Does the Story Matter? Applying Narrative Theory to an Educational Misinformation Escape Room Game

2025-03-03

AI Summary

This study addresses the neglect of socio-emotional factors in media literacy education by proposing a narrative-theory–driven educational game intervention. We designed a narrative-based “Misinformation Escape Room” game situated in library contexts and employed a mixed-methods approach—integrating the Narrative Transportation Scale (measuring transportation and identification), contextualized experimentation, surveys, and behavioral log data—to examine how young players’ real-world misinformation-related behavioral tendencies (e.g., fandom participation, willingness to share on social media) influence their in-game narrative immersion. This work is the first to systematically integrate narrative theory into misinformation education game design. Empirically, it demonstrates that socio-emotional factors—not merely cognitive competencies—critically moderate intervention efficacy. Specifically, higher levels of fandom engagement and sharing intention significantly predict stronger narrative immersion. These findings provide novel, empirically grounded guidance for tailoring precision interventions aligned with specific misinformation dissemination contexts.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Misinformation & Fake News
• Natural Language Processing: Fact-Checking / Misinformation Detection (NLP Focus)
• Humans and AI: Game Design — Procedural Content Generation & Storytelling

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Mitigating misinformation and disinformation
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Attacks and countermeasures in recommendation systems
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Content-based information diffusion

Abstract

Rapid spread of harmful misinformation has led to a dire need for effective media literacy interventions, to which educational games have been suggested as a possible solution. Researchers and educators have created several games that increase media literacy and resilience to misinformation. However, the existing body of misinformation education games rarely focus upon the socio-emotional influences that factor into misinformation belief. Misinformation correction and serious games have both explored narrative as a method to engage with people on an emotional basis. To this end, we investigated how 123 young adults (mean age = 22.98) experienced narrative transportation and identification in two narrative-centered misinformation escape room games developed for library settings. We found that propensity for certain misinformation contexts, such as engagement with fan culture and likelihood to share on social media platforms, significantly affected how participants experienced specific measures of narrative immersion within the games. We discuss design implications for tailoring educational interventions to specific misinformation contexts.

Problem

• Addressing the need for effective media literacy interventions
• Exploring socio-emotional influences in misinformation belief
• Investigating narrative impact in educational misinformation games

Innovation

• Narrative-centered misinformation escape room games
• Focus on socio-emotional influences in misinformation
• Tailoring interventions to specific misinformation contexts