Interactivity, personalization and embodied experience can be achieved via digital mediation. Photo: TUCHONG

Narrative functions as a “meta-code” shaping human social cognition, communication, and the transmission of experience. It is deeply embedded in individual memory, collective remembrance, and the characteristics of particular historical moments. From oral transmission in rural settings, to textual forms in print media, and further to audiovisual stimulation in film and television, the evolution of narrative has always unfolded in close interaction with technological change. In the digital age, modes, degrees, and states of immersion have undergone profound transformation: The rules governing language, logic, judgment, and thought are shifting, and narrative as a whole is changing accordingly. “Experience” therefore offers a particularly fruitful point of entry for studying narrative, precisely because shifts in narrative form ultimately register as changes in how experience is structured and shared. From this perspective, examining the principles of “what stories to tell” and “how they should be told” in digital virtual spaces becomes a way of seeking a form of “meta-resonance” between people.

Insufficient immersive experience in traditional narrative

Traditional narrative generally relies on “text” as its core medium. Through manuscripts, printed books, and photocopies, the human brain processes characters and sentences in a linear sequence, with the degree of imaginative engagement determining the level of immersion. Audiovisual works likewise transform a textual script into dialogue, characters, and scenes, meaning that the intensity of sensory stimulation largely determines the depth of immersion. Traditional narrative must follow a path fixed by the creator, and audiences differ in their capacities for identification and emotional projection. Traditional narrative offers only a finite form of immersion with clear boundaries. Information transmission is unidirectional, single-dimensional, and intermittent. Its limitations are concentrated in three main respects.

First, the disembodiment of the subject passivizes experience. Traditional narrative relies on linguistic symbols, reducing the body to a mere “container” for receiving information. This separation between text and the audience’s body produces an experiential process characterized by the passive reception of words, images, and audiovisual content.

Second, linear narrative structures constrain experience. Traditional narratives generally adhere to linear structures in which narrative premises, plots, logic, and meanings are determined by the creator. Although immersive experience may vary from person to person, the core framework and key plot points of the narrative itself remain fixed and unalterable.

Third, unimodal perception diminishes the sense of experiential reality. Owing to the technical limitations of traditional media, narrative depends primarily on information input through a single sensory channel. The absence of other sensory dimensions—such as touch, smell, and taste—deprives narrative scenes of the foundation for fully immersive engagement, greatly weakening the sense of lived, empathetic realism.

Transcendence of digital narrative

Digital technology has disrupted conventional modes of information transmission, constructing a multidimensional, collaborative, and dynamic narrative system that provides solid technical conditions for overcoming the limitations of traditional narrative. By comprehensively and three-dimensionally reconfiguring the constituent elements of narrative in a “digital twin-like” manner, digital technology enables narrative itself to achieve a qualitative breakthrough.

At the level of media, digital narrative achieves multimodal integration. Digital narrative platforms combine text, sound, images, and haptic feedback to establish information pathways that engage the full range of human senses. More importantly, these platforms possess dynamic responsiveness: They can capture user behavior in real time, analyze user characteristics instantaneously, and flexibly adjust narrative scenes, thereby continually generating deeper and more immersive experiences.

At the level of logic, digital technology enables the open construction of narrative structures. Interactivity expands narrative space, giving rise to multi-path, multidimensional, and potentially limitless narrative logic. By leaping from two-dimensional to multidimensional space, digital narratives break the creator’s absolute monopoly over narrative authority and actively transfer part of that authority to users. The “elastic” space produced through narrative interaction allows audiences to enjoy experiences that are more fluid, freer, and more pleasurable, rooted in their active and creative participation. Through screen interaction, voice commands, or even embedded algorithms, audiences shift from passive recipients to co-producers of narrative.

At the level of subjectivity, digital technology allows the deep embedding of the narrative subject. Through processes of digital twinning, users’ physiological responses and behavioral data are collected in real time and immediately fed back into the narrative system. Combined with technologies such as virtual avatars, audio rendering, and motion capture, users are able to genuinely “enter” the narrative scene. Experience no longer remains confined to mental imagination, as in traditional narrative, but instead becomes a holistic perception generated through real-time interaction among the body, technology, and environment.

In short, digital narrative is not content with merely telling a story. Rather, through technological mediation, it seeks to create immersive narrative experiences characterized by deep entwinement between subject and object and marked by a high degree of personalization.

Reshaping immersive experience through digital narrative

As a product of the deep integration of frontier technologies and narrative content, digital narrative elevates technology from a merely instrumental support to an “experiential intermediary” linking narrative and user. Through technological logic, it reshapes modes of cognition, paths of participation, and dimensions of perception, ultimately giving rise to a new form of narrative experience distinct from text-, image-, or audiovisual-based storytelling.

Narrative subjectivity has shifted from singular authority to plural co-creation. In a decentralized narrative network, who counts as the subject? Does the absence of a clearly defined subject lead to the collapse of narrative frameworks? Ultimately, human subjectivity depends on whether it is operative. When users participate in and intervene across narrative scenarios, becoming co-constructors of narrative meaning, they are indeed exercising agency. Digital technology empowers narrative, and people, in turn, empower narrative through participation. Algorithms that generate personalized narratives aligned with user preferences further integrate personal experience and emotional needs into narrative content, constituting another form of human empowerment.

Narrative structures have transitioned from linear fixity toward networked openness. Through hyperlinks, branching plot designs, and database architectures, digital narratives expand into multi-threaded, selectable, and reversible paths. Structural innovation does not alter the basic measurement of time or the causal chain; rather, it offers the possibility that an abundance of time can support an abundance of experiences. As users freely explore among multiple informational nodes, they shift from passive followers to active explorers. Accordingly, the core of immersive experience moves from anticipation of predetermined plots to the desire for exploration and a sense of control over unknown narrative developments.

Narrative interaction has transformed from static internal flow to dynamic externalization. In traditional narrative, “interaction” largely remains at the level of internal interpretation. Digital narrative, by contrast, embeds users’ cognitive judgments and concrete actions directly into the narrative process through interface interaction, real-time data feedback, and virtual environment construction. Users thus become not only experiencers but also initiators and drivers of narrative. Each click or operational choice may redirect the narrative trajectory, producing a progressive, wave-like immersion characterized by multiple logical interconnections—a dynamically externalized experience reminiscent of the cosmological intuition of “I am the universe” and akin to the ideal of harmony between humanity and nature.

It must be emphasized that while digital technology indeed brings change—diversifying narrative subjects, dynamizing narrative structures, and vivifying narrative processes—digital narrative still incorporates representational elements of traditional narrative. The human brain’s capacities for perception, recognition, judgment, and thought that underpin traditional storytelling continue to form the cultural substrate of narrative. Yet if the instrumental rationality of technology lacks value guidance, new problems may arise. Excessive digital immersion may blur the boundaries between virtual and real worlds; generative artificial intelligence may subtly instill misguided values, weakening the guiding force of mainstream norms; and overreliance on digital narrative may erode users’ capacities for autonomous creation and empathy. In light of these risks, the development of digital narrative should proceed along several lines.

At the level of values, the principle of “technology for good, people-centered development” should be upheld. Advanced experiential scenarios should differentiate narrative cores according to diverse groups, contexts, and needs, guarding against homogenization. Narrative scenarios addressing broad public demand—such as healthcare, eldercare and wellness, and education—should be actively developed, with the continual renewal of audience experience also serving as a process for incubating new industries. At the level of technological governance, transparency should be enhanced, algorithmic black boxes approached with caution, and reasonable boundaries of immersion established, with diverse narrative scenarios incorporated into a systematic framework of ideological oversight. At the product level, the cultural industry constitutes a rich reservoir for narrative development, capable of generating diversified, balanced, and sustainable narrative products. Digital narrative products should be subject to regular and rigorous content review to ensure that technological advancement consistently serves holistic human development and positive social progress.

In sum, digital narrative is jointly shaped by technological innovation and cognitive demand. While the instrumental rationality embodied in technology continues to intensify experiential effects, the depth of immersion ultimately depends on human cognitive processes. In approaching the development of digital narrative, we should neither fall into technological determinism nor retreat into defensive conservatism. Instead, we should uphold humanistic values while respecting the laws of technological development, enhancing human subjectivity and initiative as we actively expand the boundaries of narrative experience. Only in this way can digital narrative truly become a vital medium for extending the horizons of human cognition and enriching intellectual life, rather than an invisible barrier that severs reality from imagination and weakens the connection between individuals and society.

Ma Suchuan is director and professor from the Political Security Sub-Center of the Interdisciplinary Center for National Security Studies at Xi’an Jiaotong University.