Virtual Reality & Regional News

Selecting VR news stories based on the five P VR model

van Gisbergen, M. S., Doicaru, M. M., Nijs, W., & Zunneberg, T.

In one of our first studies we tried to look for selection criteria to capture local and regional news in (360 recorded) VR. A suitable model to be used was the 360 Presence model (van Gisbergen, 2016). Vr has added value to 'conventional' video news coverage when the following p's are taken into consideration: (1) Presence, (2) Perspective; (3) Proximity; (4) Point of View and (5) Place. Presence means that we need a topic in which people feel the need or want of being there. We use perspective as a criteria to make use of 360 vision (or audio). It means that you need to take into account whether the news topic needs or offers unique ways of looking around in an engaging environment (up, down and around you). Proximity means that the topic allows to be near people, objects or situations, that are normally difficult to be close with. By using a unique Point of View, for instance the character perspective as in games, or a child perspective, news will be experienced in a different way. Finally Place is important. This means on the one hand taking into account suitable places for VR recordings (such as a bed or a chair) and on the other hand taking into account that the medium needs a lot of attention and effort and does not allow for much body movements (taking into account the context of the usage of the VR product).

Using immersive 360° video to make regional news attractive for Dutch young audiences. An exploration of the VR  impact on narrative engagement, interest in regional news, story understanding and recall.

Iosifescu, A., Doicaru, M. M., & van Gisbergen, M. S.

Recent studies suggest that young people are getting less interested in professional news media, appearing to be particularly disengaged from regional and local news.  Another characteristic of the Millennials and generation Z  is a strong interest in new technologies, as well as a hype for experiences and entertainment. VR represents such a new technology focused on creating experiences; this medium not only is becoming more and more popular, but also more accessible for wider audiences. VR  has already caught the attention of major newsrooms, particularly at national and international level, for its capacity to immerse audiences in a story, help them understand unknown perspectives and empathize with different groups of people.  In this study we empirically tested  if VR (360° video) is capable to increase the level of enjoyment, presence, interest, understanding and recall of  presented information in the case of regional news among young audiences. For this study 3 straight news reports were created, each of them produced both in the format of 360° video and in that of 2D video, in order to compare the two media in terms of the impact they have on audiences’ interest and enjoyment. A quasi-experiment was conducted with two different conditions: 15 participants watched the three news reports in 360° video format, and other 15 watched the same news but in 2D. The obtained results showed that 360° videos created higher levels of presence, narrative engagement, enjoyment and emotional interest than the 2D videos. The outcome of this study suggests that 360° videos could be used by professional regional/local newsrooms as means to get younger audiences more interested in regional/local stories, and bring them closer to their content emotionally, but not cognitively.