Expanded documentary and immersive technologies: Ludic logics and heritage mediation in ARTE’s interactive experiences

This article examines the transformation of contemporary documentary practices through immersive and interactive technologies, including virtual reality, augmented reality and game-based narrative structures. Positioned within debates on media convergence, the study argues that expanded documentary forms do not merely hybridise non-fiction with entertainment but reconfigure documentary epistemology through embodied immersion, procedural authorship and guided participation. Drawing on theories of expanded cinema, interactive documentary and game studies, the article clarifies the concept of ludic logics and distinguishes it from gamification and serious games. A qualitative comparative analysis of emblematic immersive documentary projects is conducted using a shared analytical grid focused on immersion, agency, narrative organisation and ethical positioning. The findings show that immersive non-fiction fosters situated and affective forms of knowledge while introducing new tensions between agency and authorial control. The article contributes to documentary and media convergence studies by providing a conceptually precise and methodologically replicable framework for analysing immersive non-fiction.