Being Somebody Else: The Future of Narrative Storytelling

Abstract

The authors discuss virtual reality (VR) in relation to its characterisation as the “ultimate empathy machine” that allows passive spectators of fictional or non-fictional narratives to become active agents of unfolding events. They concentrate on how the change in the form of the narrative through immersive VR impacts the audience, stressing the difference between the position of the spectator in an ongoing storyline and being a spectator engaged with elements of the story’s narrative. The possibility of acting on behalf of the Other can activate empathic responses, which in turn may lead to a more direct integration of the characters’ perspectives into the life experience of the VR user. The authors relate to several experiments and offer their conlusions