Immersive virtual reality news: A study of user experience and media effects

Recently, the concept of “immersive VR news” has been proposed in the news media field. However, unlike traditional video news, the user experience and media effects of immersive VR news have yet to be verified. To examine the influence of VR technology on the news media field, we designed an immersive VR news product to further discern differences in user experience and media effects among traditional video news, VR news without interaction, and VR news with interaction. The results show that traditional video news excelled in terms of empathy and nervousness, whereas VR news with interaction was superior in terms of immersion, interest, accuracy, and credibility. VR news without interaction performed the poorest in all categories. Based on the observed user behaviors during the experiment, we present a detailed discussion of the reasons for these differences and offer guidelines for the design and application of immersive VR news.