Tell a Tail: Leveraging XR for a Transmedia on Animal Welfare

Abstract

Playful interactions and storytelling become a powerful conduit for educational-entertainment experiences aimed at informing and critiquing social issues. In this paper, we describe the design of a transmedia experience, which uses its separate channels to deconstruct a complex social issue, while maintaining a coordinated and consistent story experience. Tell a Tail explores the welfare issues of companion animals through (1) a branching comic book extended with Augmented Reality scenes, and (2) an immersive 360 o documentary about the rescue of abandoned companion animals. Our contribution is the rationale and design of an initial working prototype of the transmedia experience. Initial pilot evaluations revealed that the prototypes were well received, with participants praising the content and the medium used to deliver it. Through reflection on findings of the pilot studies and design decisions of the prototypes, we delineate how the affordances of different XR technologies can be used to inform and raise awareness of a social issue.

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“…Language barriers result in decreased access to care 26,27 and reduced adherence to treatment plans. 28 Patients who cannot effectively communicate their symptoms or understand medical instructions may not receive the appropriate care they need, and this, in turn, can lead to higher mortality rates (Patient story 1).…”

“…A search on Pubmed returned one relevant paper. Bala and collagues 26 described a study where they used comics in conjunction with virtual reality to teach young people in Portugal about the welfare issues surrounding dogs in rehoming shelters. Otherwise, very few articles on comics about veterinary or animal welfare science are searchable, including my graphic veterinary medicine article on the welfare of brachycephalic dogs, published recently in this journal.…”

Saving species in a snap: On the feasibility and efficacy of augmented reality-based wildlife interactions for conservation

“…TailComic AR allows users to scan pages of a comic book about animal welfare and observe animated AR storytelling content(Bala et al, 2020), though users are unable to directly in uence virtual characters.Similar conservation AR apps also fail to facilitate direct interactions with wildlife(Pombo & Marques, 2019). Even proponents of using AR for connecting audiences to nature overlook the ability for such technologies to facilitate human-wildlife(Stinson, 2017).…”

Saving Species in a Snap: On the Feasibility and Efficacy of Augmented Reality-based Wildlife Interactions for Biodiversity Conservation

“…TailComic AR allows users to scan pages of a comic book about animal welfare and observe animated AR storytelling content(Bala et al, 2020), though users are unable to directly in uence virtual characters.Similar conservation AR apps also fail to facilitate direct interactions with wildlife(Pombo & Marques, 2019). Even proponents of using AR for connecting audiences to nature overlook the ability for such technologies to facilitate human-wildlife interactions(Stinson, 2017).…”