Our study of about 1,600 people found culturally tailored misinformation games outperform generic ones.

Indonesia's peer-chat game boosted discernment in both countries; Western satire failed in Indonesia.

Engagement drives learning. Games that fit your culture get you involved, and involvement creates change.

Most tools designed to fight misinformation are built with Western audiences in mind. But what happens when you take those same tools somewhere else?

My colleagues and I wanted to find out. We tested whether media literacy games work equally well across cultures by comparing two versions: one originally designed for Western audiences and another built specifically for Indonesian players. We found that whether these games work depends not just on the content, but on culture, design choices, and how people actually engage with them.

Our study was recently published in Nature’s Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, and the full paper is available via open-access. I also recently presented about this paper at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s Annual Convention. I’m excited to share the summary of our findings here.

Prebunking vs. Debunking

First off, I wanted to share what I mean by the prebunking strategies in these games. You've probably heard of debunking, which is correcting false claims after people have already seen them. This can be helpful, but teaching people how to recognize false claims before they are exposed shows even more promise. Prebunking is rooted in William McGuire’s inoculation theory from the 1960s: expose people to a weakened version of misleading arguments so they can build cognitive resistance before encountering the real thing.

It’s a promising idea, and research shows it can be highly effective. But most prebunking research has been done on Western, English-speaking populations.........

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