‘No Line on the Horizon'

Abstract

This chapter applies and extends the concept of social media logic to assess the politics of immersive storytelling on digital platforms. These politics are considered in the light of what has been identified as mass media logic, which argues that mass media in the 20th century gained power by developing a commanding discourse that guides the organization of the public sphere. The shift to social media logic in the 21st century, with its grounding principles of programmability, popularity, connectivity, and datafication, influenced a new discourse on the logics of digital ecosystems. Digital platforms such as Facebook are offering all-surrounding mediated environments to communicate in virtual reality (‘Horizon') as well as immersive narratives such as Mr. Robot VR. This chapter provides an overview of the changing dynamics within Facebook's VR strategy as well as an understanding of the politics of immersive storytelling and its underlying principles of programmability, user experience, popularity, and platform sociality, which define immersive technologies in the 21st century.