No shortage of disinformation, trolling, propaganda, fake news… whichever term you prefer. Some of it is just brain rot material; some of it is brought by an actor with an agenda. How can anyone navigate it?
One novel approach is to take the role of the instigator. How would you go about spreading dissent and blocking progress? The game Cat Park does precisely this. Your city plans to build a park just for cats. Your job is to stop that. With polarising rhetoric, memes, manipulated images, emotional headlines and other tricks, you can succeed in blocking the decision process and stop the cat park!
It is very difficult to decide what an audience takes a way from any media. Every reader reads the book in their own way. Moviegoers have different experiences from the same film. You may not like my favourite song. Games are no different, so this is why there is a teacher toolkit. Think of this game as part of what a teacher can bring to their students, and it makes more sense.
Has Cat Park the game helped build resistance against disinformation? Yes, very likely in every player. However, in a plot twist, the US Department of State cut the funding for the project earlier this year. (There is a pun here that Doges don’t like cats, but such jokes are beneath me).
The game and toolkit are still around online, waiting for the next crazy cat lady to step in and save democracy (or ruin it?). Perhaps we could all use a counter-psyops toolkit these days?
The truth has whiskers…
