Immersive Media and Prosociality

This book explores the growing role of immersive media in fostering prosociality, examining how virtual reality and 360-degree video can shape empathy, attitudes, intentions, and prosocial behaviours.

This book explores the growing role of immersive media in fostering prosociality, examining how virtual reality and 360-degree video can shape empathy, attitudes, intentions, and prosocial behaviours. At a time marked by increasing social polarization, discrimination, and global humanitarian challenges, the book argues that prosociality offers a valuable framework for understanding the social potential of immersive technologies. Bringing together theoretical perspectives, empirical findings, and analyses of influential immersive productions, it demonstrates how features such as presence, embodiment, and interactivity can promote meaningful engagement with others and, under certain conditions, contribute to positive social change. The book develops an integrative framework for understanding the mechanisms through which immersive media influence prosocial outcomes, while also considering the moderating role of audience characteristics, content features, social contexts, and patterns of media use. Offering one of the first comprehensive examinations of the relationship between immersive media and prosociality, this book will be essential reading for scholars and students of media and communication studies, media psychology, social psychology, digital culture, and immersive technologies. It will be of particular interest to researchers working on immersive media, prosocial media effects, mediated intergroup contact, and social impact storytelling.