Project description DEENESFRITPL Unwinding and understanding the potential of new VR technologies The 360º-video virtual reality (VR) stories have great potential to raise awareness and comprehension for broadly ungraspable issues. However, we lack empirical evidence about their potential persuasive effects and a theoretical framework about how these might impact people. The EU-funded PersVR project will investigate if and how immersive journalism and documentary focusing on 360º-video VR might affect people’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviour. PersVR will employ a multidisciplinary approach that combines mainly social psychology, communication sciences and psychophysiology to test a theoretical model about how narrative and immersive attributes of 360º-video VR lead to persuasive outcomes. Moreover, the project aims at establishing an innovative methodological toolkit for understanding the social impact of new VR technologies. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective Raising awareness and comprehension of global problems such as climate change or refugee movements provides a communicational challenge, as these problems often stay abstract and distant to people. With the advent of virtual reality (VR), academics and journalists alike put their hope in 360º-video VR stories as a potentially revolutionary tool to create scenarios that make these problems more graspable, thus raising concern and instigating attitude-change. However, to date, empirical insight into potential persuasive effects of 360º-video VR stories is almost absent, and theoretical conceptualizations of how they might impact people are lacking. PersVR is going to change this. The aim of PersVR is to overcome these shortcomings, and to demonstrate if and how immersive journalism and documentary focusing on 360º-video VR might affect people’s beliefs, attitudes, and behavior. The project adopts a multidisciplinary perspective that integrates knowledge from different fields (including social psychology, communication sciences, and psychophysiology) into a theoretical model that describes how narrative and immersive attributes of 360º-video VR lead to persuasive outcomes. The empirical testing of the model will utilize an innovative combination of self-report, psychophysiological, and behavioral methods to comprehensively illuminate the psychological mechanisms involved. The complex set of methods deployed will permit to determine optimal methodological standards that promise to guide future related studies. The current rise of “immersive journalism” and VR storytelling accentuate the high relevance, timeliness, and expected impact of the project. The innovative approach of the project and the envisioned collaboration with the host will provide the applicant with a unique research profile and significantly advance his striving for an independent career at world-leading research centers dedicated to illuminate the social impact of new VR technologies. Fields of science social sciencesmedia and communicationsjournalismsocial sciencespsychologysocial psychologynatural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwaresoftware applicationsvirtual realitynatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changessocial sciencessociologydemographyhuman migrations Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2018 - Individual Fellowships Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2018 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF Coordinator STICHTING VU Net EU contribution € 175 572,48 Address DE BOELELAAN 1105 1081 HV Amsterdam Netherlands See on map Region West-Nederland Noord-Holland Groot-Amsterdam Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 175 572,48
