The Attention Game (2/3)

Title: Theme: Target Audience Format
The Attention Game (pt 2) Recognising My DI 10yrs + Game

 

Learning outcomes
  • How headlines grab attention
  • Whether matching content to role is important
  • Mixed mode (synchronous/asynchronous) communications (including turn taking)
  • Whether you can ‘build’ a DI reflecting an aspect of your personality
  • How other people may view your choices
Outline
Based on “Attention Economy: The Game”, this simple card game focusses on obtaining the attention of readers. This version includes an element of role-playing to explore the possibilities of building a specific view of your personality for others to see.
Duration:
With 5 players and 5 turns, the game takes about 20 minutes in its basic form.
Resource links:
Sample cards Sample cards
Description:
Before play starts, each player chooses a ‘role’ to play. For instance they could be a ‘party animal’, a ‘serious researcher’, a ‘dotty scientist’ (thanks to Steven Warburton for this role!), or any other role which suits the target audience age group – one of our play testers chose ‘Sex columnist’ which was absolutely fine in the context of a group of eLearning specialists, but may not be suitable for younger age groups, whilst another chose CyberGran which could work at all ages.  Play proceeds exactly as “The Attention Game pt 1” but players try to play headlines which suit their chosen role. This doesn’t mean that all plays need to be solely focussed on the specific stereotype – serious researchers have been known to go to a club and have some fun too!

Questions to ask about the experience

  • What was most succesful in grabbing your attention?
  • If you didn’t get much attention, how did that make you feel?
  • If someone else was getting attention, were you more likely to choose more extreme headlines?
  • What do you feel your choice of headlines says about you?
  • Describe your impression of the other players, based on their headlines
  • Does your choice of headlines reflect the role you chose?
  • How do you interpret what the other players ‘blogs’ say about them?
  • Looking back at the way the game went, would you change your attention grabbing strategy?
Observations
Playing a role has a tendency to allow people to express rather more radical opinions – after all, this is ‘not them’. It can also lead to people focussing narrowly on a specific aspect of the persona they are trying to project – and there is a tendency for the result to look a little bit forced. You may find that players don’t feel they can trust the DIs which have been projected by the other players as much as with the basic version.