This will be the last Denier Roundup of the year, so in the spirit of the holiday, we got you a present! It’s something you’ll be able to use inside, and it’s even good for the planet!
We’re talking of course about this week’s release of the Cranky Uncle game from Dr. John Cook of George Mason University, which uses humor and cartoons to show people how disinformation is constructed, thereby making them less likely to be fooled by it. “If you want to learn how to spot someone cheating at cards,” Dr. Cook explained, “first, you have to learn how to cheat at cards.”
The game (on iPhone now, Android soon) teaches players the tools and tricks of disinformation in a quest to become the best Cranky Uncle in denial of climate science or vaccines or any other sort of deliberately created myths. While few are eager to sit for a lecture on propaganda or disinformation, this novel and scientifically-verified approach, Cook says, seeks to “engage players and get them practising critical thinking through gameplay.”
Though a game like this is perhaps an unusual thing for a traditional academic to produce, it makes perfect sense for Dr. Cook, given his career. “Starting Skeptical Science in 2007 set me down the path of researching how to better fight climate misinformation,” he told us, while his doctoral research on disinformation led him “to [see] inoculation as a powerful tool for neutralizing denial, and in my last 4 years in the U.S., I further explored this approach in a series of research papers.”
Not content to just write papers or give lectures, Cook sought to make inoculating people against misinformation feel like less of a homework assignment, since those that are happy for extra reading probably aren’t the ones sharing disinformation. So how do you reach those who are only half paying attention?
Since “climate misinformation is a huge, complex problem requiring solutions that bring together technology and science in ways that can scale up to reach a broad public,” Dr. Cook had to get creative about delivering the shot, so to speak. What’s the proverbial lollipop to soften the sting of the inoculation? Well battling disinformation isn’t exactly fun and games, but games are fun...
And it turns out that there’s even a body of literature known broadly as “gamification,” that studies using the mechanics of games for less trivial pursuits, like education. “Games are an exciting opportunity” for stopping the spread of disinformation, John said, because they can be used to encourage people to “practice critical thinking in a fun but empowering way.”
That’s why, Dr. Cook told us, “the culmination of all this work is Cranky Uncle - bringing together over a decade of critical thinking, inoculation theory, gamification, and cartooning (a skill I acquired in a past life).”
So there you go, folks! It’s a fun game! It’s got cartoons! It’ll teach you how to avoid falling for disinformation!
What more could you want?