The Board Game <i>Pandemic</i>: Cooperative Sociotechnical Imaginaries Obscuring Power Relations

Au, Larry

doi:10.1080/09505431.2021.1965111

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Other examples of blind spots, include how when confronting the HIV/AIDS epidemic, policymakers in India defaulted to a ‘generic’ understanding of what an epidemic looks like, ignoring local knowledge that would have helped stop the spread of the disease (Mahajan, 2008). The pathogenic imaginary of global health security is criticised for its centring of the interests of Global North countries, at the expense of the Global South, despite imaginaries that rely on the rhetoric of global cooperation (Au, 2021; Lakoff, 2015). These blind spots, we argue, contribute to COVID-19 scepticism as seen in subversive sociotechnical imaginaries.…”

Section: The Blind Spots Of Sociotechnical Imaginariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Blind Spots of Sociotechnical Imaginaries: COVID-19 Scepticism in Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States

Silva

2022

Science, Technology and Society

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During the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, experts and policymakers mobilised various slogans to compel the public to help defeat COVID-19. By comparing Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States, this study shows how dominant sociotechnical imaginaries tied to the slogans were mobilised. We argue that the blind spots of these dominant sociotechnical imaginaries contributed to subversive sociotechnical imaginaries and made room for COVID-19 scepticism. In Brazil, calls to ‘take care of yourself’ contributed to a sceptical stance that individualised responsibility. In the United Kingdom, calls to ‘protect the NHS’ contributed to sceptical accusations of whataboutism and the neglect of other vital social institutions during the lockdown. In the United States, calls to ‘flatten the curve’ contributed to scepticism that challenged public health interventions through discourses of individual choice and freedom. By paying attention to the blind spots of dominant sociotechnical imaginaries, we argue that experts and policymakers should be sensitive to how public health messaging may have feedback effects that detract from the initial aims of interventions.

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Section: The Blind Spots Of Sociotechnical Imaginariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Blind Spots of Sociotechnical Imaginaries: COVID-19 Scepticism in Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States

Silva

2022

Science, Technology and Society

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“…Framings get embedded into the game by different kinds of design choices. For example, Au (2021) reflects on how the board game Pandemic (Leacock 2008) depicts international cooperation of pandemics in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic—the unbalanced roles in the game reflect how “cooperation fails when certain stakeholders are excluded from decision-making and are treated differently based on their unequal access to resources, expertise, and financial means.” (Au 2021:600).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Offsetting Game—Framing Environmental Issues in the Design of a Serious Game

Nygren

Kankainen

Brunet

2022

Simulation & Gaming

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Background Biodiversity crisis requires researchers to reflect on tools and strategies to engage with different stakeholders. We propose that serious games can be designed to introduce stakeholders to a novel environmental policy tool and to communicate research on environmental issues. Our case is biodiversity offsetting (BDO), a novel policy tool aiming to reconcile nature conservation with other land uses. As any media, games offer certain framings of the issues they communicate about—some aspects are made more salient than others. However, frame analysis has not been widely used to analyze the design choices or the messages communicated by games. We analyze how these framings are designed into a game communicating about environmental issues. Aim To intervene in the emerging public discussion on BDO in Finland, we designed a land use board game and during the design process, played it with public and private stakeholders who would soon encounter and implement biodiversity offsetting policies in Finland. The aim of this article is to describe how our framings of BDO affected the design process and how those framings interacted with the design decisions we made. With our analysis, we want to contribute to the understanding of how framings and design choices interact in game design and how paying attention to framings is especially important for the design of SGs. Method We analyze how our framings of biodiversity offsetting and our design choices interact in game design. Our understanding of biodiversity offsetting guided our game design, but the design choices also contribute to the framing of the issue itself. Results Game design choices strongly frame the topic of the game and thus influence the function of a serious game. Thus, the framings of the topic should be considered carefully during the game design process, especially in the context of serious games.

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Outbreak Science: Implications for Teaching and Learning in STEM Classrooms

DeCoito,

Briona

2023

Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene, Volume 2

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The Board Game Pandemic: Cooperative Sociotechnical Imaginaries Obscuring Power Relations

Cited by 4 publications

References 8 publications

The Blind Spots of Sociotechnical Imaginaries: COVID-19 Scepticism in Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States

The Blind Spots of Sociotechnical Imaginaries: COVID-19 Scepticism in Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States

Offsetting Game—Framing Environmental Issues in the Design of a Serious Game

Outbreak Science: Implications for Teaching and Learning in STEM Classrooms

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