Changing Your Future? An Experimental Study on the Persuasive Effects of an Interactive Climate Change Documentary

Renske Van Enschot, Karin Fikkers, Judith Prins, Christian Roth

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Interactive digital narratives (IDNs) have the potential to adequately and effectively represent the highly relevant and complex issue of climate change. The interactivity in interactive digital narratives (IDNs) can increase narrative engagement, as IDNs require active participation. Such narrative engagement, in turn, is a well-known mediator of narrative persuasion. One recent IDN is the award-winning interactive Cli-Fi (‘Climate Fiction’) documentary ‘De eeuw van mijn opa’ (DEVMO; ‘Grandfather’s century’), by filmmaker Sam van Zoest. Comparing the original interactive version with a non-interactive version created by the researchers, we used a between-subjects experiment (n=62) to test whether interactivity (yes/no) had an effect on narrative engagement and narrative persuasion. Perceived effectance and perceived autonomy were included as control variables. The results showed that both versions of the documentary had a persuasive effect when comparing scores before versus after exposure. However, the interactive version was not significantly more persuasive compared to the non-interactive version. Furthermore, no evidence was found of narrative engagement as a mediating factor, although narrative engagement did
positively affect narrative persuasion. Surprisingly, no differences were found in control variables perceived effectance and perceived autonomy between the conditions with and without interactivity. We discuss several explanations for our findings relating to the study’s power and the operationalization of interactivity in ‘De eeuw van mijn opa’.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationGoodIT 2023 - Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on Information Technology for Social Good
PublisherACM
Pages149-155
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9798400701160
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Sept 2023

Publication series

NameACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Keywords

  • climate fiction
  • interactive storytelling
  • interactive documentary
  • narrative persuasion
  • narrative experience
  • climate change

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