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New Forms of Electoral Opinion Building: A Study of Android Games based on Indian Elections
Siddhartha Chakraborti
Abstract:
Gamification of processes and things around us has been a historical practice in almost all parts of the World. This gamification acts as a feedback loop where real-life incidents are redefined and recreated to look at the multiplicity of possible outcomes in a permutational manner. Reality becomes partly mediated by the gaming experience, and the magic circle break is never absolute, with a hangover of immersion interfering in the routine trades of social and political life. The gamification of politics and political space, sometimes of radically active spaces like warfare and sometimes more passive spaces like electoral politics, have a similar effect. Kings and military experts have played, or have been presented to indulge, in games like chess to sharpen and shape strategies. The average civilian gamer has learnt more about the military through RPG combat gaming than through detailed journal articles on military tactics. This paper explores the effect of Android gaming on civilians when it comes to elections and voting. The paper begins with a retrospective look at the history of the gamification of political space. It then proceeds to look at the interconnection of elections and gaming. It then looks at the games that were produced during the Indian elections and how they probably shaped the discourse in and around elections in the country.