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Virtual Reality nonfiction (VRNF) is an emerging form of immersive media experience created for consumption using panoramic "Virtual Reality" headsets. VRNF promises nonfiction content producers the potential to create new ways for audiences to experience "the real"; allowing viewers to transition from passive spectators to active participants. Our current project is exploring VRNF through a series of ethnographic and experimental studies. In order to document the content available, we embarked on an analysis of VR documentaries produced to date. In this paper, we present an analysis of a representative sample of 150 VRNF titles released between 2012-2018. We identify and quantify 64 characteristics of the medium over this period, discuss how producers are exploiting the affordances of VR, and shed light on new audience roles. Our findings provide insight into the current state of the art in VRNF and provide a digital resource for other researchers in this area.

A 3 x 2 between subjects design examined the effect of shaking hands prior to engaging in a single issue distributive negotiation, where one negotiator performed their role telepresently through a 'Nao' humanoid robot.An additional third condition of handshaking with feedback examined the effect of augmenting the tele-present handshake with haptic and tactile feedback for the non telepresent and tele-present negotiators respectively.Results showed that the shaking of hands prior to negotiating resulted in increased cooperation between negotiators, reflected by economic outcomes that were more mutually beneficial.Despite the fact that the non tele-present negotiator could not see the real face of their counterpart, tele-presence did not affect the degree to which negotiators considered one another to be trustworthy, nor did it affect the degree to which negotiators self-reported as intentionally misleading one another. Negotiators in the more powerful role of buyer rated their impressions of their counterpart more positively, but only if they themselves conducted their negotiations telepresently.Results are discussed in terms of their design implications for social tele-presence robotics.

Pervasive systems provide services that are situated within specific contexts. An everyday example of this is Wi-Fi hotspots. Factors such as branding and presentation are known to affect whether users are prepared to invest trust in services, but little is known about trust in situated services. This paper describes an experiment to measure de facto trust in Wi-Fi hotspots in public places, as opposed to examining trust behaviour in a simulated lab setting. We investigated two hypotheses about the effect of locationspecific images in the hotspot's pages on trust behaviours, compared to images of non-specific locations. We found a significant result which confirms that decisions to access an unfamiliar Wi-Fi hotspot can be affected by locationrelevant images.

The emergence in recent years of consumer-accessible virtual reality (VR) technologies such as the Google Daydream, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive has led to a renewal of commercial, academic and public interest in immersive interactive media.Virtual reality non-fiction (VRNF) (e.g. documentary) is an emergent and rapidly evolving new medium for filmmaking that draws from -and builds upontraditional forms of non-fiction, as well as interactive media, gaming and immersive theatre.In this paper, we present our ongoing work to capture and present the first comprehensive record of VRNF -a Mediography of Virtual Reality Non-Fiction -to tell the story of where this new medium has come from, how it is evolving, and where it is heading.

a b s t r a c tThe present paper examines the extent to which self-presentation may be affected by the context in which is it undertaken. Individuals were asked to complete the Twenty Statements Test both privately and publicly, but were given an opportunity to withhold any of their personal information before it was made public. Four contexts were examined: an offline context (face-to-face), an un-contextualized general online context, or two specific online contexts (dating or job-seeking). The results suggested that participants were willing to disclose substantially less personal information online than offline. Moreover, disclosure decreased as the online context became more specific, and those in the job-seeking context disclosed the least amount of information. Surprisingly, individual differences in personality did not predict disclosure behavior. Instead, the results are set in the context of audience visibility and social norms, and implications for self-presentation in digital contexts are discussed.

Consumer virtual reality (VR) headsets (e.g. Oculus Go) have brought VR non-fiction (VRNF) within reach of at-home audiences. However, despite increase in VR hardware sales and enthusiasm for the platform among niche audiences at festivals, mainstream audience interest in VRNF is not yet proven. This is despite a growing body of critically acclaimed VRNF, some of which is freely available. In seeking to understand a lack of engagement with VRNF by mainstream audiences, we need to be aware of challenges relating to the discovery of content and bear in mind the cost, inaccessibility and known limitations of consumer VR technology. However, we also need to set these issues within the context of the wider relationships between technology, society and the media, which have influenced the uptake of new media technologies in the past. To address this work, this article provides accounts by members of the public of their responses to VRNF as experienced within their households. We present an empirical study – one of the first of its kind – exploring these questions through qualitative research facilitating diverse households to experience VRNF at home, over several months. We find considerable enthusiasm for VR as a platform for non-fiction, but we also find this enthusiasm tempered by ethical concerns relating to both the platform and the content, and a pervasive tension between the platform and the home setting. Reflecting on our findings, we suggest that VRNF currently fails to meet any ‘supervening social necessity’ (Winston, 1996, Technologies of Seeing: Photography, Cinematography and Television. British: BFI.) that would pave the way for widespread domestic uptake, and we reflect on future directions for VR in the home.

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