The eleventh episode of our Insights Live series five featured moderator moderator Michaela Ternasky-Holland, Oni Buchanan (ImmerSphere) and Ryan D’Souza (Nobody’s Listening). How do we leverage XR to create effective social impact experiences and inspire action? By enabling users to embody another’s experience, XR has the potential to revolutionize how we connect and empathize with others regardless of their background, race, creed, or religion.
In this webinar our expert panel discussed how XR is currently being used to enact change and how social experiences could be distributed more widely, as well as issues relating to ethics.
The Key Highlights
What is the language of XR social impact?
Michaela finds herself using terms like immersive and Interactive. XR and VR aren’t always appropriate to communicate social impact experiences. Ryan considers education and action to be the most important terms that he encourages as he looks to enact change. For Oni, the very concept of language is vital – she concurs with Michaela that immersive, interactive, engaging experiences are essential building blocks to opening conversations.
Oni describes her latest project as thriving through the concept of ‘invitation’, producing experiential XR that enables a ‘POV’ through which you enter the eyes of another person to evoke a feeling. It is made clear that the technology itself isn’t a silver bullet, and can only be successful when it drives feeling in the participant through the emotional hook of the social impact campaign itself. A memory or activity with the experience can encourage these feelings to be born within participants that can force behavioural changes. Michaela describes these experiences as catalysts that create the environment in which the spark of change can be found.
How do you ensure authenticity and avoid exploitation?
In fostering any kind of social impact experience, it is vital that you consult the right groups to ensure you consider what might be ‘triggering’ to certain people. Ryan highlights the work done for the Nobody’s Listening experience, in which his team consulted with human rights bodies, the UN, and psychologists to ensure the script was appropriate. This is a process that takes much refinement but is an essential component of ensuring experiences find the right balance, a difficult task when reflecting what is often the horrors of real life.
The importance of input from the communities you are representing is also reinforced – this is the only way in which a project can retain legitimacy. Michaela discusses her experiences in traditional documentary storytelling, wherein exploitation is perceived to be an issue.
The great breakthrough of Immersive technology in this industry is that it has allowed for a greater degree of collaboration with the subjects of the work you create. You are forced to place the audience in a specific space and time rather than focus on a particular narrative framing. For Oni, immersive tech is a tool by which she can tell the full story without diluting any of the complex contextual nuances of the subjects she wishes to represent.
How do you mobilize your social impact experience?
Mobilization is the term Michaela uses to replace distribution in the immersive tech space. The term differs as you aren’t simply distributing a story, but mobilizing a technology – whether this be AR, VR, or MR. Immersive technology enforces the use of a different model by which you can share an experience. Mobilization is about more than sharing a link to a video. In the world of XR social impact, it’s about the context in which the project is seen in.
Michaela makes the case that simply sending out the tools to view a social impact experience might cause discomfort for viewers. Instead, she advocates for a campaign approach of familiarising users with the technology and content before providing appropriate aftercare. In a world in which people are still becoming aware of VR technology for instance, Ryan highlights situations in which students have responded more positively to a VR experience than to traditional education methods like textbooks.
Insights Live Season 5 has come to a close. Keep a close eye on our calendar as we approach the announcement of topics for the next season, and stay tuned for our final highlight article on August 19th!
