Hulme, 2009).
Framing of the message is also important and could be a way to fight against the issue of “climate-fatigue”. The way a message is framed is shown to be critically important to how persuasive that message is to its audience (Smith & Petty, 1996). Climate change most often is portrayed as an environmental issue, but there are many other ways to frame the topic. This could be as a moral, economic, security (Zia & Todd, 2010), or public health issue (Akerlof et al., 2010). Reframing the issue can also help to target people of different ideologies and who have differing values (Zia & Todd, 2010) making this issue relatable to a wider audience.
Immersion and Empathy
When talking about fiction as a tool for science communication I have decided to focus on immersion and empathy. Fiction is so persuasive, in part, due to both of these tools (Green et al., 2004; Strange, 2002; Wheeler et al., 1999). The more immersive a story is, the better its ability to change attitudes and beliefs (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009). “Immersion” can be understood as how engaged the audience is with the narrative or to what extent they are transported into the fictional world (Green & Brock, 2000). It is when the audience is immersed in the story that they can adopt the perspective of the character by temporarily letting go of their role as the passive audience (Cohen, 2001).
Without immersion, it is unlikely we can achieve empathy. Empathy is when our emotions mirror that of another person, in this case, a fictional character (Mar & Oatley, 2009). Once the audience can take on the character’s perspective, they can understand and feel that character’s emotions. Fostering empathy for fictional characters helps to shape a person’s empathy in the real world (Benjamins, 2013). I believe this is one reason fiction is so useful for communicating about climate change. Those most impacted will be future generations. Therefore, climate fiction which is set in the future, is one way to create empathy towards a group of people that do not yet exist.
Climate Fiction
The solutions above could be implemented to improve traditional science communication, but I believe that fiction is a perfect medium to incorporate these tactics. For many, fiction feels to be a “safe place” for meaningful examination. These creative spaces may be more comfortable for those that have felt as if they have been left behind when it comes to scientific discussions, such as non-academics (Illingworth & Jack, 2018). Not only is it more accessible, but it allows for much more creativity as the communicator is not limited strictly to our current reality. As the worst of climate change impacts are in the future (Moser, 2010) it allows us to take a peek into what that future may look like, narrowing our distance in time and space. The message can also be framed in any number of ways, something that seems difficult to do with news programing and the limitations with it. The message does not only need to be about the environment as the focus is around the character’s relationships with each other and the new society. Most importantly, the many facets of the story allow for the story to connect to the reader in a variety of ways.
Stories transport us into the world that has been created and engages us through our emotions (Green et al., 2004). Surprisingly, fiction has been shown to be no less persuasive than non-fiction (Appel & Richter, 2010; Green & Brock, 2000; Prentice & Gerrig, 1999). In fact, consumers of fiction tend to accept the “facts” of the fictional world whether or not they actually have any basis in reality (Wheeler et al., 1999). This may be because the reader allows themself to be passively influenced by the material, rather than systemically and rationally engaging, as is generally the case with non-fiction (Prentice & Gerrig, 1999). The audience is even likely to accept completely false information as fact and translate this to the real world (Wheeler et al., 1999).
Climate fiction is so useful because you do not need a strong scientific literacy to consume and enjoy the stories. It is not about presenting the audience with facts and figures but communicating through emotion and experience (Tuhus-Dubrow, 2013). It engages the audience on an emotional level which is why this genre has been increasing in popularity within literature, films, and theatre over the last decade. (Johns‐Putra, 2016). Yet the narrative can still get across the significance of the issue and tackle all the political, social, and economic issues that follow the science. These elements may influence public opinion in a much greater way than scientific knowledge (Kirby, 2018; Nisbet & Scheufele, 2009).
Climate fiction allows the reader to experience the issue of climate change through the experience of the fictional characters of the story (Whiteley, Chiang, & Einsiedel, 2016). With the future of climate change being so ambiguous, climate fiction allows the reader to focus on one possibility. They often reframe the issue by not entirely focusing on the environmental issue but on the character’s struggles with the obstacles of this altered world (Whiteley et al., 2016).
While climate fiction often deals with dystopian worlds, the purpose is not to entice fear, which, as stated previously can be counter-productive (O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009). The stories are entertaining as the altered world creates obstacles for the characters to overcome. These obstacles change the way the characters relate to each other, to society as a whole, and to their environment, making for an interesting stimulating story. They are hopeful stories as the characters often do overcome these obstacles and find a way to survive (Trexler & Johns‐Putra, 2011).
There is evidence that not only do these stories change ideas but also long-term behaviour (Appel & Richter, 2010; Moyer‐Gusé & Dale, 2017), which is crucial for climate change mitigation. Literature can alter a person’s core belief. This, again, is believed to be due to immersion into the fictional world (Appel & Richter, 2010). A good example would be how the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe changed the beliefs of its readers in the mid 19th century to be more actively opposed to slavery. It’s even thought that the book might have been a catalyst for the US civil war (Strange, 2002).
Frequent fiction readers are shown to have higher levels of empathy than others (Benjamins, 2013), even when personality differences are ruled out (Mar & Oatley, 2009). The empathy and self-reflection that is prompted through reading fiction can also encourage prosocial behaviour (Koopman & Hakemulder, 2015). This is due to the fact that the reader’s immersion into the fictional world allows them to feel empathy for the struggles of a character (Oatley, 2016). This increase in empathy then translates into the real life of the reader, allowing them to be more empathic in social situations and to act more appropriately towards others (Mar & Oatley, 2009). By linking the empathy the reader feels in a climate fiction story to the issue itself, it seems that this would be an effective way of promoting positive behavioural changes.
Climate Fiction in Games
Climate fiction can also be told and experienced through games. While most forms of climate fiction are made to be consumed passively, games add in a new element: interactivity. For science communication, games may be the best way of learning and retaining scientific material. For instance, when a student learns by being directly involved in the process, such as through playing a game, they retain 90% of the information they are presented. This is compared to the 10% they retain by reading and the 50% they retain when hearing the information (Ezrailson, Kamon, Loving, & McIntyre, 2006).
As shown previously, understanding the information about climate change is not enough for making a real change (Sturgis & Allum, 2004), but games go beyond that. They do not rely on the one-way transfer of information, as the audience is directly involved in the outcome. This steps away from the deficit model of science communication and towards the dialogue model. In the deficit model, knowledge is transferred through a one-way pathway, from the “expert” of the subject to the “non-expert”. In the dialogue model, information is shared in a two-way pathway. This allows the person who is learning to have an active role. The dialogue model is the more effective of the two (Trench, 2008). While not completely filling the dialogue model, games do draw on the person’s own experiences and information with the subject, influencing decision making during the game. While there is not another actual person to have a “dialogue” with (at least in a single-player game), the player is essentially involved in dialogue with the system, as it is responding to the choices the player is making.
Games are powerful due to how engaging they are (Gee, 2003). Yet, they also create an emotional connection to the message. The player becomes immersed, as they are, in most cases, part of the narrative that creates the world (Wu & Lee, 2015). Empathy for the characters are created as the player is allowed to experience different roles and perspectives in the game (Gee, 2003). The game produces feelings of both guilt and accomplishment as the player feels a personal responsibility for the actions they take and the following consequences (Squire & Jenkins, 2011). The player is emotionally invested as the outcome is impacted by the player’s own choices (Gee, 2003). Games also have a way of making the characters feel relatable to the player, thus furthering the empathy the player feels towards the plight of the character they play (Belman & Flanagan, 2010).
When it comes to climate fiction, and use of future histories, the player can envision themselves in this possible future and live through the result of their present actions (Wiek & Iwaniec, 2014). Climate fiction games are emotional, but they do not rely only on tapping into our fear but the joy and wonder that comes with playing an immersive game. Lastly, playing a game leads to what is called a “winner’s mentality”: the idea that a big win is possible. This hopeful mentality could translate from winning the game to the idea that winning the fight against climate change is, in fact, possible (Wu & Lee, 2015).
Games have used climate narratives since 1983. The first noted was a board game about rising carbon dioxide levels (Robinson & Ausubel, 1983). In the last decades, games involving climate narrative have become more popular, particularly in digital form (Wu & Lee, 2015). However, these games do not appear to be hugely mainstream and are usually produced by universities or government agencies for science communication purposes first and entertainment second (Wu & Lee, 2015). For instance, a research team developed a global warming expansion for the enormously popular tabletop game Settlers of Catan (Illingworth & Wake, 2019). While downloaded 1,600 times, impressive for a research project, it pales in comparison to the reach of any of the numerous expansions of the game by Catan studios, which sell in the millions of copies. Therefore, these games do not appear to achieve the potential audience they could if they were designed by a large production studio.
There appears to be the opportunity to bring these narratives into the mainstream with the popularity of open-world games that take place in dystopian futures. Two examples in this genre are Fallout and The Last of Us. Both games follow an event that has had catastrophic results, in Fallout it is a nuclear war and in The Last of Us a disease. The player then gets to explore and needs to survive in this significantly altered world. These games do not appear to directly make any political statements or to have the purpose of being educational. It is, however, an entertaining and immersive game that shows an apocalyptic world. The player is influenced by the state of the world. While the environment might be fun to explore in the game world, it shows a place most people today would not want to live. In the case of Fallout, this has been shown to lead to some change in political and cultural attitudes related to nuclear weapons (Hunter, 2018). I feel that a game about a dystopian post-climate-change world that relies on entertainment and immersion could be very influential.
Comparison
The research is clear that both fictional literature and games are excellent ways to communicate science, particularly about climate change, in a way that has an impact on the behaviour of the audience. They do so in much the same ways, by creating an immersive world, engaging the audience, and creating empathy. Yet the way they engage the audience is slightly different. In literature, the reader is transported into a fictional world as they use their imagination to interpret the words on the page (Appel & Richter, 2010). In games, the player is engaged with a more sensorial experience in which they can influence the story (Wu & Lee, 2015). While both methods are effective in similar yet different ways, it leaves the question, is one more effective from a science communication standpoint? There is very little research directly comparing the two.
Methods
Outputs
The aim of this project is to compare the level of engagement with a story told through two different mediums, a written short story (see appendix A) and an exploratory first-person 3D game (see appendix B). The narrative itself is meant to engage the audience through a few different tactics. First, it frames the issue in a way that I felt would be relevant to many people’s daily lives, their family. This is through the relationships portrayed in the story between spouses as well as between older and younger family members, including the responsibility family members feel to each other. Second, it is locally relevant to a New Zealand audience as it will have references to New Zealand throughout. Third, it is meant to create empathy for the characters who are going through a difficult situation, each dealing with the circumstances in very different ways. Fourth, through having a trustworthy character. Character trustworthiness has been looked at as a major factor in how persuasive the narrative is, especially for environmental messaging (Appel & Mara, 2013). I believe the main character is trustworthy not only though the characteristics that are shown in the story but also that deceit is not possible, as we are present in her thoughts throughout.
The written short story (2600 words) was created first by myself and named Home. It was later adapted into a computer game with the help of a game designer who transformed my vision into a digital output. One of the aims of the game was to be as true to the written story as possible, but in a way that also makes for an entertaining gaming experience. The use of a 3D setting was to create realism for greater immersion. In the game, the player sees through the eyes of the old woman, in order to stay in line with the interiority of the written story.
Story narrative
The story takes place in the main character’s home. The audience will soon realise that the woman is elderly and suffering from some form of dementia and not aware of her present situation. She fixates on her husband, who she believes to still be alive, and believes the world is the comfortable place it once was. The reader discovers through her interactions with her granddaughter that this is a future world that has badly been impacted by climate change. The area they are in is abandoned due to the particularly bad local conditions. The granddaughter is desperately trying to get the old lady to leave for a community where they have a better chance to survive. The lady can not understand this. She fights the girl to stay in her home, as she will not leave without her husband. In the end, the granddaughter leaves to save herself, abandoning her grandmother. It is implied that she will not do well on her own, as she immediately gets rid of the notes the granddaughter leaves to keep her alive.
Game Adaptation
The game is meant to emulate Gone Home by The Fullbright Company (“Gone Home,” 2019). This is a first-person exploration game in which you are a character coming back from vacation to your family home only to find it empty. By interacting with items in the house you unlock the mystery of what occurred while you were gone. I used this same premise of telling my story through interactions with the objects in the house. This exploration type game fits well with the story that I had written. The popularity and especially immersive quality of the genre seemed a good fit for this research project. Exploration games allow the player to be part of the world by exploring and interacting with the world. This facilitates the chance to feel empathy for the character, as the player is the character within the game (Sherry, 2019).
One major difference between Gone Home and my game is that in my written story there is a second character that the lady interacts with, whereas in Gone Home the interactions are strictly with the environment. This was a complication in the creation of the game as animation is a time-intensive task. However, this interaction is crucial to the story. To overcome this, we created a still 3D model of the granddaughter that could be interacted with in the same way as the rest of the objects in the house. In the different scenes, she is posed in different ways to convey what she is doing or feeling in the scene. For example, in the last scene she is standing near the kitchen with her phone on the counter and her hand is over her face. This is to convey that she had just finished a phone conversation and was frustrated with the outcome of the call.
There were some other issues with the game version of the story. After the game was available to play, participants had issues completing it. Those less familiar with this type of game would get stuck in a scene because they could not navigate easily or find all the objects they needed to interact with. Others did not have a computer capable of running the game, or some just did not want to download the large file necessary to install the game. To combat this, as it was severely limiting the number of responses, we had to release a walkthrough video. The video was a screen recording of the game being played right through with enough time to read all the text. It ended up being 17 minutes long. This allowed us to get the participants that were needed, as the video was put on YouTube and therefore easily accessible. While those that watched the video did not get the “full experience”, I do not feel it impacted the effect too much as the game is an “on-rails experience”. This means that the player can not influence the outcome or make decisions other than the amount of interaction with objects on the screen. Therefore, watching the video would be fairly similar to the experience achieved from playing the game.
Evaluation
To evaluate these two methods of telling the story Home, I created a questionnaire (see appendix C) for participants to complete after reading the short story or playing the game. By asking open-ended questions, with minimal leading, participants are allowed to think critically about the story and share any views they may have (Badger & Thomas, 1992, Labuschagne, 2003). This also seemed most appropriate considering the limited participation I had expected and how subjective the topic was.
For the scope of this project, due to time limitations, I used convenience sampling recruited through social media. A link to a website was created with the information sheet, access to one of the outputs, and the survey. The two parts to the project, the written story and the game, were available at separate times. The same link was used, but the content was replaced to show only the version that was accessible at that time. Participants could do either part of the study, or choose to participate in both. Access was only given to the materials once consent was given, by clicking a box to proceed at the bottom of the information sheet. Responses were confidential.
When reading the responses I was looking for clues as to how immersed with the story the audience was and if they felt empathy towards the characters. A narrative engagement study (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009) was utilised to create appropriate questions. Using this study I identified four main areas to explore levels of engagement:
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Narrative understanding: the participant’s understanding of the events of the story.
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Emotional engagement: feeling empathy for the characters and/or shared emotions with the characters.
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Narrative presence: briefly feeling a part of the fictional world. This will directly tell us if the audience has been immersed in the story. It measures their ability to take a break from their own reality while reading the story, to engage deeply with the narrative.
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Attentional Focus: the story’s ability to keep the participant’s focus and attention. Participants were able to list any particular distractions that may have impeded their immersion.
Narrative understanding, after much consideration over the course of this project, appears to have the least to do with immersion. I think that a person can fully understand a story and not be at all engaged, while someone else may miss some points, but still have had a strong emotional connection to the narrative. While the other three seem to be excellent measures of immersion, narrative understanding does not tie in as neatly. While empathy and engagement are the main focus of this study, narrative understanding has a place, as overall, the goal is science communication. If the audience does not understand the message, then we have already missed our main objective.
In evaluating the responses, I considered whether the immersion and empathy the audience felt was a result of the narrative of the story or the mode of delivery. For instance, when asked if they felt emotions with the characters, respondents might answer that they felt emotions because of the sad nature of the circumstances, indicating the narrative is responsible for the response. Alternatively, they may answer that they shared the character's emotions because they were able to see the scene from the eyes of the character (in the game) or because they were drawn in through the actual telling of the story (in the written story). This would indicate that their response was at least partially impacted by the medium used to tell the story.
Participants were also asked if they identify as more of a reader or gamer to see if people connect more strongly to the story when told through their preferred medium, a fact that has been shown through the literature (Moser, 2010). They could also say if they felt neutral, or equally interested in both mediums. Basic demographic questions were also included to see if any interesting trends emerged. This included gender, age group and country of residence.
Whether any gender bias existed, either for or against the story, was one objective to the demographics. It has been shown that readers tend to prefer stories about characters of their own gender (Hogan, 1994) or even that both genders have some preference towards male protagonists (Bortolussi, Dixon, & Sopčák, 2010). There is also some suggestion that male readers tend to be resistant to reading stories about or written by a woman (Temple, 1993). As my story is both about two women and written by a woman, it was possible some biases could present themselves. However, most millennials believe that we should no longer be defined by our gender (Weingarten, 2015). Therefore, the age groups added another dimension as I could also explore if less bias existed with younger generations.
Lastly, as it is a New Zealand based story, whether or not New Zealanders engaged more closely with the story was an area of interest. Another researcher that looked at climate change communication through their video game, Future Delta, found local relevance to be an important factor of engagement (Dulic, Angel, & Sheppard, 2016). Future Delta was developed for a local community. It used specific landmarks from the area and showed how climate change would impact one town specifically. The location in New Zealand that my game/story takes place is unknown so the impact will likely not be as strong. However, I suspected it may still have some impact. Many New Zealanders are under the false assumptions that we are not at risk of the impacts of climate change due to our location (Aitken, Chapman, & McClure, 2011). Therefore I think it was important to show a future where New Zealand has serious impacts.
Results
Story Feedback
i) General Response. Initially, social media was the only platform I had planned to use to get participants, as I wanted to limit the amount of responses. This yielded much fewer responses than anticipated so other channels were utilised. This included directed emails to anyone outside of social media networks and public forums posts of relevant topics (including subreddits and Facebook groups for New Zealand, climate change and science communication). This still did not get much of a response. In the end, it was mostly family members that were directly asked that came through to help get the needed responses. This may have created a biased data set.
The written story portion ended up with twenty responses. There were no incomplete surveys entered in terms of the open-ended questions. A large amount of participants missed the first demographic question (gender). This was an open text box field so people could enter anything or write “prefer not to say” but it was mostly either left blank or male/female leading me to think this was not an active choice to not answer, but rather a formatting/visibility issue. From those that did answer there was a fairly even split of male and female participants (fig. 1). No differences between engagement of male vs female participants could be seen.
Fig. 1
Other demographics included the country of residence. Most participants were New Zealanders, but there was a fairly even split between New Zealanders and non-New Zealanders (fig. 2). Out of the non-New Zealanders, most were from the United States or South Africa, with the exception of one which was from Australia. Most participants were between 25-60, fairly evenly split between the two age groups 25-39 and 40-60 (fig. 3). The only unrepresented age group was the 19-24 range. Engagement was not clearly stronger based on location or age grouping.
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Most of the participants in the written story portion reported preferring reading over gaming (Fig. 4). However, a few in this category specified that they choose to read non-fiction instead of fiction. Several reported liking both reading and games, while a few had a clear preference towards games. Any obvious differences in the responses between readers and gamers could not be noted. Some gamers engaged strongly with the story while some readers did not, and both had a variety of responses.
Fig. 4
ii) Narrative understanding. There appeared to be no major issues with narrative understanding. All respondents reported finishing the story and some even said they read it more than once. The participants were asked, “If a friend asked you what this story is about, how would you describe it to them?”. The phrasing of the question elicited a variety of methods of explaining the story. Some participants summarised the plot in great detail. Others summarised very broadly with no focus on the details. One person said, “It's a story about what our lives will be like if global warming makes parts of the earth uninhabitable.”. A couple of others only listed some main themes, such as climate crises, senility, and family. The least descriptive answer said, “I would say it's a narrative, but I wouldn't elaborate.”. However, it seemed most participants had a very clear idea about what the important aspects of the story were and most understood the messaging.
In most cases, the term “climate change” was used in the response to the narrative understanding question. It is important to note that this was not clearly stated in the story. However, the name of the link had the term “clifi” in it and was posted on forums for climate change. A couple of the participants that never used the term “climate change” or “global warming”, but instead mentioned terms such as “heatwave”, “drought” or “extreme weather conditions''. Whether or not they understand that these are a result of climate change is not certain. A couple of participants never mentioned anything about the weather/climate and only wrote about other aspects of the story, such as memory loss or family themes. These were in the responses that had much shorter answers to the questions and those that were less engaged. It is hard to tell if they failed to pick this up due to not being engaged with the story or that they chose not to write about it due to the brevity of their responses.
Hardly any of the responses mentioned or eluded to the fact that the story took place in the future. The one exception said, “The story is set in the future, but possibly not too many years away.” Whether or not the other participants understood that this was the future is hard to say, as they might have felt it was not part of the narrative and therefore did not require mention. Understanding this fact may be of some importance, as the story would not be as realistic had it represented present-day since the conditions are quite extreme.
Most participants also understood that the old woman had a cognitive impairment. The story never outright says she has a condition, but it is portrayed in various ways. Participants used words like “senile”, “dementia”, “confusion” and “Alzheimers” when talking about the woman. Only one person interpreted the story as a woman unwilling to accept reality. She says “the older lady is living in the past and in denial of her situation.”. Therefore, I think this reader felt that the old lady was having some sort of a psychological break or even being stubborn rather than having a medical impairment. I do not think this takes away from the story or changes the messaging to interpret it this way.
Overall, it seems that the more engaged and attentive the reader was, the better the understanding of the story was. Those that reported distractions did not enjoy the story, or only did the survey to be helpful but were not interested, appeared to have the poorest understanding of the plot and themes. This would suggest that narrative understanding is, in fact, a good measure of engagement. Alternatively, the correlation could also be due to how invested the participant was in taking part in the study, and how much effect was put into answering the questions fully.
iii) Emotional Engagement. Emotional engagement appeared to be high for the written story. When asked if the reader felt empathy for either character, the feedback was in much agreement empathy was felt for at least one character. Most participants reported feeling empathy for both of the characters, while a few only talked about one or the other (fig. 5).
Empathy was felt for the old woman for numerous reasons. Some participants felt sad for her losing her husband and understand her inability to move on. Others related to being stuck in the past and being afraid of moving forward. Some empathised with feeling confused and not being able to understand changes that have occurred. One empathised with being afraid of change in general. One interesting point that came up was that people empathised strongly with the confusion of the woman because of the way the story was written. They started the story confused because they could not immediately figure out what was going on. They took the journey with the woman in her diminished mental state except that they were able to learn what was happening by being able to remember one scene to the next, while the woman could not.
The granddaughter, Karrie, also received plenty of empathy for her situation. Karrie was seen as a compassionate character, trying her best to do right by her grandmother. Many participants empathised with the dire situation that she was in and even understood her ultimate decision to save herself. They empathised with her feelings of helplessness and frustration. Some felt that the granddaughter’s situation was even worse than the grandmother’s. This was due to the immense responsibility she had, her awareness of the horrible facts, and her inability to save both herself and her family.
Fig. 5
When asked if they shared the character’s emotions most participants agreed that they did (fig. 6), but fewer participants felt the emotions as had empathy. Some spoke about feeling emotions through how they were conveyed by the story while others made personal connections to their own lives. Most responses felt the emotions of both characters, while others connected more strongly to one character.
In this question, a lot of personal connections to the story came out. Some connected in small ways, such as worries about not being a good homemaker or having minor lapses in memory, while others connected on a more broad level to the idea of being responsible for family and not always being able to put yourself first. Similarly to the empathy questions, one person felt the grandmother’s confusion in a very real way because of how the story itself was written. “As you try to figure out what the situation is you feel the grandmother's confusion,” they stated.
Surprisingly, many connected only to the granddaughter. This suggests that the fact that the perspective is that of the old woman’s does not necessarily mean that people will connect more closely with her as a character. Most people related to the frustration that Karrie felt. Perhaps caring for an elderly relative is something easy to relate to as we can have elderly relatives at any point in our lives, where experiences of mental decline and loss tend to happen later in life. Therefore, Karrie was more relatable across age groups.
Fig. 6
More people had empathy for the characters than felt emotions with them. Those that felt this way said they understood the emotions of the characters, but didn’t necessarily feel them themselves. Therefore, it appears that sharing emotions with characters is a deeper level of emotional engagement than merely having empathy for them. From the responses, it seems that those that shared emotions had the highest levels of engagement with the story.
iv) Narrative Presence. When asked if they felt like they were present in the story world, most people (16 of 20) reported they did. One aspect that made the readers feel present was the mystery and gradual reveal of the story. “You become immersed because you are trying to figure out what is happening so you are looking closely for clues,” said one. Another person felt the opposite and found the mystery about the air conditioner to break the presence. They were impatient to know what the “metal box” was and skimmed ahead to get the answer.
One respondent mentioned the simplicity of the story. She said, “The simplicity of the story was good too - it allowed a lot of context to be included without becoming overwhelming or too complicated.”. This idea was stated quite a few times, that it was an easy read without any complex language which helped the participants to be immersed in the story. Some participants also said other aspects of the writing helped them feel present in the story. The descriptiveness, for instance, made people feel like they were there. Some said that when they read a story they like to imagine themselves in the situation and think about what they would do. They were able to do that with this story which kept them engaged.
Participants explained their experience with narrative presence in different ways. For some, it was simply being present in the act of reading by being fully engaged with the story. For others, they felt they were in the home with the characters or seeing through the woman’s eyes. Another explained it was like watching television, which they reported was their preferred form of entertainment, while others also said it was more simply being able to visualise what was happening.
Of those that were not immersed, several reported that in general they do not get immersed with fiction. The second part of the narrative presence question asked what kept them from being immersed, and most reported to it not being specific to this story. One said they tend to disassociate with characters and another that they have not felt immersed in a story in many years. Only one person reported it was the story itself that was not immersive. The person that reported no interest in the story. They did not like the sudden stops and starts between scenes, which meant they could not become immersed. While this was purposeful, as these are separate lucid instances for the old woman, I can understand someone feeling this disturbs the flow of the story and may make immersion more difficult for some readers.
v) Attentional Focus. When asked if they were focused on the story while reading there was a mixed response. Most reported being fully focused. One of the positive responses stated “I was focused because I love stories and I was interested to see where it was going. The way it looped back on itself/repeated motifs got my attention too. Probably my ability to relate to the scenario somewhat helped too.”. One reader said he felt focused on the story except that “I was distracted by my partner asking me about the chores while I was reading this.” The person that said they were distracted by personal thoughts said she tried to put it aside to read the story as she felt it was important. However, she had some issues with some aspects of the narrative understanding, which could be related.
Other things that were mentioned to help keep the focus were the length of the story (that is was not too long), the simplicity of the writing, and the pacing of the story. People did report having side thoughts but that they were about the story. Thinking about what they would do in the situation or trying to figure out the mystery of certain things. Therefore, it seems their attention was still on the story, but not following the narrative precisely. One person said that they noticed they were thinking about climate change and their own role, so while in theme with the story their mind was outside the narrative. However, it shows me that it provokes introspective thought on the main issue of the story, which I think is a positive result and one goal of a piece such as this.
Game Feedback
i) General Response. Due to what I had learned from the first part of the project, as the game was released a week later, I cast a wide net to recruit participants from the beginning of this part being available. Even so, the response rate to the game portion of the research was much lower than that of the story. There were nine responses in total.
While more participants answered male than female with so many leaving the question blank it is hard to conclude if there was any difference in the gender ratio (fig. 7). The ages of participants were similar (fig. 8), this time with no one from the youngest two categories, and the same countries were represented with slightly over half being from New Zealand (fig. 9).
Fig.7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
The completeness of the responses was lower than that of part one. There were more single word/phrase answers and questions left blank. While some participants were still very thorough, the amount written overall per person was much less. All participants of part two of the study had already been a part of part one. General fatigue of the project could be why the responses were not as in-depth.
What was most disappointing with this part of the research was no one reported having a preference for gaming. This was unfortunate as there were several self-reported gamers in part one. It was strange that they chose to do the reading part of the research, but not the medium that they prefer. I think it would have been beneficial to the study to get a perspective from someone who has a good understanding of and experience with this type of game.
ii) Narrative Understanding. In contrast to the written story, which was completed by everyone, not all participants finished the game. This was due to “getting stuck” in part of the game, usually towards the end. Some finished by watching the video, but a couple did not. Narrative understanding is very hard to judge for this part of the project. The issue is that all the participants involved in the second part of the study had already been apart of the first part. As we saw in part one, there was a high level of narrative understanding. Therefore, everyone involved in part two already understood the story. While some participants gave a very good summary of the game, I can not say for certain that they got this understanding from the game as the story is the same between the two methods. Others said very little for these questions, which is perhaps due to the fact that they had already given a full summary in part one.
The content of the summaries, when they were properly done and not just a comment on the game, had similar descriptions to the written story. Most had mentioned climate change, or at least something more vague such as “environmental changes”. Some said that climate change was the main theme of the game. As one quite dramatically explained, the game was about “the end of the world due to climate change”.
Fiction has been shown to be an effective way to communicate about complex issues such as climate change. This is achieved by engaging the audience through their emotions from the narrative of the story. Written stories and games are two mediums that are particularly promising as ways to inspire change of attitudes and behaviour. To investigate the effects of the medium of storytelling on engagement, two versions of the same story were created, a written short story and a 3D first-person exploratory computer game. The story was created with a climate narrative but was meant to engage the audience emotionally through themes of family relationships and loss. Participants answered open-ended questions about narrative engagement following reading the story or playing the game. The written story engaged the readers through their imagination and allowed for more mystery due to interiority. It was also the more accessible medium, and the simplicity of the storytelling added to that. The game engaged players through sensory inputs by use of images, background noise and music. However, the game was more difficult for participants to finish, especially for non-gamers. Overall, it appeared most of the emotional engagement came from the narrative of the story itself, not any aspects of the medium. However, barriers to engagement were revealed through the game version, suggesting that narrative presence and attentional focus can be hindered due to the execution of the medium.
Many others focused more on the woman’s mental state as the main theme. This was done in much the same language as part one. This time, no one mentioned that the story was set in the future, however this came up very infrequently in part one and with less than half the number of responses this seems consistent. Based on the summaries, it does not appear that any different interpretations of the story took place. However, as stated previously, this does not tell us much as these participants already read the written story.
iii) Emotional Engagement. Most participants did feel empathy for both of the characters (fig. 10). The reasons were similar to that of the story, however, the answers were more succinct and lacked the personal connections that were seen in part one. While there were good explanations about who participants felt empathy for and why, others made vague comments such as “Both. But more the granddaughter” or “Yes, due to their predicaments”. In the story version, empathy was always felt for at least one character, wherein the game there were a couple participants that reported none. The reasons for this were due to aspects of the game-play. One felt that it was too slow while the other blamed the static images being hard to engage with.
Fig. 10
In terms of sharing emotions with the characters, there was quite an even split between feeling for both, for one or the other, and for neither (fig. 11). While some participants had comments inline in the first part in terms of sharing emotion with the characters some interesting differences emerged. For one, the sensory information that was in the game helped to bring out emotion for some people. In one example, someone said that the noise of the air conditioner made her share the annoyance with the character and gave her the same goal- to stop the noise as urgently as possible. Another said “I think the music contributed to the emotion. In fumbling around in the darkness, and discovering the granddaughter's notes, the hopelessness of the situation was deeply felt.”. One person also noted that the hard to read note at the beginning of the story made them frustrated. They have trouble with their vision so they could relate to the old ladies struggle of not being able to read the note.
Fig. 11
Lastly, what was different between the story and the game was the final scene in how the notes were handled. In the story, as we are in the mind of the woman, we only get an idea of what the notes are about. In the game, we decided to allow the player to read the notes fully. This was decided due to the fact that in the story the woman was lucid enough to understand the words on paper, but her short-term memory was too poor to understand the messages as a whole. Therefore, since the woman could see the notes clearly, and the player can see what she does, they were allowed to read them. Some commented on being particularly engaged with this part and feeling a lot of emotions though reading the notes. One said “I could feel the resignation and feeling of hopelessness in the final bit of notes. The existence of the notes and the amount really communicated to me that the daughter was at her wits' end.”.
iv) Narrative Presence: The final two categories of engagement is when some glaring differences between the two parts of the research emerge. Narrative presence was reported to be low by most participants (fig. 12) for a variety of reasons having to do with elements of the gameplay and graphics. One that came up often was struggling to get through parts of the games, not having enough interactivity, or the graphics not being what the person is used to in the games they play. Two participants actually felt unwell playing as they get motion sick with these types of experiences and that made them feel less present.
Fig. 12
v) Attentional Focus. Attentional focus, not surprisingly, shared a very similar result to narrative presence, with seven of nine participants reporting at least some level of distraction which left only two focused on the game. Most participants were distracted during gameplay/watching the video for the reasons stated previously with narrative presence. Someone also stated they were distracted because of having already read the story, so they did not feel as much attention was needed. As one person said “Except at the end of the game, I was distracted. I think that was because I had already read the story so I knew what was going to happen and there was no mystery to what the things uncovered would tell me.”. Others were distracted by things going on around them, such as their partner asking them what they were doing playing games so late.
Comparison
i) Overall. Almost all participants reported they found the story more engaging when asked to compare the two in the second questionnaire (having done both parts at this stage). Many thought the narrative came through better in the story. One said, “The story was much more engaging because it flowed better - there was a structured narrative that allowed me to create a dynamic, fluid world.”. Others felt their imagination was more powerful than anything we could show them in the game. The game seemed to have more obstacles of distraction for the participant to overcome, due to perceptions of difficulty and quality.
In the written story, participants noted many moments of introspection. They made a lot of interesting connections between themselves and the story. This ranged from connecting their lives and experiences to the characters, to thinking about how they would react to the situation of the story, and even thinking about the larger themes particularly climate change and their own role in this. These comments were missing in the answers given from the game questionnaire. Again, this may be a result of the game being experienced after reading the story as these connections were already made.
From the responses of the four categories to measure engagement, it seemed that the game did a poorer job of making the player feel present in and focused on the narrative. It was still successful in emotionally connecting with the participants. This leads me to believe that emotional engagement has more to do with the narrative of the story, while the medium can help immerse the audience by making them feel present in the story world and keep hold of their attention. This is not to say that a story medium is better, but that the medium needs to execute the narrative effectively. I believe had we had the time and resources to make a more immersive game with higher graphics and more interactivity or even simply more experienced gamers, we could have seen a very different result.
ii) Mystery. It was apparent from the responses that a substantial amount of the engagement with the written story came from the gradual unfolding of the circumstances. This had less impact in the game as there isn’t quite as much mystery. This is because of how in the written story, we only know what the woman, in her limited capacity, is thinking. The game is also through the woman’s perspective but we are not limited to only her thoughts as we are also seeing and hearing the scene and can make judgements based on these inputs.
This comes up in scene two. In the written story the reader does not know what the metal box is until the following scene because the woman does not know what it is. In the game, we can clearly see there is an air conditioner that the woman is confused about. This also comes up with the state of the house. In the written story the woman makes reference to certain things being dirty or worn out. We do not know if it is just these specific items or the whole house is in this tattered condition as the woman’s focus is only on one thing (possibly due to her condition). In the game, we can see the whole room and can tell the everything is shabby. Also, objects are sparse which is another clue to how they have been living. The idea was to portray that for many years they could not replace what broke or had to sell or trade things. Lastly, the lack of all but one photo, along with a box in the garage marked “photos”, implied these were put away, likely by Karrie perhaps to not confuse her grandmother with pictures of people she does not remember. A young photo of her and Cary implied that she never forgets him. Therefore, while the game visuals made some elements clearer, some mystery was lost.
For this instance, I believe the story was more engaging due to how the mystery held the attention of the readers and drew them in. One participant said “Curiosity is what engages me, keeps you turning the page. I don't want you to tell me, I want you to show me and then figure it out for myself. That was more effective with the written version…”. However, yet again I must note that everyone read the story first. Clearly, the mystery was already lost by the time the game was experienced as participants knew the full story. Even so, I think the written story still was more effective when it comes to gradually revealing the circumstances of the situation and world.
iii) Sensory inputs. One major difference between the written story and the game is that in the written version you are in the thoughts of the old woman whereas in the game you are experiencing the story through her eyes and ears. One way in which the game was able to elicit empathy in different ways from the story was through sensory (visual and auditory) inputs. In the game we could create the sounds and images so that the audience is sharing in the experience with the character, which seemed to be effective. Music also helped to add to the more emotional scenes.
The character controller was designed to translate feelings of struggle and frustration. The character moves slowly as an old woman would. She was made to be slow enough so the player notices the difference between it and the quick character controls of other more familiar games, while not too slow to cause too much impatience that the player would want to stop participating. A head bob effect was also created that was slightly off centre. This was to make it look as if she has some struggle with walking, such as a very slight limp or bad hip. Lastly, finding all objects needed was meant to create some frustration and confusion, but we tried to again not make it too difficult that people would not finish. Unfortunately, some participants did struggle to finish each level completely and had to use the video.
Limitations
Staggered Release
The biggest drawback in the way this project was done was the fact that everyone had read the story before doing the game. This made it much more difficult to measure understanding and engagement. We can not know if the participants understood the main themes of the narrative from the game, as they were already shown to understand the story before even playing. It is also hard to know whether they were emotionally engaged from the game, as they may still feel empathy for the characters from the story, or they may not feel the emotions as they already had experienced them. Lastly, they may not have been as present or focused on the story as they already knew it, and therefore, did not allow it as much attention.
Releasing the story and game at the same time was the original goal. This would not only have eliminated much of the bias of the order of participation, but I believe that some of the “gamers” would have chosen rather to play the game than read the story, having both options available. This would have resulted in more balanced participation and better results for the game portion of the project.
Releasing the story first seemed necessary due the time need to finish production of the game. This was only to allow myself more time to work through the responses, rather than receiving them all at a later date. The impact of the staggered release was worse than I had anticipated. I still thought that some would not participate in part one, but be more interested in part two. This did not happen. As responses to part one were very low by the end of the week it was available, family was strongly urged by us and each other to help out. Once certain members had already helped with this, they felt less keen to offer further assistance. Getting people to do the game was a much harder task, so only those that were particularly keen to help completed both parts. Unfortunately, this happened to not be those with much experience in gaming.
Participation
Participation was fairly low, particularly within the second part of the study. While I believe the number of responses were sufficient to find the general trends in engagement between mediums, it was not enough to make any comments about trends within and between demographic groups. This left some questions about gender bias and locational relevance unanswered.
Another possible issue with the project was the data set in general. It was very hard to get anyone to participate through social media. I feel this may have limited the number of unbiased responses. As it was mostly family and close friends that participated, responses could have been made with the creator’s feelings in mind. While there appeared to be a good mix of positive, negative, and neutral responses, I can not say that this would not have been a factor, even with anonymity.
Game production limitations
A big issue participants had was due to the expectations of what a game such as this entails. Games are normally made with a team of people over a much longer period. As the technical development of this game was done by one person over mere weeks, it was not the polished output people seemed to expect it should be. We tried to manage expectations with our postings. However, comments suggested elements that were missing took away from the experience. The use of static images, especially the granddaughter, was often referred to. This was simply a time limitation as animating a character is a lengthy process. This did seem to be one thing that broke immersion for participants.
Another unforeseen limitation was that many people did not play the game all the way through, and had to use the video instead. Unfortunately, many of the participants were not gamers even in the slightest. We had hoped to get more that were familiar with this type of game, and decided to not put in too much “hand-holding”. Given the gaming skill level of the participants, more hints and clues would have been helpful. While I do not think the experience of watching the video is vastly different from playing the game, it still takes away the interactive element.
Another drawback of the game was my own desire to keep as much of the story in the game as possible. I believed this to be important for accurate comparison. The game was mostly word for word from the story. This may have been a detriment. A better way of making and an engaging game may have been using less text and relying more on visual clues. As one participant said “a big part of becoming immersed in a computer game is being able to move freely and figure it all out for yourself. In this one, you touch something and then get the answer written out for you from the old lady's thoughts.”.
While there was criticism of both aspects of the writing and aspects of the game, criticism of the game came up more frequently. This may be why immersion was lower for the game version of the story. Had I more resources available towards production of the game, I believe the response would have been different. This would have allowed for a more useful comparison of the mediums.
Conclusions
The audience was engaged in slightly different ways through the two versions of the story. While both were engaged mainly through the narrative, there were aspects of the mediums that contributed to the engagement. In the story, one source of engagement was the use of interiority: being inside the main character’s thoughts. This allowed for more mystery to be introduced. As the reader only knows what the old lady knows, which is limited due to her mental state, the story is able to unfold even more gradually. It was also the use of imagination that captivated many readers. They could vividly imagine these scenes unfolding. Lastly, the simplicity of the story made it so that readers could easily engage with the narrative. Not only is the written story more generally accessible but the fact that there was no complex language or scientific jargon helped so that everyone felt included in being able to enjoy the story.
The game engaged its players in other ways. Participants were given a more sensorial experience through the visual and auditory elements of the game. Music engaged their emotions while distorted images and backgrounds noises allowed the player to share the experience with the main character. Participants felt frustration at not being able to read a note or stop an annoying noise along with the character. While these inputs offered some engagement, for others it took away from the ability to imagine the environment for themselves. The sense of mystery was also compromised as the visual inputs revealed aspects of the story earlier than in the written version.
While the two versions of the story showed some differences in how each medium engaged the audience, it appears that, overall, the medium may not be that important for the degree of emotional engagement. The responses suggest that emotional engagement came primarily from the narrative. This was shown through participants feeling empathy for and sharing emotions with the characters due to immersion in the narrative of the story. This included feeling sad for the circumstances characters were in or connecting on a personal level to their struggles.
Even though most participants were more engaged with the written version of the story, one factor preventing engagement with the game version was the quality of the game. Therefore, it is not necessarily the medium of the story itself that is more effective. Perhaps it is easier, given real-world constraints, to engage an audience through a written story, as less time, resources, and skills are needed to make a written story compelling than a 3D game. It is possible that if the game was fully realistic (of the highest quality that can be expected of this type of game today), more seamless to play, and more interactive, that we would have seen similar results. Achieving narrative presence and attentional focus appear to come down to effective use of the chosen medium.
While the limitations due to the scope of the study left a lot of unanswered questions, I think this study provides a good starting point indicating possible future research directions. This project has shown at least when comparing two mediums, it is important that they be of equal quality. In this case, this would have meant developing a type of game that could be in its own right “perfected” in the time I had. The other important change that would need to be implemented is a randomised order in which the participants could experience each version of the story. This would allow us to avoid any bias regarding the order of experience. More time and more participation (with more diversity) would greatly help give this topic the attention that I feel is needed so that science communicators can more effectively get across their messages through various creative mediums.
References
Garfield, S. (2007). Living on thin ice. The Observer Magazine, 4, 32–37.
Hunter, C. (2018). The ambivalent nuclear politics of Fallout video games. Retrieved November 27, 2019, from Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists website: https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/the-ambivalent-nuclear-politics-of-fallout-video-games/
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Gender
Age range
Country of Residence
1- Did you complete the game to the end? If no, what prevented you from doing so?
2- If a friend asked you what the story of the game is, how would you describe it to them?
3- Did you feel empathy for either of the characters in this game? Which one and why?
4- Did you share any of the characters’ emotions while playing the game? In what parts?
5- At any time did you feel like you were present in the game world? If yes, explain how. If not, what do you think stopped you from being immersed in the world?
6-Did you feel focused on the game or were you distracted by your own thoughts or surrounding? Why do you think that is?
7- Is your normal preference for reading or playing computer games? Did you do both parts of the research? If so, did you find the story or the game more engaging? Why do you think that is?