Hearken & Me: Diversity in Video Games and the Gaming Community
During my first semester at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, my Community Engagement professor Carrie Brown posed a challenge for my Social Journalism class to reach out to our selected communities in a new way. Among the many tools and methods that we were introduced to, one interesting tool was Hearken. This tool allowed us to invite our community to suggest ideas directly to us either by name or anonymously. In my case, I received very little response, but it left me with a unique challenge and the potential for lasting impact.
While I did not receive a large number of responses using Hearken, the ones I did receive were insightful and allowed me to have a few ideas into what kinds of stories my focus community may be interested in reading. The one question in particular by an anonymous user asked, “Where are the Latino characters?” After talking with a few people on the kinds of characters they can choose from in some of the games they play, I thought that it would be interesting to take a closer look into this.
It was a bit of a challenge to reach out to people about the survey, so I would probably try reaching out to other people by working with gaming stores, comic book stores or other gathering places where people may discuss gaming. I originally posted the survey online and reached out to friends, but still didn’t get much feedback. I would try to think of new ways to bring attention to the survey in the first place.
I thought I had an idea of what kinds of content my community wanted because I am also an active member of this community. While I was not totally incorrect in the kinds of topics that they wanted to talk about, I was also presented with others that I had not thought about. Taking these into consideration will help me throughout this overarching project and may affect which direction I take in future stories.
I may use Hearken in future works as a way to invite the public and my community to participate in my project by suggesting which topics they would be interested in reading about. This way, I can think of ways to not only answer questions that they may have, but I could also find alternative ways to present the answer and engage with my audience.
I feel that community-driven stories may bring a new perspective to a topic that may not have otherwise been brought to light. While pitching stories and bouncing ideas is all well and good, asking the community about what concerns them is an invitation to get involved. It also means that you are trying to listen to what they are saying and making attempts to meet the people’s needs. There is also a level of relevance that community-driven stories have that pitched stories might have overlooked or may not apply in the first place.
Despite the slow traction with the initial survey, there was a lot of interest surrounding the topic and many people were willing to participate. Those that were not able to participate were willing to stay in touch to see what kinds of topics I would be writing about for my thesis project. There was a lot of curiosity about this topic and my thesis subject as a whole with each interview I completed.
I was surprised mostly during the interview process. While the topic of diversity and representation within my community is not new by any means, many of those that I discussed the topic with (either for an interview or in passing for source building), were taken aback by the topic and really thought about it as they spoke with me. It was not until I asked the question that the conversation about this idea began to form.
The article was completed and published today on the bilingual gaming/technology blog El Mundo Tech, and is gaining a bit of traction so far. I hope to continue doing more articles like this in the near future and get involved with other organizations to spark this conversation.
If you’d like to be part of the conversation, follow me on Twitter @amlavandier or leave a comment on the article itself. If you’d like a link to participate in my Hearken survey, feel free to reach out to me.
To view the completed article on El Mundo Tech, check out the link:
http://www.elmundotech.com/2016/05/31/latino-characters-and-video-games/
