Immersive content with violence: A research using eye tracking with university students in Spain and Portugal

Newspapers have been affected by a progressive loss of readership over the last decade, especially among those under 24 years old. This group continues to stay informed about topics of their interest, but through social networks. For this reason, the press has incorporated a playful, immersive, and participatory journalism based on technologies such as virtual reality or 360 videos. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of data obtained from eye tracking, and by subsequently performing semi-structured interviews, this research verifies the attention paid by Spanish and Portuguese university students to violent, immersive, journalistic content. Students' understanding and awareness of this informative material with violent events is analyzed. The capability of immersive journalism to capture the attention of the public under 24 years old and to raise awareness about social problems based on visualization of violent content is highlighted.