Due to the XXIII Science and Innovation Week, the event was held on November 15 “Discover the interests behind journalism. Didactic game “Spider web of influences”, in which 28 4th year ESO students from IES Jimena Menéndez Pidal in Fuenlabrada participated.

This activity consists of the application of a game of this didactic game of simulation and rules, as a contest, which leads to asking the who and the whys behind the media messages, to promote critical thinking within the framework of Communication Education, designed by the teacher Gema Alcolea Díaz, from the Department of Journalism and Corporate Communication, and for which he received second prize in the V URJC Scientific Dissemination Awards.

Web of Influences

The game has students, in teams, play the role of news managers for a TV channel in a rundown meeting. They have 10 news items but to select them, order them and determine their duration, they depend on conditions that they face through a game panel with five columns (ownership, financing, advertising, politics, public) and five levels of intensity. Physically, this web of influences is represented with colored ropes (color code) that are tied to the chairs or on the gaming table or removed from them. The final mission of the teams is to configure a ladder, although some are tasked with achieving many conditions that bind them (adding points and ropes by level of intensity) and others with freeing themselves from them.

“The result of the rundowns is put together at the end and a reflection emerges on democracy, consumption, the value of information... and the contrast of two differentiated logics: that of journalism and that of the company,” he points out. Alcolea Gem. It is a recreational resource with which to learn that property and other economic and business factors determine the contents, transcending specific data to delve into underlying issues. “In addition,” he adds, “it generates significant learning that allows medium and long-term memory, as Professor Rosa María Martín, from the IES Jimena Menéndez Pidal, has told us on many occasions, who for years has participated with her students with us every time. "This activity is planned during Science Week."

This activity has been added to the extensive program of activities of the recent Science and Innovation Week, held from November 6 to 19, 2023, which aims to actively involve society in research and development processes in science, technology and innovation.