Research Description

Immersive Empathy responds to the ongoing Irish homelessness crisis, which has seen homelessness figures increase by over 600% in ten years, by empowering those experiencing homelessness to express their experiences via immersive technologies. International and Irish studies of media coverage of homelessness reveal a tendency to simplify the causes of homelessness, identify homelessness overwhelmingly with the image of the rough sleeper and marginalise the voices of those experiencing homelessness (see for example Centre for Media & Social Impact 2019, Devereaux 2015). Immersive Empathy counters these dominant media representations by co-creating immersive narratives with people who have experienced homelessness, and measuring the impact of this immersive experience on empathy and knowledge levels amongst members of the general public as well as the impact on participants of sharing their stories through the co-creation process.

The potential for immersive technologies to act as catalysts for social change has been the focus of numerous academic studies over the past decade (Jones and Dawkins 2018, Bujik et al. 2020), some of which have argued that increased empathy can produce prosocial behaviours (Young, O'Dwyer, Smolic 2021). However, others have critiqued VR for its emphasis on feeling at the expense of understanding the complexity of social issues and for exploiting the experiences of marginalized communities as content (Nakamura 2020, Zimanyi and Ben Ayoun 2022).  Immersive Empathy advances on previous studies of immersive technology and empathy, and responds to these criticisms, by situating co-creation and participatory video methodologies at the heart of its approach.

Immersive Empathy is a collaboration between researchers within the disciplines of film, drama, psychology, business and digital humanities at the University of Galway, as well as VR industry professionals, and clients of Galway Simon who have experienced homelessness. Galway Simon are a homelessness service provider who collaborated with the researchers at every stage of the research design and execution. The project involved a series of collaborative workshops, empowering participants to translate their personal narratives into an immersive film, Lost + Found, which narrates the experience of homelessness from the perspective of those who have lived it. Testing demonstrated a statistically significant impact of viewing the film on the empathy and prejudice levels of viewers towards those who have experienced homelessness, as well as a greater likelihood to give time or money to a homelessness charity. Post-project interviews with participants demonstrated the impact of taking part in the project on their well-being and confidence.

Impact measures include:

Pre- and post-participation interviews with Galway Simon participants (6 participated in the entire project). Pre-interviews covered expectations, reasons for participation and concerns. Post-interviews explored whether expectations were met and personal impacts of participation.

Pre- and post-viewing questionnaires with viewers (intervention group), and a control group (67 in each group) who read written accounts of homeless experiences, to assess empathy levels.

A subset (13) of viewers participated in think aloud interviews to explore their experience in detail.

First Thought Talk at GIAF22: Empathy and Homelessness with Conn Holohan, Course Director of the BA in Film & Digital Media at University of Galway, a project with clients of Galway Simon which aims to capture participants’ life stories as oral history and virtual reality, thus empowering the participants and creating empathy in viewers who have not experienced such life stories.