Abstract
Modern immersive storytelling technologies, such as virtual and mixed reality, present an exciting opportunity to expand awareness and grow empathy around pressing issues like climate change, species loss, and habitat destruction. But does “the ultimate empathy machine”, as Chris Milk dubbed virtual reality in his TED talk, truly possess the power to lead us through the wilderness of climate chaos and into a brighter future? Here we examine how an overfocus on sensory stimuli and the removal of the centrality and primacy of the external storyteller in immersive spaces may be undermining its transformative power as a storytelling medium. To recapture the potential of immersive storytelling as a tool for social impact, we turn to lessons learned from wilderness therapy, a practice steeped in seeking a balance between guided and self-directed learning in uncharted space. In summary, we conclude that if we want our immersive stories to be more than visually stimulating parlor tricks, we will need to embrace embodied, communally engaged methodologies that are multi-modal and embedded with trusted guides who can lead audiences through the wilderness of experience to vistas of new understanding.
Recommended Citation
Snyder, Michael O.
(2024)
"Can Immersive Storytelling Lead Us Through the Wilderness of Climate Chaos? Maybe. But We’ve Got Some Bushwhacking to Do.,"
Newhouse Impact Journal: Vol. 2:
Iss.
1, Article 4.
Available at:
https://surface.syr.edu/newhouseimpactjournal/vol2/iss1/4