Emotional Reaction of Experiencing Crisis in Virtual Reality (VR)/360°

Emotional Reaction of Experiencing Crisis in Virtual Reality (VR)/360° Immersive technology is being used to provoke emotion and move millions of people to action. Because organizations and filmmakers are exploring more ways to use the immersive technology of VR and 360-degree video to evoke emotion, it is important to investigate what emotional reactions are experienced. Both VR and 360° fall under the category of immersive media and the terms are used interchangeably in this study. NVivo 11 is used for the analysis of 1,700 Twitter texts between the years 2015 and 2017 after people view the crisis Clouds Over Sidra in VR/360°. The appraisal theory of emotion serves as the framework to explore the interpretation of the subject’s emotional reactions. Sentiment and thematic analysis reveal (a) an increase in empathy, (b) reports of emotional reactions including feelings of sadness, grief and anger, (c) greater understanding of the crisis (d) intentions to act related to the crisis, (e) importance of VR/360° for educational use, and (f) the power of VR/360° and its ability to alter fields of education, humanitarian work, and politics. This study finds the immersive experience of viewing a crisis in VR/360° generates a range of highly emotional reactions. It is an important goal to understand the role VR/360° plays in generating emotional reactions and behavioral change, particularly in view of the accelerating development of emotional VR/360° content and people’s access to immersive technology