Högskolan i Skövde

This thesis proposal provides the background and theoretical building blocks for the Level Up project, a study to engage youth in local news by designing game-based interactions to encourage their interests. Within the historical and cultural context of traditional and digital news development, gamification and models for interaction and play are examined and critiqued. Self Determination Theory is proposed as the foundational theory for engaging users in news by increasing their intrinsic motivations and encouraging their interaction and play with content. This is in contrast to traditional models for gamification of digital media content (based, for example, on points, scoring, and leaderboards). Self Determination Theory provides models to explore modes of interactions with news content that can increase user satisfaction, including their feelings of competence autonomy, and relatedness. The thesis proposal also outlines three prototypes/experimentation platforms that will be used to investigate and empirically test the SDT theoretical model. Overall the research provides a foundation for the development of a novel kind of local digital news-service that uses game-based interactions in mutually beneficial ways for both readers and news providers.