A Study on How Creative Geography Affects Spatial Presence :FR:AMES (Film Research: Advanced Methods for Empirical Study)

Reality TV viewers expect a naturalistic environment in which relatively ordinary people interact with each other. However, much of reality TV is contrived by producers, and the extent to which they manipulate it can shape viewer responses. One common manipulation in film and television is the geographical accuracy of the environmental setting. ”Creative geography” is a term from film scholarship (Kuleshov, 1974) referring to the editing of different spaces together to make them seem contiguous. For this study, we shot a reality TV game show, providing a rich set of materials with which we will creatively manipulate the geography, including (a) amount of geographical information (e.g., use of long shots/establishing shots or just close-ups; use of 360-degree shots), and (b) accuracy of geographical information (i.e., whether the space is altered in editing). Multiple versions of the video will be created, and differential participant reactions will be gauged by posttest instrument; differences are predicted based on (a) and (b) above. Further, we expect that the participants’ spatial presence, or sense of “being there,” along with other variables, will change depending on whether they have been to the manipulated location. Findings will inform scholarship on reality TV, creative geography, and spatial presence.