Informing Immersed Citizens: The Impact of Interactivity on Comprehending News in Immersive Journalism

Autor(en)
Hannah Greber, Sophie Lecheler, Loes Aaldering
Abstrakt

Immersive journalism has emerged as an innovative journalistic approach promising enhanced attention and understanding through interactive, virtual environments. Previously, this was mostly tested through factual knowledge. However, evaluating immersive audio‐visual modalities solely along factual knowledge falls short of considering, firstly, what about and how an immersive experience is remembered and, secondly, the importance of considering the perceptions surrounding information acquisition. Therefore, this study examines how interactivity in immersive journalism affects traditional as well as novel ways of comprehending news, such as episodic memory. In addition, we consider perceptions related to knowledge. We draw on a laboratory experiment (N = 149) testing the effect of three levels of interactivity provided (no interactivity vs. looking around vs. looking around + control over pace and order of storyline). Results indicate that a higher range of interactivity does not influence factual memory, but leads to an increase in perceived knowledge, thus indicating an illusion of knowledge. Moreover, there is a tendency to formulate more subjective takeaways in the high‐interactivity condition, while interactivity did not influence the credibility evaluations. This provides partial empirical support for the credibility paradox of immersive journalism.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
Externe Organisation(en)
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Journal
Media and Communication
Band
12
Seiten
1-18
Anzahl der Seiten
18
ISSN
2183-2439
DOI
https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.8571
Publikationsdatum
09-2024
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
508002 Audiovisuelle Medien, 508005 Journalistik
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Communication
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/6d52d97b-7303-41c0-892a-40c2548a71a3