Democracy, Governance, and the Digital Network

Students presented their final projects this last week. The assignment was to produce a narrative that took advantage of digital technologies. The rest of the guidelines were pretty broad, and thus the projects I received were fairly wide ranging, from digital games, to blog fiction, to a few that defy categorization. Below is a sampling of a few of them along with a brief description (the first contains the explanation for my new twitter icon.)

The “Story” Virus: This was one of the more inventive ideas I have received from students (not just this semester but in general). The idea is to create a website which if accessed downloads an unwanted computer program (read virus) onto your computer. This program slowly takes over your computer, mimicking a sentient AI. As the AI grows, takes over more of your computer, it tells the story of how it escaped from NEDtech, and asks users to help fight the conspiracy. Essentially this story hijacks your computer in order to deliver the narrative. While the group didn’t write the code for this narrative, they did spend a lot of time developing the pieces, from how the virus would look, sound, and appear on your computer, to the the website which would deliver the virus (don’t worry it’s safe), and most importantly a fake news article covering the virus once the creators were discovered. (It is from this article that I took my new twitter icon, as apparently I would go to jail for encouraging dangerous student behavior.)

One Frigid Morning: This is a humorous murder mystery told through various internet platforms. The setting: the refrigrator. The victim: the butter. The murderer: (I am not going to spoil it.) You can download the stop motion video of the crime and if you want to see the details of who dunnit.

Perplexing Perplex: This is also a mystery, but told as blog fiction. The authors used google maps, and photos to create a dark but humorous story. The visuals for this one are particularly striking and worth checking out. The story develops via reader input, as individuals can help track Bob through the comment section.

Robyn: This is a serial video narrative, following Robyn and her group of friends. The twist, as this video explains, is that the audience supplies the music. We talked a great deal in class about allowing user input, but also limiting the channels via which users are allowed to contribute. This narrative is a creative take on that problem.

More later as students hand them in and give me permission to share.