Design and development of an immersive virtual reality news application: a case study of the SARS event

Abstract

In recent years, virtual reality (VR) technologies have been applied to the field of journalism, where the concept of immersive VR news has been proposed. However, despite the fanfare, strong response, and sensational effect caused by its advent, immersive VR news remains a novel journalism paradigm that faces new challenges in its production process. Currently, there is a lack of a unified design framework, and, since most studies in this area have focused on noninteractive VR news, the understanding of the effects of more interactive VR technologies on the news consumer remains inadequate. In this study, we propose a more practical design framework for immersive VR news products. Following this framework, we designed a VR news application and conducted user evaluation in terms of media effects and user experience. Based on the experimental findings, which demonstrated that non-interactive VR news products resulted in a distracting user experience and less immersion, while interactive VR news offered improved media effects and user experience, we then derived concrete design guidelines for immersive VR news design. Finally, we highlight that this study provides a theoretical and practical reference framework for the further study of VR news.

Virtual Reality as a Tool for Political Decision-Making? An Empirical Study on the Power of Immersive Images on Voting Behavior

“…The change in voting behavior could therefore be attributed to the powerful act of showing a concrete instance or visual token of a more general abstract concept that does not yet exist in voters' knowledge base. The immersive nature of the images emphasizes the factual evidence of a Hyperloop existence in simulated "reality" because people could actually see, feel (sitting on a real chair while being in the VR) and thus experience it first-hand and in first person view for the first time (Sundar et al, 2017;Wu et al, 2021).…”

“…An often-cited example of immersive storytelling is the award-winning VR production We wait (BBC, 2022) that enables users to experience what it feels like to be a refugee crossing the Mediterranean Sea. While researchers have started to investigate the challenges, benefits, and limitations of immersive storytelling in journalism (Sundar et al, 2017;Watson, 2017;Steed et al, 2018;Mabrook and Singer, 2019;Bujić et al, 2020;Wu et al, 2021), VR in political communication has been little studied so far (Pérez-Seijo et al, 2022).…”

“…Such manipulations are nothing new for traditional presentation formats, but perhaps because viewers are fully immersed in the VR image worlds and experience them directly, it makes the experience even more real than reality itself (Slater et al, 2020;Sun and Botev, 2021). While journalism research and communication studies seem to argue for VR as a way to increase credibility and trust (Sundar et al, 2017;Nielsen and Sheets, 2021;Wu et al, 2021), Sun and Botev (2021) review article points to various negative issues related to trust when experiencing VR. Slater et al (2020) propose a list of possible negative outcomes including negative trust issues after prolonged exposure to VR (and AR) with strong place illusion and plausibility.…”

The Commuting Behavior Evolution in Suburban Express Line after Operation: Based on Multi-Source Space-Time Big Data

“…As for the framework of VR news, Hardee (2016) studied the narrative design framework of VR news and applied four theoretical domains including VR presence, narrative theory, cognition theory, and journalistic ethics. Another research (Wu et al, 2020) proposed a practical design framework for VR news products and conducted experiments. The results show that interactive VR news can provide better media effects and user experience than non-interactive.…”

Eficacia de los modelos inmersivos de comunicación y estructura de la información vinculados al compromiso social. Estudio de caso de AJ Contrast

“…Esta situación está dando paso a otros abordajes teóricos desde otras perspectivas, como la ética (Benítez et al, 2021;Rueda y Lara, 2020;Sánchez y Utne, 2019), la objetividad (Mabrook, 2021), la experiencia del usuario y los efectos de los medios (Cummings et al, 2021;Wu et al, 2021aWu et al, , 2021b. Esta última línea está muy vinculada a la psicología, especialmente en lo relacionado con el concepto de empatía (Barreda-Ángeles et al, 2020;Bujić et al, 2020;Sánchez, 2020).…”