UK news coverage of extended reality technologies: analysing extended reality news discourse and its relation to product marketing

Informed by framing theory from a social constructivist perspective, this thesis presents a study of extended reality (XR) news discourse and its relationship with product marketing. The study analyses how XR is represented in the news and the extent to which this news acts as a promotional tool for XR products, potentially supporting their diffusion. These aims are addressed using a multimodal, mixed methods research design utilising quantitative content analysis and qualitative framing analysis. This is based on a sample of 977 news articles from three UK national news websites (The Sun, The Guardian and MailOnline) during the period that the latest generation of XR products were announced and released (2012-2017). These articles are compared to the marketing of five XR products (Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, Google Glass, Microsoft HoloLens and Magic Leap).

The study reveals that the news outlets favour positive representations of XR and that several of the same frames appear in both the news and marketing samples. It also uncovers that the creators of XR hardware and software have been the dominant news sources, contributing to the positive framing of the technologies. With insights from diffusion of innovations theory and technological acceptance models, it finds that the frames used in the news discourse highlight aspects of the technologies that could increase the likelihood of their adoption. These findings indicate that this news prioritises the interests of XR companies over those of the general public, compromising traditional journalistic principles. This research contributes to the existing literature on news coverage of emerging technologies, as well as studies examining the interplay between news and promotional content. The thesis also makes a theoretical and methodological contribution by developing a set of frames and frame categories that can be applied to future studies of other emerging technologies.