沉浸式虚拟演唱会中的社会临场感：一项关于观众享受、情绪唤起与新兴粉丝认同的实验比较

BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Media Psychology

• Beihua University, Jilin, China

Abstract

Immersive virtual concerts are becoming an increasingly important form of digital music experience, yet the psychological mechanisms through which they shape audience responses remain insufficiently understood. This study examined whether social presence mediates the effects of immersive virtual concert viewing on enjoyment, emotional arousal, and emergent fan identification. A laboratory experiment was conducted with 240 participants aged 18–30 years, who were randomly assigned to either an immersive virtual concert condition or a standard two-dimensional concert video condition. After viewing a four-minute concert clip, participants completed measures of perceived immersiveness, social presence, enjoyment, emotional arousal, and emergent fan identification. The immersive virtual concert condition produced significantly higher perceived immersiveness and social presence than the standard video condition. Social presence was positively associated with enjoyment, emotional arousal, and emergent fan identification. Mediation analyses further showed significant indirect effects of concert format on all three audience outcomes through social presence. These findings suggest that immersive virtual concerts enhance audience experience not only through technological novelty, but also by creating a stronger sense of mediated social connection. The study contributes to media psychology by highlighting social presence as a potential psychological mechanism linking immersive music media with emotional and identity-related audience engagement.

Keywords

emergent fan identification, emotional arousal, enjoyment, immersive virtual concert, media psychology, Social presence, virtual reality

Received

04 July 2026

Accepted

28 September 2026

Copyright

© 2026 Li and Huo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence:

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