A journey through communication research on transportation: the future of narrative transportation on emerging forms of media

ABSTRACTThis essay discusses how storytelling conventions and entertainment delivery methods have evolved with the advent of new technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality. This paper aims to explore the psychological mechanisms involved in narrative processing for users of augmented and virtual reality spaces, focusing on transportation as an important construct. A history of presence through art performances and Greek poetry is discussed. Connections are established between Greek tragedies and audience scholarship, highlighting Nietzsche’s framework for understanding the impact of Greek tragedies on audiences and the concept of the fourth wall. The fourth wall is used to assess the similarities and differences between traditional and emerging forms of media. Finally, future research on transportation with narratives on virtual and augmented reality is proposed. These recommendations include: adapting the transportation measure to fit the affordances of emerging tech better, clarifying the relationship between transportation and flow in the context of narrative exposure within emerging tech, and conceptualizing transportation at a macro level to include transmedia experiences.KEYWORDS: transportationnarrativesemerging technologypresenceentertainment Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Yuntao Wang, Zhou Su, Ning Zhang, Rui Xing, Dongxiao Liu, Tom H. Luan, and Xuemin Shen, “A Survey on Metaverse: Fundamentals, Security, and Privacy,” ArXiv.org (2022).2 Ibid.3 Fragments, Creative & Atlas V, © 2020 https://world.magicleap.com/en-us/details/com.nsccreative.fragments.4 Natalie B. Milman, “Defining and Conceptualizing Mixed Reality, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality,” Distance Learning 15 no. 2 (2018):55.5 Peter Cipresso, Irene Alice Chicchi Giglioli, Mariano Alcañiz Raya, and Giuseppe Riva, “The Past, Present, and Future of Virtual and Augmented Reality Research: A Network and Cluster Analysis of the Literature,” Frontiers in Psychology 9 (2018).6 Ibid.7 Matthew Lombard and Theresa Ditton, “At the Heart of It All: The Concept of Presence,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 3, no. 2 (2006).8 Marvin Minsky, “Telepresence,” Omni (1980).9 Derek Alexander Burrill, “Out of the Box: Performance, Drama, and Interactive Software,” Modern Drama 48, no. 3 (2005): 510.10 Ibid.11 Katerina Zacharia and Marientina Gotsis, “Ancient Drama Applications in Education and Interactive Entertainment” (paper presented at the International Theatre Conference, online, November 6–7, 2021).12 Ross Clare, Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021).13 Examples include Assassins Creed Odyssey which is a role-playing video game that follows the mythological history of the Peloponnesian War and Immortals Fenyx Rising, an action-adventure game set in a world inspired by Greek gods.14 Aristotle, “Poetics” in Aristotle in 23 Volumes, trans. William Hamilton Fyfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932).15 Edith Hall, Greek Tragedy: Suffering Under the Sun (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2010): 3–4.16 Friedrich Nietsche, The Birth of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism, trans. Wm. A. Haussmann (New York: Macmillan, 1910)17 Loss of one’s suffering, a sense of transcendence or unity with the universe.18 Elizabeth Bell, Theories of Performance (Los Angeles: Sage, 2008).19 John Stevenson, “The Fourth Wall and the Third Space” (essay, Center for Playback Theatre, 1995).20 Joshua Nettheim, “Remediating the Fourth Wall” (Ph.D. diss., RMIT University, 2013), 41–66.21 Diegetic refers to something that is part of the story world, whereas nondiegetic refers to something that is outside of the story world. Performers and characters are unaware of nondiegetic elements.22 Tara Hunt “YouTube Content: It's About the Absence of the Fourth Wall” (essay, LinkedIn, 2015) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/youtube-content-its-absence-fourth-wall-tara-hunt/23 Melanie C. Green and Timothy C. Brock, “The Role of Transportation in the Persuasiveness of Public Narratives,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, no. 5 (2000).24 Melanie C. Green, Timothy C. Brock, and Geoff F. Kaufman, “Understanding Media Enjoyment: The Role of Transportation into Narrative Worlds,” Communication Theory 14, no. 4 (2004).25 Kathryn Thier, Jesse Abdenour, Brent Walth, and Nicole Smith Dahmen, “A Narrative Solution: The Relationship between Solutions Journalism, Narrative Transportation, and News Trust,” Journalism 22, no. 10 (2021).26 Sarah Durkin and Melanie Wakefield, “Interrupting a Narrative Transportation Experience: Program Placement Effects on Responses to Antismoking Advertising,” Journal of Health Communication 13, no. 7 (2008).27 Bimal Balakrishnan and S. Shyam Sundar, “Where am I? How can I get there? Impact of Navigability and Narrative Transportation on Spatial Presence,” Human–Computer Interaction 26, no. 3 (2011).28 Jennifer Edson Escalas, “Self-referencing and Persuasion: Narrative Transportation versus Analytical Elaboration,” Journal of Consumer Research 33, no. 4 (2007).29 Tom van Laer, Ko de Ruyter, Luca M. Visconti, and Martin Wetzels, “The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model: A Meta-Analysis of the Antecedents and Consequences of Consumers’ Narrative Transportation,” Journal of Consumer Research 40, no. 5 (2014).30 See note 23 above.31 See note 24 above.32 Emily Moyer-Gusé, “Toward a Theory of Entertainment Persuasion: Explaining the Persuasive Effects of Entertainment-Education Messages,” Communication Theory 18, no. 3 (2008).33 Michael D. Slater and Donna Rouner, “Entertainment-Education and Elaboration Likelihood: Understanding the Processing of Narrative Persuasion,” Communication Theory 12, no. 2 (2002).34 The EORM and EELM are theories used to predict attitudinal and behavior change resulting from exposure to narratives. These theories are largely studied in the context of traditional media and focus on engagement with the story world and characters as key mechanisms for story-consistent attitudes and behaviors.35 See note 7 above.36 See note 23 above.37 See note 7 above.38 See note 23 above.39 Richard J. Gerrig, Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Activities of Reading (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993).40 For example, in one study, participants were instructed to spot errors in the text.41 See note 7 above.42 Nathan Walter, Sheila T. Murphy, Lauren B. Frank, and Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati, “Each Medium Tells a Different Story: The Effect of Message Channel on Narrative Persuasion,” Communication Research Reports 34, no. 2 (2017).43 Thomas Baumgartner, Kai Lutz, Conny F. 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