Here’s an excerpt from one of the earlier drafts of our white paper on the link between cinematic vr and empathy, published as a white paper by the Tow Institute. Read that paper here. The purpose of this post is to contextualize the study within the respective fields of VR and psychology, drawing on empathy research published in academic journals, … Read More
Can VR induce empathy? Behind our work with the Tow Center at Columbia Journalism School
Can new technologies like virtual and augmented reality and 360 video induce empathy in users? That is what Empathetic Media founder Dan Archer is studying in collaboration with Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism. A first of its kind project, this research will result in an analysis of empathy and whether users can more closely relate to characters and situations in a VR … Read More
Welcoming our second student producer team
This semester we welcome a new crop of students to the Empathetic Media production team: Samantha Rohn, George DuMontier, Dresa Cockrell, and Taylor Kasper. Brittany will be staying on as an assistant producer from last semester.
Exploring 3D animation with motion capture technology
One of the things we have noticed as we’ve moved through the developmental stages of our Ferguson VR model is the visual disparity between the 3D representation of Canfield Green Apartments and the 2D comic panels that accompany it.
Testing the canfield green apartments virtual reality prototype
After two months of hard work, we have been able to test our first virtual reality prototype of Canfield Green Apartments, the site of the shooting of Michael Brown. Our prototype consisted of a desktop virtual reality model that “pinged” eyewitness re-creations to mobile devices as users accessed the various beacons within the model. During testing we asked our … Read More