Placing the Viewer in Her Shoes: Affordances of Cinematic Virtual Reality in Women’s Safety Narratives

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-603-1_10How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Cinematic Virtual Reality (CVR); women’s safety; immersive storytelling; narrative design

Abstract

This paper explores Cinematic Virtual Reality (CVR) as a narrative medium through the creation of a narrative experience titled “CYCLOGICAL” which addresses the topic of women’s safety in public spaces. The narrative follows the mental journey of a woman traveling alone through a public space and enables the viewer to experience the narrative from the perspective of the protagonist, quite literally, leveraging a key affordance of CVR.

This research examines the abilities of CVR to convey such a socio-psychological theme. A practice-based research approach was adopted and the CVR narrative CYCLOGICAL was designed, followed by navigator testing to gain insights. Participants experienced the narrative, and qualitative data that included their emotional experience, comprehension of the message and overall feedback were gathered.

The feedback highlighted the medium’s contribution to conveying the story: participants reported a “first-person experience,” and described the narration as “voices in their head.” Some noted physical reactions such as a “strong heartbeat.” Most participants reported a direct experience of fear, while some reflected on how the gendered voice shaped their association with the protagonist, making them feel like the “other” and evoking a vicarious sense of fear.

This research contributes towards understanding the unique affordances offered by CVR, allowing their effective use when designing narrative experiences. It depicts how placing the viewer in the position of the protagonist can provide a distinctive perspective of the narrative. It emphasizes the ability of CVR to enable participants to experience and reflect upon scenarios they might or might not have encountered in real life.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - M. Arshiya
AU  - Delwyn Jude Remedios
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/04
TI  - Placing the Viewer in Her Shoes: Affordances of Cinematic Virtual Reality in Women’s Safety Narratives
BT  - Proceedings of the International Moving Image Cultures Conference (IMOVICCON 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 126
EP  - 136
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-603-1_10
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-603-1_10
ID  - Arshiya2026
ER  -