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The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
Description:
Maintaining Integrity while Presenting Deception
Playing with Reality in the Media Mainstream
Hugh Davies
Monash University
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Network for Art and Technology
huedavies@gmail.com
An Alternate Reality Game (ARG) is an interactive, cross-media narrative with outcomes that
can be influenced by participants' actions. As a unique immersive tactic, ARG's are most notable
for disguising their status as games, thereby deliberately blurring the line between reality and
fiction. In the last decade, ARG's have flourished to become an established game genre with
several media organisations experimenting with the form. But their popularity raises questions,
particularly: how can such deliberately deceptive content be successfully presented by reputable
media outlets who seek to maintain the trust and loyalty of their audience?
Bluebird AR, was an ARG created and delivered by Australia's national broadcaster, the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Presented across a range of online spaces in 2010,
Bluebird AR's fictional story was set around the actual controversies of climate change and geoengineering,
provoking a discussion among international audience participants of how best to
address humanity's impact on the planet. Within the ABC, the Bluebird AR project provoked
distinct policy deliberations and editorial concerns, compelling the organisation to develop new
strategies to ensure that the immersive experience did not betray the organisations integrity, its
core values, or its interests.
This paper reveals how the ABC delivered and adapted Bluebird AR to remain within the
organisations strict policy and ethical frameworks. Discussing the lessons learnt through
delivering Bluebird AR, this paper also considers how future illusory experiences might be
successfully presented by mainstream media organisations while balancing factual integrity and
audience immersion in a lawful and ethical manner.
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