An Immersive Journey through Flawed Technology: Users’ Perceptions of VR in Journalism

Alexander Godulla,Cornelia Wolf,Rosanna Planer,Fiona Vaaßen,Annika Lück

doi:10.3390/journalmedia2030027

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has had the reputation of being a revolutionising technology ever since it emerged in the early 1960s, but virtual is not yet a successful reality in journalistic practice. Examining VR’s current situation and the factors preventing it from reaching its predicted potential in digital journalism, this paper analyses the user comments (n = 770) on 15 journalistic VR apps offered by media organizations, with the help of a qualitative-reductive content analysis. Deductive categories of analysis contain the constructs of immersion, emotion, usability, and utility, which are further specified by inductive subcategories in the course of the analysis. Results show that users positively highlight different aspects of emotion and immersion that the VR apps elicit, and criticize journalistic VR apps for their low levels of utility and usability. Implications for journalistic practice and research are subsequently drawn.

Highlights

Journalism and Media 2: 454–468.For decades, Virtual reality (VR) researchers have been fascinated by VR technology as a possibility to explore the space between reality and virtuality
As one of the main arguments for VR and seemingly the main goal of VR production, depends on both the successful utility and usability of the technology, which again shapes the users’ potential to feel empathy during the reception of a VR story. Integrating these concepts and picking up on the importance, highlighted earlier, of combining the subjectivity of the user and the objectivity of the technology, this study aims to find answers to the following research question: How do users evaluate modern VR apps produced by journalistic media outlets, with regards to the qualities of immersion, emotion, usability, and utility?
Taking a look at the inductive categories and the descriptive results of the analysis of user comments, patterns and main trends are visible, which answer the guiding research question of how users of journalistic VR apps evaluate these apps in terms of immersion, emotion, usability, and utility

Summary

Introduction

Journalism and Media 2: 454–468.For decades, VR researchers have been fascinated by VR technology as a possibility to explore the space between reality and virtuality. Despite its long-held promise of creating an alternative reality, annoying shortcomings in VR technology remain to this day: “[T]he bulkiness and grainy screens of current-generation headsets, the annoyance of getting a cord wrapped around your ankles, the likelihood that you’ll accidentally ram your hand into some furniture, or the frustration of setting up new and sometimes complicated hardware” (Robertson 2020) make a breakthrough of VR technology still questionable This directly affects VR’s use in immersive journalism (Baía Reis and Coelho 2018), which is “an experimental approach that allows users to experience, and subsequently be immersed in, stories created not in the real world but in a virtual, augmented, or mixed reality” Back in 2015, TIME magazine put VR on its cover, referring to the “surprising joy of virtual reality”

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