Winner, 2023 Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics, Media Ecology Association Although virtual reality promises to immerse a person in another world, its true power lies in its ability to sever a person’s spatial situatedness in this one. This is especially clear in Japan, where the VR headset has been embraced as a way to block off existing social environments and reroute perception into more malleable virtual platforms. Is immersion just another name for enclosure? In this groundbreaking analysis of virtual reality, Paul Roquet uncovers how the technology is reshaping the politics of labor, gender, home, and nation. He examines how VR in Japan diverged from American militarism and techno-utopian visions and became a tool for renegotiating personal space. Individuals turned to the VR headset to immerse themselves in three-dimensional worlds drawn from manga, video games, and genre literature. The Japanese government promised VR-operated robots would enable a new era of remote work, targeting those who could not otherwise leave home. Middle-aged men and corporate brands used VR to reimagine themselves through the virtual bodies of anime-styled teenage girls. At a time when digital platforms continue to encroach on everyday life, The Immersive Enclosure takes a critical look at these attempts to jettison existing social realities and offers a bold new approach for understanding the media environments to come.

Communication, like the atmosphere itself, is ubiquitous and essential for humans and with the development of new technologies, such as wireless internet, 3D printing and virtual reality, it has become almost impossible to live without it. In addition, means of communication have changed immeasurably. This book proposes a new research paradigm that incorporates new features and factors of communication and a new theoretical framework named “immersive communication”. Pointing out that communication today has moved beyond the bi-directional, mass communication of "the second media age" to ubiquitous, immersive communication in "the third media age", the author discusses the definition, characteristics, information structure, and models of immersive communication using various examples including Fitbit, Apple, 4G and other technologies, while envisioning future applications of the immersive communication model. Scholars and students of communication studies, especially those interested in the manifestations of the new media age, will all benefit from this book. It will also appeal to readers interested in new media and communication theories.

Bringing together theory and practice, this collection critically examines emerging conceptual, methodological and production frameworks for the study of immersive journalism. Having first begun in academia, the practice of virtual reality/360 ̊ video immersive journalism has seen a steep rise in the professional arena in recent years. Uniting contributions from scholars and practitioners at the cutting-edge of this vibrant field, this book provides a summary of the history, development and key debates in immersive journalism and considers issues such as conceptualising and researching immersive journalism, teaching and producing immersive journalism, and situating immersive journalism in a wider theoretical and ethical context. Each chapter introduces readers to the key terms and concepts in that area and provides study questions to help them engage with the text. Encouraging further enquiry and theorisation, and experimental design and production, Insights on Immersive Journalism is an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in Immersive Journalism and Media.

How do theatre makers in Britain produce immersive, participatory experiences for audiences? How are productions designed and rehearsed, and how can the experience of different companies inform your own practice and understanding of this burgeoning craft? This collection of original discussions with some of Britain's leading immersive and interactive theatre makers explores their processes, methods and practices, offering a behind-the-scenes tour of how they make their work. It provides new material addressing a range of previously undisclosed topics including approaches to casting and rehearsal strategies, through to more concrete concerns such as funding and finance models. They reveal the discrete nuts and bolts of building audience-experience, and candidly discuss their own position to the term 'immersive' and how they perceive their place within the wider experience-centric cultural landscape. This collection combines perspectives from practitioners across the spectrum of immersions and interactivity in performance to showcase working methods across a variety of forms; from one-on-one, to gamified, playable experiences. The diversity of conversations captured in this volume reflects the polyphony of the immersive and interactive landscape in Britain, introducing readers to the work of Les Enfants Terrible, Parabolic, COLAB Theatre, The Lab Collective, Cross Collaborations, and ZU-UK. Makers participate in frank dialogue that reveals the ways in which they employ scenography, design, game and structural mechanics, approaches to stage management tactics, as well as the development of audience relationships, the role of intimacy and agency.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference of the Immersive Learning Network, iLRN 2016, held in Santa Barbara, CA, USA, in June/July 2016. The proceedings contain 9 full papers carefully reviewed and selected from 45 submissions and the best 5 special track papers. The papers focus on various applications of immersive technologies to learning.

This book presents the history of virtual reality and its introduction into journalism, exploring the challenges posed by pushing to make the experience of news a full body event. The problem of interpretation versus objectivity is discussed, as well as the associated ethical responsibilities. Immersive journalism offers the vicarious reliving of a news event with the full body through virtual reality technologies. As virtual reality devices become more accessible, major news organizations such as the New York Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, CNN, and many more are starting to experiment with this new form of journalism. This book discusses theoretical issues significant to immersive journalism’s goal of using virtual reality to transport audiences into a news site. These include ethical issues concerning image manipulation and the place of the audience’s body in the presentation of a news event. To approach these issues, the book presents foundational concepts of VR technologies that have helped establish the achievability of being virtually present in a simulated reality, as well as current research about immersive media’s manipulative potential. Using a case-based analysis of how immersive journalism clashes or coincides with the goals of journalism in democratic societies, the book examines the possibilities and ethics of such experiences in journalism and news. Original and intellectually provocative, Conceptualizing Immersive Journalism is an important study of this emerging field for students, scholars and researchers in the areas of Journalism and Media Studies.

This book studied the newly emerged business format of immersive entertainments experience, mainly focusing on offline forms, which have been proved to contribute a lot to the upgrading of modern culture and tourism industry development. With solid theoretical research on interactive digital narrative and immersive experience etc., it defined the immersive entertainment. Based on comprehensive analysis of immersive entertainment industry development at home and abroad, the research team initiated a thorough investigation of status quo of immersive entertainment in Shanghai. By deep interviewing with professionals, operators and consumers in the immersive entertainment industry, it aims to explore the reasons behind the popularity of immersive entertainment experience and the booming immersive industry, introduce typical formats and classification methods of immersive experiences, compare common development models in the immersive entertainment industry, identify development bottlenecks, and discuss future trends and suggestions in the immersive entertainment industry. This book is the collaborative effort of researchers led by Chen Liying’s research team. Chen Liying established the research framework for the entire project and oversaw the final manuscript and revisions. Tao Tingfang contributed a lot to the original idea and framework of the book. Zhangjing was responsible for the initial draft of Chapter 4, 5, 6. Yin Weihua was responsible for the Shanghai immersive entertainment development. Guan Xu was responsible for international cases and experiences. Chen Liying was responsible for Chapter 1, 2, 3, 7 and the initial draft of Chapter 8, as well as supplementing some case studies. Ma Yingjie was responsible for the technological path of Chapter 7.