Universität zu Köln

Xu, Zhe ORCID: 0000-0001-5732-512X and Zhang, Mengrong ORCID: 0000-0002-9402-4980 (2022). The ultimate empathy machine as technocratic solutionism? Audience reception of the distant refugee crisis through virtual reality. Commun. Rev., 25 (3-4). S. 181 - 204. ABINGDON: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD. ISSN 1547-7487

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Abstract

This article aims to deconstruct the myth of technological utopianism which contends that immersive virtual reality (VR) can inevitably lead to a more moral and egalitarian world due to its promises of copresence, immediacy and transcendence in humanitarian communication. The problematique we explore is whether existing VR artifacts, as exemplars of the ultimate empathy machine, construct a technocratic solutionism which becomes constitutive of humanitarian crises themselves. Drawing upon empirical material from focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with VR audiences in China, Germany, and the UK, the findings show that VR may easily construct a depoliticized hyperreality of intense spectacularity and trap audiences within an improper distance, thereby reworking the colonial legacies of humanitarianism while also obfuscating complex asymmetries of power and structural political exclusion. These findings have important implications for reminding humanitarian news organizations and aid agencies that they should not rely entirely on the particular affordances of VR to gain a moral bond with the distant refugee crisis.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Xu, Zhe UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0001-5732-512X UNSPECIFIED Zhang, Mengrong UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-9402-4980 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-660466
DOI:	10.1080/10714421.2022.2129118
Journal or Publication Title:	Commun. Rev.
Volume:	25
Number:	3-4
Page Range:	S. 181 - 204
Date:	2022
Publisher:	ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
Place of Publication:	ABINGDON
ISSN:	1547-7487
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language HUMANITARIAN COMMUNICATION; MEDIA; EXPERIENCE; RETHINKING; FRAMEWORK; POLITICS Multiple languages Communication Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/66046