Television viewer responses to use of virtual production in The Mandalorian and Our Flag Means Death

Data from a survey designed to investigate how viewers of Our Flag Means Death, The Mandalorian and other tv series noticed and felt about the use of virtual production (VP). The survey gave information about VP and how it was used in those two series and asked questions to determine the respondents’ familiarity with Our Flag Means Death and The Mandalorian. Depending on which of the series the respondents had seen, they were then guided to agree or disagree with statements about the role of VP in their experience of watching the series. The survey concluded by asking a series of demographic questions: age (range), continent resided in, gender and sexuality in order to better understand the segment of audience represented.

Before conducting the study, research ethics approval was obtained on 11 November 2024 from Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh as part of the CoSTAR Foresight Lab’s activities, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/Y007433/1). All data was collected, managed and stored in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

The survey was delivered via Jisc Online Surveys (https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk), a GDPR compliant survey research tool, between 20 August and 19 September 2025. A total of 331 respondents completed the survey. The respondents all agreed with the following consent statement:

“By proceeding with the study, I agree to all of the following statements: I am 18 years of age or older. I have read and understood the above information. I understand that my participation is voluntary. I consent to my anonymised data being used in academic publications and presentations. I allow my data to be used in future ethically approved research.”

The data is shared in the form of an excel spreadsheet. From the original dataset we have held back longer text-based answers as they included personally identifiable information.