INDCOR White Paper 5: Addressing Societal Issues in Interactive Digital Narratives

Abstract: This white paper introduces Interactive Digital Narratives (IDN) as a powerful tool for tackling the complex challenges we face in today's society. In the scope of COST Action 18230 - Interactive Narrative Design for Complexity Representation (INDCOR), a group of researchers dedicated to studying media selected five case studies of IDNs, including educational games and news media, that confront and challenge the existing traditional media landscape. These case studies cover a wide range of important societal issues, such as racism, coloniality, cultural heritage, war, and disinformation. By exploring this broad range of examples, we aim to demonstrate how IDN can effectively address social complexity in an interactive, participatory, and engaging manner. We encourage you to examine these cases and discover for yourself how IDN can be used as a creative tool to address complex societal issues. This white paper might be inspiring for journalists, digital content creators, game designers, developers, educators using information and communication technologies in the classroom, or anyone interested in learning how to use IDN tools to tackle complex societal issues. In this sense, along with key scientific references, we offer key takeaways at the end of this white paper that might be helpful for media practitioners at large, in two main ways: 1) Designing IDNs to address complex societal issues and 2) Using IDNs to engage audiences with complex societal issues.