Bad News in the civics classroom: How serious gameplay fosters teenagers’ ability to discern misinformation techniques

Abstract

Although the serious game Bad News has been used to inoculate citizens against misinformation, it has not been formally evaluated in traditional classrooms. We therefore evaluated its impact on 516 upper-secondary Swedish students playing individually, paired, or with the whole class. Results show that students improved their ability to discern manipulation techniques in social media posts. Students with prior positive attitudes to credible news sources were better discerners, and this attitude became significantly more positive post-intervention. Rationales for identifying manipulative techniques increased among those who improved their credibility ratings pre-to post-intervention. Lastly, enjoyment of and interest in the intervention was higher in the whole-class setting. This study offers insights for educators on using serious games in formal teaching to foster media and information literacy.