Power to the user: The future of immersive storytelling might lie in understanding the audience

Immersive storytelling in journalism has faced disillusionment due to low audience adoption despite initial high expectations. Drawing from media innovation theories, this essay argues that to progress to wide audience adoption, immersive storytelling should align with audience expectations, clearly demonstrate its added value, and create experiences deemed meaningful by the audience. Adopting a connection-strengthening audience focus is proposed to aid in bridging the gap between journalists’ intentions and audience perceptions. Two studies are presented to illustrate the added value of taking on such a connection-strengthening audience perspective. Future research should focus on collaborative efforts between academia and industry to design immersive experiences that strengthen the audience relationship.