Mila Bujicille 1 500 euroa matka-apurahaa

The primary purpose of the travel is to disseminate findings of an experiment study on user experiences of 360-degree video content delivered via different technologies. The study was conducted at Tampere University and in particular investigated whether and how effective immersive journalism content is at creating the sense of ”being there”, or presence. This effect is one of the main premises and promises of immersive journalism and immersive media/technologies in general but various factors of the experience that might affect it are largely unknown. As such, despite the evangelistic discourses, it is creating content for virtual reality (VR) in particular might not always yield the expected additional benefits.

The paper ”More Immersed but Less Present: Unpacking Factors of Presence Across Devices”, which has been accepted to the IMX 23 conference and is to be published as open access in the ACM digital library, investigates what factors of 360-content and different modes of delivery are relevant to consider (i.e. article, 360-video on 2D scree, and 360-video in VR). Coming from human-computer interaction (HCI) field and community, the secondary goal is to build bridges in the community relating to artistic interactive media, and in partiular immersive media. France, and Nantes Université in particular, have a strong track-record in utilising immersive media for novel, creative experiences. A strong interdisciplinary connection between HCI and arts could significantly advance our current local understanding of immersive media.