As diligent students of British politics understand, most votes under our first past the post system make no real difference to the result of a general election. The ones that count are those cast by swing voters in marginal constituencies. The Conservatives have been confident in their assertions that, despite a narrowing gap in nationwide opinion surveys, their lead among these defining voters in the marginals is big enough to make the crucial difference. A carefully targeted poll in this morning's Times suggests their confidence may be misplaced.
It's not our Rochester, but the one in New York state. Still, here's a fantastic example of a newspaper looking for new ways to engage its community, particularly those under the age of 40. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle has joined forces with a local college to develop a series of online and real world games that aim to entertain, engage and help inform its readers.
The project is called Picture The Impossible and takes place over the next few weeks. Participants join one of three teams (each affiliated to a local charity) and can take part in various activities either from their computer terminal or out on the Rochester streets. Some examples: one game requires you to pinpoint points of interest, landmarks and businesses by clicking on a map - the closer you get, the more points you win. Another is a variation on the old Scavenger Hunt where small groups head out onto the streets and are sent text messages sending them to collect items from around the city. Another involves taking pictures of local art installations and creating 3D graphics of them using Microsoft's new free Synth online tool.
And many of the games are based around sections of the newspaper - solving crossword clues or identifying pictures, for example - and require the players to have a copy of the day's issue in front of them.
So far, a few days after launch, more than 1,000 people have signed up.
It's been a low-cost development, but has potential for sponsorship income as well as circulation building. More importantly it aims to bring new waves of readers into contact with a newspaper that they might not otherwise see as being part of their lives. There's more to it than even that, though. As project manager Traci Bauer explains to Nieman Journalism Lab:
"If this works as a way to engage an audience, then it becomes more than a game, it becomes a new set of tools that we can use for daily journalism, and, most important, for First Amendment work. In the community-based games, we’re showing that there’s an achievement based on people showing up at the same place and solving a problem together, [that] the community is going to be willing to come together if they see an achievement at the other end. This time the achievement is a lot of points, but the next time it might be to do something as a community to improve the dropout rate."
I hope it succeeds. It's is a very smart piece of work.
...and I hope this does succeed as it's innovative and as you say very smart.
Thank you for pointing out the "Synth" online tool haha, I couldn't help noticing it :S.
But generally this looks a very good idea and if it helps generate traffic online and interest in the real world for this newspaper, then hopefully it can set a precedent for exciting 'projects' like this to re-appear in the future.