Digital Citizenship Education: Using ‘Serious Games’ as Interventions

Polarisation, disinformation, extremism – such phenomena are increasingly viewed as threatening the formation of democratic opinions in a society now shaped by digitality. There is political and academic consensus that suppressing this trend is only possible to a degree and that preventative education policy and training measures that raise citizens’ resilience are therefore equally important. Different approaches have been discussed for some time, under the concept of digital citizenship education, which can bring political and media education together and which seek to empower young people as democratic citizens in a digitally networked society.

However, the question remains of how best to implement this strategy in German schools. Textbooks, for example, as media of a traditional information environment, can only make a limited contribution to strengthening digital citizenship. The project therefore investigates how successful other educational media, especially serious games, can be in implementing approaches based in digital citizenship education and conveying the challenges posed by polarization, disinformation, and extremism.

  • Aims

    The aim of the study is to research different approaches to digital citizenship education in a period of social polarisation and their implementation in educational media, particularly through the use of serious games.


  • Methodology

    Digital games that raise awareness among young people of polarisation, disinformation and extremism in digital networks and the threats they represent are at the heart of the project. The thematic focus is on games that aim to intervene against right-wing extremism. Using the walkthrough method, the team analyse the game Hidden Codes to ascertain (1) how it addresses players as political subjects, (2) how phenomena such as polarisation, disinformation and extremism are addressed in the game and (3) to what extent the game can be described as an approach to digital citizenship education. This analysis and the exploration of other games is expected to provide an indication of which serious games have the potential to be used for pedagogical intervention and how they can support digital citizenship education.


  • Results

    Talks
    • The challenge of prevention in history education. How right-wing extremism is represented in German educational media, HEIRNET conference ‘Connecting the Past to the Future to the Present’, Amsterdam 2022.
    • Gemeinsam gegen Demokratie. Zur Schnittstelle russischer und rechtsextremer Desinformationskampagnen, Conference ‘Dekonstruktion digitaler Desinformationsstrategien. Phänomene des Rechtsextremismus’, University of Vechta, 2023. (With Johann Trupp).
    • History education as prevention: playing with the past – or with the present? International Conference “Playing with the past”, November 2025, Nikosia, Cyprus.
    Publications
    • Tribukait, Maren. 'History Education as Prevention: The Topic of Right-Wing Extremism in German Educational Media'. History Education Research Journal (HERJ), 2024 (21) 12. https://doi.org/10.14324/HERJ.21.1.12
    • Tribukait, Maren and Johann Trupp. 'Die Herausforderung antidemokratischer Desinformationskampagnen: Strategien deutscher rechtsextremer und russischer Akteure und Perspektiven für die Medienbildung' MedienPädagogik - Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung, 2024 (Vol. 59), 105-122. https://doi.org/10.21240/mpaed/59/2024.04.30.X
    • Tribukait, Maren. 'Learning from History – how could it work?' HERJ Blog 2024, Okt 25. UCL Press. https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/herj/news/52/
    Transfer activities

Project Team

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