Prosocial interactive digital narratives

Narrative plays a central role in communication, comprehension, personality formation and memory of every human being. Interactive digital narrative (IDN) adds computational methods to this basic human cognitive function. Research in IDNs has focused on realizing the combined expressive potential of computational representation and narrative expression, addressing issues of authoring/design, technical/AI-based approaches and evaluation methods. A particular area of interest is the representation of complex issues of societal relevance. Many of these issues expose the limitations of pre-digital representational technologies such as film, video, printed books and newspaper articles. Computational systems provide dynamic relationships, the ability to show the result of many choices and predict particular outcomes. The combination with a narrative approach yields IDN which have the potential to act as representations of complex topics of societal relevance such as global warming and the related energy transition, migration, pandemics, global conflicts, but also personal aspects such as mental health.

Taking advantage of both the benefits of narratives and the benefits of the computation, prosocial interactive digital narratives aim at promoting social behavior by representing these complex issues and making them better understandable to their interactors, but also by offering a safe space for practicing actions and experiencing consequences before applying them in the real world. Developing a deeper and more widespread understanding of the ever-growing complexity of today’s world is crucial as a basis for prosocial discourse, decision-making and concrete actions.