Gamification in Politics: how does it influence Political Participation?

This article is an abstract of a research conducted during my studies at Maastricht University, for the course Digital Transformations. The research investigates Gamification: the use of game elements in a non-gaming context. In particular, it focuses on gamification in politics and analyses how this practice impacts political participation. The research uses as case study the Italian contest “Vinci Salvini”. Through the qualitative interview with a winner of the contest, the research examines the changes on the political activity of one individual after his participation.

The research is relevant for multiple reasons. On a more general level, it highlights the critical aspects of this new practice. More in detail, by focusing on political gamification, the research aims to reflect on the possible transformations that gamification might bring to political participation practices. Gamification is an emerging practice in numerous fields — education, healthcare, wellness, politics — whose effects need to be investigated from a critical sociological perspective. Although it has been studied as an effective mechanism to engage people on social issues, gamification can also be used for manipulating collective action towards illegitimate ends. It’s important that we understand its potential and question which positive and negative outcomes it might have on society.

Introduction

Gamification describes the implementation of game methods in non-gaming contexts (Deterring et al., 2011, p. 9). This definition, coined by a group of researchers in 2011, has shaped the academic debate around this practice. The purpose of gamification is to make a certain product or action more appealing, by introducing game mechanics such as rankings, scores, rewards to motivate users to act in the desired way (Vanolo, 2017, p. 320). Although the use of game elements to make practices more engaging is not entirely new, gamification can be seen as a development of these practices (Koorevaar, 2012, p. 3).

Gamification has been studied to be implemented in public fields such as healthcare, education, wellness, and governance. The core idea has been to exploit game dynamics to support collaboration and engage citizens to act towards common goals that benefit society (Vanolo, 2017, p. 322). It has also been implemented in politics to serve common goals, as well as the private interests of parties. Some of the reasons behind the use of gamified practices in political contexts include the intent of reducing the alienation of the younger generation towards politics, or encouraging citizens to vote at elections (Mahnič , 2014, p. 147).

Gamified practices have been frequently used in politics for parties’ private interests, to spread political messages and gain votes during elections. One example is the contest created by the Italian party “Lega”, called “Vinci Salvini” (translated “Win Salvini”), announced one week before the European elections, in May 2019. In the contest, the fastest users to like and share the posts of Salvini, leader of the party, gained points. The first classified would win as a prize a phone call from Salvini himself, a selfie posted on the official Facebook page, or a private meeting with the leader. The real aim of the game was to trick the platform algorithm to give greater visibility to what Salvini published, making the propaganda machine more effective (Flore M. et al, 2019).

Taking as a case study “Vinci Salvini”, I will investigate the critical aspects of gamification and its impact on political participation practices. First, I will provide a literature review on digital participation. I will illustrate the different points of view on the idea that our culture is becoming more participatory and more democratic. I will then relate the debate to gamification, and illustrate the critical aspect of users’ exploitation that concerns this digital practice. Using the qualitative interview research method, I will interview one of the winners of “Vinci Salvini”. I will try to examine how his political participation and political values have been affected after participating in the game. Throughout the analysis of the interview, I will illustrate how the aspect of free-labor is also present in the case study.

Digital participation

In their text, Jørring et al. (2019), argue that digitalisation has brought new transformations to forms of political participation and citizenship. The authors include these new transformations under the notion of “digital citizenship” (Jørring et al., 2019). According to them, there is the necessity of raising awareness on the new forms of activity that occur with digitalisation.

Henry Jenkins argues that our culture is becoming more participatory, giving individuals the possibility to take part in the creation of content, to express themselves, and to engage with others in new creative ways (Jenkins, 2016, p. 2). He uses the expression “participatory culture”, of which Social media platforms are the perfect expression. (Fuchs p. 67).

Scholars such as Jenkins and Schäfer, argue that in this culture, users are not passive consumers but become active producers (Koorevaar, 2012, p.28). This interpretation of digital culture, as a shift of individuals from passive audience to active participants, has been criticised by Noortje Marres (2017). She argues that from a sociological perspective, individuals have always been active participants through all sorts of media. According to her, defining the digital culture as more participatory brings away the focus to more important changes that new media have brought to society, such as participation becoming valuable, technological and metri-cized (2017, p. 150). By interacting on digital platforms, users actively produce data. The intensive participation of users becomes a valuable good, available to a variety of third parties, and can serve social, economic and political ends (Marres, 2017, p. 151–153). Digital participation is also technological in the sense that it is determined by the technological features of the platforms. Technology plays a prominent role in determining how people interact (2017, p. 153–155). Digital media technologies also enable the monitoring, measurement and analysis of users. Regular practices like reading, listening, commenting, are increasingly mediated by digital infrastructures, producing traceable data that can be later used for analysis (2017, p. 155–158).

Jenkins is also criticised by Fuchs (2014) for his notion of “participatory culture”. According to Fuchs, Jenkins adopts a “culturalistic” understanding of participation, but he ignores the political dimension of the term (2014, p.68). In his positive valuation of digital participation, Jenkins mainly focuses on the most visible aspects that digital practices offer, but he doesn’t analyse the downside of the Internet such as ownership, the exploitation of users, concerns about privacy violations and surveillance (2014, p.71).

Terranova’s work (2000), focuses on the element of free-labor in the digital economy. She claims that the sustainability of the Internet as a medium requires an intensive amount of labor, of updated work, of new content, which is provided by its users. However this work is not equally compensated, but most of the time is unpaid, is free (2000, p 46–48).

If on one hand, digitalization provides new services, it enables new opportunities for self-expression and empowerment for the users, on the other hand, it also facilitates less visible practices, of which individuals are very often unaware, and that instead need to be acknowledged.

Gamification as a digital practice

Koorevaar (2012) claims that gamification plays an important role in digital societies. According to Jenkins, in a participatory culture, individuals need to develop specific skills to be able to fully immerse and take advantage of the opportunities that participation offers. Some of these skills include play, performance, simulation, and multitasking, which could be taught through the use of gamified applications (Koorevaar, 2012, p. 26).

As mentioned before, Jenkins argues that in a participatory culture, users are not only passive consumers but become active producers. Schäfer’s understanding of active participants applies not only to users who create unique content online but also to those that simply interact with an application. In this sense, gamified practices enable users to become actively engaged (Koorevaar, 2012, p. 28). Schäfer however, claims that participation in gamification is not a form of democratic production, because the limitation imposed by the design of the application orientates the activity of users (Koorevaar, 2012). As Marres argued, technology frames the way people participate in digital societies (2017).

The design of the application not only limits but can also influence users’ activity. The possibility to orientate users’ action through gamification has raised ethical concerns on the legitimacy of the practice. One of the arguments against gamification is that it shows a relation to users’ exploitation. Ian Bogost (2011), claims that the practice influences users’ actions by promising incentives that are fictional, in the sense that they don’t provide any type of value or source of investment (Kim, 2016). While engaging in gamified practices, users are unaware of the monetary value that their participation provides to third parties. Furthermore, the amount of value that users gain as a result of their gamified labor is relatively low compared to the amount gained by the employer. This constitutes an imbalance, to which he refers as “exploitationware” (Kim, 2016). Similarly, Rey supports the idea that gamification is exploitative, claiming that by inserting elements of games into other activities, it converts ordinary work into a form of play, he calls this “playbor” (Rey, 2012).

Methodology

To develop an understanding of how political participation is influenced by gamification, I decided to analyse one example of a political contest, and to interview an individual who participated in it.

The qualitative interview was the method chosen for this investigation. This method offered the possibility to receive detailed information on the individual’s personal experience, as well as on the practice. However, this method of research had its limitations. Through only one interview, it was impossible to make statements on the general impact of gamification on political participation.

The example of political gamification analysed in this research is the Italian contest “Vinci Salvini”. As mentioned before, the purpose of the contest was to help the politician Matteo Salvini with the propaganda of his message, to win at the European elections in May 2019. Because I didn’t know personally anyone who participated in this contest, I researched Google, looking for a potential interviewee. In an article published in an Italian newspaper, a winner’s name came up. I later searched his name on Instagram and contacted him.

The structure of the interview was divided into five different topics with four/five questions each, supported by follow-up questions. The topics were divided in: introducing the interviewee, political participation before the game and his use of social media, aspect of free labor in the contest, political participation after the game, conclusion of the interview.

This structure allowed the interview to run smoothly, by giving the possibility to the interviewee to introduce himself first though general questions and proceeding with more personal and detailed questions as the interview went forward. This enabled the interviewee to develop a sense of confidence and trust in the process, which provided interesting insights into his experience. As the interview went forward, I tried to detect more information on the contest itself, and on how induced users to act in a specific way. The interview was concluded by asking more general questions on his current political participation and ideas, to understand how the game contributed to influence users’ political activity.

Interview

In the interview, I start by presenting the interviewee’s political ideas and activity before the contest, and the main factors that draw him to participate. Then I will discuss how gamification affected his participation in politics, and on how the element of free-labor is present in this case study.

Political participation before the contest

When asked about his activity in politics before the contest, the participant responded that he was not particularly active.

“I never subscribed to a political party. I started being more interested in politics only this year, trying to inform myself more. I attended a few public speeches, one of Salvini and one of a member of the democratic party”.

To understand more about his relation to political events, he was asked about his main sources of information.

“I am not very active on social networks, I prefer to read rather than write or share posts. I use mainly social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes I take part in discussion forums with other students who had similar political ideas to mine. I watch the news on tv, and I follow some politicians on Social Networks. In regards to politics, I am more active online than offline”

What drew him to participate

At this point, it was interesting to understand what draws an individual that was not very politically active, to participate in such political contest.

“I study marketing and economics at the University of Modena, and I was interested in understanding how the contest worked. I didn’t participate to win. The fact that I won was more a causality. I did it mainly because I was curious about the contest. But of course, if I didn’t like Salvini, I would have never done it”.

In this particular case, what attracted the interviewee to participate in the contest, differs from what gamified practices usually use to attract users (prizes, rewards). Instead, it was his interest in understanding how this example of gamification worked from a marketing perspective, that drew him to participate. The interviewee also claimed that his political ideas were already oriented towards Salvini before participating, therefore he didn’t mind helping him to share his political message and possibly win a phone call with him.

“I decided to participate in the game because I knew that I agreed with him already. I would have never participated if the contest would have been launched from another politician. I would have never liked or shared their posts. I have a political opinion and I try not to deny it just for a contest”.

Free-labor

In the middle of the interview, I tried then to investigate to what extent his participation in the game was being exploited through gamification. I asked him if he agreed with everything that he liked or shared to win the contest, and if he continued to do so after the contest ended.

“To win, I had to like and share all of Salvini’s post, which included both written posts and pictures. Because he is a politician that I support, I also read the post that he published, and I already knew that I agreed with him. For what concerns the pictures… well some were just random pictures, there wasn’t much to agree on”.

I then asked if he continued to like and share Salvini’s post after the contest.
“The days right after I participated in the contest, I noticed that I was still liking all the posts on Salvini’s page, although I had already won. This tendency gradually decreased with time”.

Political Participation after the game

After having investigated the aspects of his participation in the contest, I went back to the initial question of my research and asked him about how his political activity changed after participating.

“More or less it is still the same. I didn’t subscribe to any political party. I took part in more public speeches after I won. As part of the prize of the contest, I had a free pass to be in the public event hosted by Salvini in Milan in May. I had access to the first row, right in front of Salvini and other politicians like Marine Le Pen. It was a nice experience”.

I asked him if his ideas on Salvini changed after winning and having talked to him on the phone.

“Since I won, I could say that I have been feeling more attached to Salvini’s party than t o politics in general. If before I only shared his same ideas, now that I have got to know him better as a person, I feel that I can relate to him more. This is also the purpose of the game after all”.

Findings

Changes in political participation

Through the interview, it was found that the individual’s political ideas and his activity in politics had not been highly affected by the contest. The interviewee claimed that he was not particularly active in politics before and that he still isn’t.

Before the contest, he was already supporting Matteo Salvini’s ideas. He acknowledges that winning the game helped him feel more attached to Salvini as a person and his party “Lega”. Therefore we could argue that the contest served its marketing purpose. However, this contest did not implement his interest in politics in general.

Free-labour

The interviewee claims that he didn’t participate to win, but because he was curious about this practice. However, by participating he agreed to adopt a set of standardizing actions finalized towards a specific end, which made his participation valuable (Marres, 2017) for the political party. The interviewee acknowledged that while participating, he was behaving like a “bot”, sharing and liking everything as fast as possible, which helped the minister gain visibility. This proves the presence of users’ labor exploitation in the game. Because he is not a very active user on social media (he mostly reads rather than posting or sharing), he didn’t continue to like or share every post of Salvini after the game ended.

Discussion

According to Jenkins and Koorevaar’s view, the contest “Vinci Salvini” is an example of participatory practice in the participatory culture (2014). Schäfer would claim that the participants of this contest are active because they can decide between a different range of options on how to interact with the platform (share, like…) (Koorevaar, 2012, p.28). However, we should ask ourselves, : is this contest a form of democratic participation?

The limitations in the participation in this contest don’t only concern the technological aspects of the platforms (Koorevaar, 2012). By considering practices as such democratic, we are avoiding to consider those that are the downsides of the Internet: problems regarding ownership, the exploitation of users, concerns about privacy violations and surveillance (Fuchs, 2014, p. 71).

In this example of gamification, the changes in participation that happen through digitalization, described by N. Marres (2017), are clear: participation is made valuable, technological and metri-cized. Users’ participation is a valuable source for the former party to spread the political message and gain votes. To win, participants in the game have to stick to a limited set of actions imposed by the platforms they are using and by the rules of the contest. Furthermore, through their participation, users provide data about themselves which would later be collected, analyzed and used for the party’s interests.

Conclusion

In this paper, I investigated the influence of political gamified contests on individuals’ engagement with politics. First, I discussed the academic debate on digital participation, then I related the practice of gamification to the debate, and I explored the claims on the exploitative nature of the practice.

By interviewing a participant in the contest “Vinci Salvini”, I found that in this case, gamification did not have a relevant impact on the interviewee’s political opinions and activity. During the interview, I received many details on the contest and the personal experience of the interviewee. However, this method was not suitable for providing an answer to the research question in general terms.

Throughout the research, critical aspects of gamified practices were raised. One of them is the already mentioned users’ exploitation. By giving their contribution to third parties in exchange for prices and rewards, users participate in the free-labor economy of the Internet. Another concern is the collection of users’ data and surveillance. By taking part in gamified practices, people provide data about themselves, which then allow companies, or in this case political parties, to trace profiles of potential clients or voters. In this sense, games become tools for surveillance.

Because of the limitations on the length of the paper and the time for the research, these two aspects were not further investigated. There is already a good amount of existing research on these two topics. However, I believe that the discussions on the critical aspects of digital practices should be more integrated into the public debate, to raise awareness between users on the implications of their participation in the digital society.

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