Danny Pimentel, SOJC assistant professor of immersive psychology, explains how mixed, augmented, and virtual reality are transforming communication jobs.
by Julia Boboc, Class of ’26
From Meta Goggles to Snapchat Filters, extended reality (XR) — an umbrella term encompassing mixed, augmented and virtual reality — is permeating nearly every aspect of daily life. As the technologies expand and become more accessible, researchers are exploring how to use them for storytelling.
One of those researchers is Danny Pimentel, who joined the UO School of Journalism and Communication (SOJC) in 2020 as an assistant professor of immersive psychology. Along with Donna Davis, director of the Immersive Media Communication Master’s Program, Pimentel helped develop the innovative master’s program and is now the director of the SOJC Portland’s Oregon Reality Lab (OR Lab). With a decade of experience in extended reality, Pimentel has researched its effects on users and its potential for influencing prosocial behavior.
Recently, Pimentel brought his OR Lab team to the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Conference in Las Vegas, where the team’s AR Otter Rock experience, made in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, was nominated for Best Societal Impact at the Augmented World Expo (AWE) Auggie Awards. At the event, Pimentel was awarded the AWE Rising Star Prize.
We sat down with Pimentel to hear his insights into XR, how it will bring storytelling into the future and why students should get a head start in the field.
SOJC: How did you get involved in this? Where does your interest come from?
Danny Pimentel: I grew up in Florida, and we went to Disney World all the time. When I was 7 or 8, we went to one of the theme parks where researchers were testing a new Aladdin VR ride. I got to try it out, and it changed my life. Like, VR is amazing! You feel like you’re actually in this world, and it connects you to the characters in the place.
I had always been interested in storytelling and media production. I did graphic design during undergrad, and in 2015, when I started my Ph.D., commercial virtual reality was having a second renaissance. So I wanted to explore that because I already knew about it, and I’m curious about using it to tell stories for social impact.
What is your work focused on?
We want to tell stories, right, whether you’re a journalist or an advertiser. I just happen to focus on these three technologies because they do things psychologically to audiences that other media can’t do or do to a lesser extent. And, as a researcher, I like to study how the stories we make on these platforms influence decision-making in prosocial or pro-environmental contexts. So, how do we tell a story about this particular social issue in a way that leverages what’s unique about each platform?
What is the difference between a traditional ad and one that uses a filter? What is that emotional reaction you mentioned for people experiencing XR?
It depends on the context and type of story. Sometimes you don’t need to do XR, but there are certain times when it makes a lot of sense. For climate change, one big issue is psychological distance. It’s this idea that things happen far away and to people outside of my social circles, and these threats are slow-moving and happening far off in the future. Traditional media can raise awareness, but it can’t necessarily make those threats feel closer in terms of time, space and people.
The research shows that by immersing people in virtual reality simulations where they experience those threats, you can reduce that gap and make that psychological distance shorter, which correlates to how much you care about the issue and how severe you perceive the issue to be. All those things point to XR making your response to an issue more pronounced.
How is XR being used in the Immersive Media Communication Master’s program?
So many ways! We were just recently using it in pre-production. We wanted to tell a story about the marine reserves in Otter Rock, but we’re in Portland, right? We’re more than 100 miles away. When you’re creating AR or MR experiences, from a user perspective, you have to understand the space. You have to know what’s around you, how to build certain experiences without actually being there, so that people are not tripping off a sidewalk or going off a cliff.
We’re using a technique to create 3D models of spaces, and it works like this: I can go into a building, scan the space and have a 3D model that’s to scale. And then we can all hop in virtual reality together, be in that space and start planning out what the user experience is going to be like. So all the preproduction stuff you would do onsite, we get to do in our lab.
How will XR skills help students in their careers?
It’s still so early in the field that if people get in now, they’re going to set themselves up for success later. So when this does become fully mainstream and brands and organizations all have some sort of immersive strategy, students will be prepared because they speak the language.
There is a misconception that, well, I’m not going to learn AR/VR because that’s computer science stuff, that’s tech stuff, and I don’t know how to code. That’s not even the case anymore. You don’t necessarily need to know how to code to develop content. That’s what we teach our students.
The most important skill for any kind of designer is the ability to rapidly prototype. How quickly can you come up with an idea and show me a very lo-fi version of it? Not a deck, not a slideshow, not a report. I need to play with it. I need to interact with it. And that can be for anything. It can be for an architectural design, it can be for an app, it can be for a 3D project. I can tell you how a chair is going to look, but it’s better if I let you sit in it, right?
What is XR’s potential for jobs in the communications industry?
VR is going to have its place, but it’s not going to be smartphones; it’s going to be wearables, such as glasses. Meta is releasing the third generation of Ray-Ban smart eyewear at the end of the year, and Snap recently announced the public release of its Spectacles in 2026. People can walk around with these, and it’ll feel very natural, just like wearing regular sunglasses. Also, others will be using them, and thus, social norms will change as well.
Think about how mobile phones changed storytelling. Smartphones created new opportunities for brands to engage with audiences, from mobile games, social media apps, location-based storytelling, video streaming, etc. This is going to be a game-changer, too. The promise is access.
What types of students get the most out of the Immersive Media Communication master’s program?
There are different tracks in the program. You can lean into the building aspect and learn how to make things, or you can lean more into the management and strategy side of it and understand what it takes to go from idea to implementation — or anywhere in between.
For any kind of XR experience, whether it’s journalism or advertising, you need a team. You can have your software engineer, your developer, your designer — narrative design or visual — and then you have a strategist, someone with business acumen who can understand how the thing you’re building adds value for particular audiences.
Any student who can fit either of those aspects can get a lot of value out of this program. We see students coming from journalism who have never even made a website or used VR, and they get a lot out of the program. Those who came in already building stuff learn how to strategically create something that meets the needs of particular audiences.
In your classes and workshops, what do students have the most fun with? Are there specific moments or outcomes that are especially rewarding?
My favorite moments are when people come in and they’re like, “I have this idea,” and they say something along the lines of, “but I know I can’t do it.” And then I tell them something crazy like, “We’ll do it right now in under an hour.” And they don’t believe me, and then we do it. They realize just how easy it can be to use these tools to bring their ideas to life. It’s really cool to see how they go from that moment of feeling like they can’t do it, and then they start doing it.
From your perspective, how do you think or hope XR will change the future and impact the world?
What I’m really excited about are AR wearables (smart glasses). Right now, we look around, and we only see what’s physically there. But as these become democratized and more people have access to creating AR stories in physical space, we can transform our communities. Imagine putting your smart glasses on, walking by a wall where someone has uploaded a really cool AR mural about a very local story. Or if you’re a journalist, you can create place-based stories that people can access when they walk through a location. Like, this protest occurred here. Can I relive that? Can I see it? What are some audiovisual annotations on this place?
I think that’s going to transform and even create a new form of place-based storytelling that is really exciting because everyone will have a say in it. Everyone will be able to create something that everyone can see with their glasses as they walk around.
Julia Boboc is a fourth-year journalism major in the UO School of Journalism and Communication direct-admit program and a member of Clark Honors College. She especially enjoys interviewing and writing profiles and feels everyone has a story to tell. She loves trying new things in journalism and taking on cool projects.