Preserving China’s Intangible Cultural Heritage through AR/VR storytelling, social media, and AI narratives

Abstract Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) has always been a major component of cultural identity and its safeguarding through digital technologies has also been developing. The current research merges the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) witeth Media Richness Theory (MRT) to emphasize the increasing public acceptance of digital ICH experiences using Alternate Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) storytelling, social media participation, and AI-produced narratives. A mixed-methods research design was applied in which the quantitative part consisted of surveying 350 digital ICH-aware participants and the qualitative part included conducting semi-structured interviews with 15 respondents. Thematic analysis was implemented on their responses to provide depth of experience. The findings indicate that the key facilitators and barriers demonstrated immersive and perceived usefulness of the technology and users’ attitudes influenced mainly by authenticity. Therefore, the research provides both theoretical and policy-based solutions on how ICH can be best promoted, or even preserved, through the different digital technologies used.