Mis-information Virus game - Brainstorming request

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bob Rice on January 24, 2011 at 6:02pm

Greg - here are some quick top of mind thoughts and ramblings. Please don't expect coherence or even feasibility. (This is brainstorming 8-).

 

You could ...

• Challenge players to invent the most outrageous pieces of misinformation they can think of. (Collect these via whatever medium is your favorite). Then have players sort through their favorites from the collection and come up with ways to make the outrageous claims sound plausible. From there, they could devise ways to corral the misinformation and properly inform the public.
• Do something similar, only instead of inventing outrageous "facts," have players scour the world for real ones. Have a small cadre of players - acting as protagonists - generate a report that cites calamities that will befall the world if the outrageous "facts" are not washed from the world's collective brain. Players then have 24 hours to save the world from itself.
• Pre-select current, real-world misinformation popularized in well-meaning but otherwise clueless blogs and challenge teams to come up with the most outrageous ways to counter the misinformation. Teams vote for the top 2 or 3 most outrageous methods (even if they are impossible). From there, the task is to find a way to adapt these outrageous methods and make them feasible and with a high likelihood for success. One special rule - the newly refined method must still be related to at least the spirit of the original thought.
• Create decks of cards (real or online) that teams draw - perhaps from three or four different decks. Each deck contains a portion of a story or "fact." Teams must draw one from each deck and take the information on each card to invent an outrageous story and make it sound plausible. One deck could be locations, another  who's involved, another some calamity, and the fourth a means by which it spreads. With 10 cards in each deck, that would equate to 10,000 possible combinations of plots and "facts."

That's all I can think of for now. Come on gang, build on this. What loony ideas can you add?

 

Bob Rice

AchieveGlobal

Permalink Reply by Greg Koeser on January 25, 2011 at 9:54am

Brilliant ideas, Bob. Thanks for joining NASAGA and jumping in right away. Other ideas are still appreciated from anyone.

Permalink Reply by eliza on May 11, 2012 at 6:34am

Hi Greg,  use of Headlines with typos (Cod Virus In Atlantic States) could represent the bad info without creating truly bad info.  If it is not corrected, it could lead to a second generation of bad information (Herring Loss Associated with Cod Virus).  

I will leave third generation to someone else. 

eliza hl

Andromeda 

Permalink Reply by chris saeger on July 26, 2012 at 5:29am

Greg,

Is this still an open project? What did you finally decide to do? 

I wonder about the assumption that mis-information is countered by good information? Or is it countered by a strong emotional message combined with good information. 

I am thinking about things like climate change. The public belives there is little consensus among scientists, the surveys of scientists shows strong consensus. Here is the article

http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/928.asp

The "facts" people--the scientists seem to be losing the debate according to this article..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9192494/...

There is a session at the 2012 conference schedule entitled:

Crossing Barriers Inside and Out in Adapting to Climate Change by Brian Morrissey and Penny Kelly
Headline "Use a simulation exercise to overcome critical-logical and intuitive-emotive barriers in providing
essential information on controversial topics"

Best regards,

Chris