Halbwachs in the Metaverse: Storyliving and democracy in the age of immersive spatial computing

Application summary

In 2023, Business Finland, a government organization under the Finnish Ministry of Employment and Economy, unveiled the Finnish Metaverse Initiative. Finland aims to position itself as a global leader in the Metaverse by 2035. China, Japan, the UK, and the United Arab Emirates have begun similar strategies. Finland aspires to be a global advocate for digital rights and ethics in the Metaverse, ensuring the protection of users' privacy, security, and autonomy. The focus extends to digital literacy, democracy, transparency, and accountability in Metaverse development. Among the chosen industries for future focus, “engaging and immersive experiences” take the centre stage. The city of Tampere aims to lead the development of the Metaverse in Finland and build the first national CitiVerse that transforms citizen engagement, sustainable urban development, and promotion of history and cultural heritage. This is part of the broader development at the EU level, which aims to build virtual worlds to facilitate policymaking with citizen participation using VR. To address the challenges posed by these developments, the project aims to (1) provide a deeper understanding of how political and corporate actors employ immersive digital technologies to influence users’ perceptions and legitimize political agendas, (2) fill in a gap in empirical knowledge of the impact of immersive XR experiences on users in political contexts, and (3) explore how these technologies can be applied to support democratic values and pro-democratic political action. A mixed-methods approach will be employed that combines (1) virtual ethnography and VR content analysis; (2) in-depth interviews, conducted with users to gather qualitative data on their experiences and emotional responses to the XR content; and (3) workshops with XR developers, educators, and policymakers to explore best practices and ethical guidelines for using XR in ways that support pro-democratic political action.