Interactive digital narrative (IDN)—new ways to represent complexity and facilitate digitally empowered citizens

Abstract

In this overview paper, we consider interactive digital narratives (IDN) as a means to represent and enable understanding of complex topics both at the public level (e.g. global warming, the COVID-19 pandemic, migration, or e-mobility) and at the personal level (trauma and other mental health issues, interpersonal relationships). We discuss scholarly, artistic, and non-fiction approaches to complexity, point out limitations of traditional media to represent complex issues, and describe the foundational advantages of IDN in this regard, using the SPP model as a conceptual lens. Then, we describe the problem space of IDN for complexity, and what aspects need further work in order to more fully realise the potential of IDN to represent complex topic in education and public communication.