Agenda
What if the reason people don’t care… is because they can’t feel the story? Erin Reilly—Founding Director of the Texas Immersive Institute and Co-Founder of the Immersive Experience Alliance— has spent years as an applied researcher exploring how immersive media impacts empathy and memory. Her findings reveal that even a brief immersive experience can shift how people feel and what they retain. In a world where we scroll, skim, and forget, immersive journalism offers something more: connection.
In this keynote, Erin explores how tools like AR, VR, and haptics can deepen engagement and build trust. She shares powerful case studies including SolAR Run, an AR health journalism game; Anchored Memories, a haptic VR story on climate migration; and an immersive documentation project on the Los Angeles fires. These stories go beyond informing—they create environments audiences remember.
Immersive journalism doesn’t just tell you what happened. It lets you live it.
