Beyond the screen: enhancing ethnic cultural representation and engagement through immersive 360° documentary experiences in museums

Xiaolin Sun () and Eugene Ch’ng
Additional contact information
Xiaolin Sun: University of Nottingham Ningbo China
Eugene Ch’ng: Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University

Palgrave Communications, 2025, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract In this era of digital heritage, immersive media, such as 360° documentaries, have been proposed to enrich engagement and learning. However, how immersive 360° media formats influence the understanding of ethnic minority cultures remains underexplored. We conducted a controlled laboratory experiment comparing traditional 2D and 360° documentary presentations of the Miao community in Guizhou Province, using the same narration and content, including village scenes, performances, and crafts, to isolate the effect of media format. The results suggest that the 360° documentary may increase viewers’ enjoyment, sense of presence, curiosity, and appreciation of cultural content relative to a comparable 2D film. These exploratory findings indicate a potential for immersive media to deepen cultural understanding. Our study underscores 360° documentaries as a promising tool for engaging audiences with ethnic minority cultures, while noting that these conclusions are provisional given the lab setting and should be tested in real-world museum contexts.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-025-05429-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-025-05429-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/palcomms/about

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-025-05429-z

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Palgrave Communications from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().