An Ethics Framework for Interactive Digital Narrative Authoring

Abstract

Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) provides expressive opportunities that can be applied to many serious and non-fiction topics. Such applications, in particular, but also fictional IDN, have an ethicalEthics (ethical) dimension, an aspect in need of increased attention as IDN matures and is more widely deployed. In this chapter, we identify aspects of IDN ethicsEthics (ethical) with a particular concern for IDN authoring, taking into account earlier efforts in related areas, such as more generalized perspectivesPerspective on ethicsEthics (ethical) in computer sciences and considerations pertaining to video games. We use IDN for cultural heritage as a frame for discussing ethical aspects in IDN, since this application area is particularly prone to issues in this regard. Furthermore, we put a focus on VRVirtual Reality (VR), as a topic that most fully divorces audiences from the outside world during the IDN experience and thus poses particular ethicalEthics (ethical) challenges for authoring. Throughout the discussion, we identify questions that an IDN ethics framework needs to address. Then, we introduce such a framework with 12 rulesRules and briefly discuss their application. The IDN ethics framework is meant to be as a first edition, to be further developed by the community.