Immersive Journalism as Storytelling: Ethics, Production and Design

Summary

This book sets out cutting edge new research and examines future prospects on 360-degree video, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in journalism, analyzing and discussing virtual world experiments from a range of perspectives.

Featuring contributions from a diverse range of scholars, Immersive Journalism highlights both the opportunities and the challenges presented by this form of storytelling. The book discusses how immersive journalism has the potential to reach new audiences, change the way stories are told and provide more interactivity within the news industry. Aside from generating deeper emotional reactions and global perspectives, the book demonstrates how it can also diversify and upskill the news industry. Further contributions address the challenges, examining how immersive storytelling calls for re-assessing issues of journalism ethics and truthfulness, transparency, privacy, manipulation and surveillance, and questioning what it means to cover reality when a story is told in virtual reality. Chapters are grounded in empirical data such as content analyses and expert interviews alongside insightful case studies that discuss Euronews, Nonny de la Peña’s Project Syria and the New York Times’ VR application NYTVR.

This book is written for journalism teachers, educators and students as well as scholars, politicians, lawmakers, and citizens with an interest in emerging technologies for media practice.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: What is Immersive Journalism?

Part I: Storytelling

2. Exploring the Immersive Journalism Landscape

Esa Sirkkunen, Jorge Vázquez-Herrero, Turo Uskali, and Heli Väätäjä

3. Case Study Euronews: A low-cost approach to Immersive Storytelling

Joakim Vindenes & Astrid Gynnild

4. Global Perspectives of Immersive Journalism

Sarah Jones

Part II: Ethics

5. The Impact of Emotions in Immersive Journalism

Turo Uskali & Pasi Ikonen

6. Case Study Project Syria: Accuracy in Immersive Journalism

Siri Flatlandsmo and Astrid Gynnild

7. The Promises of Transparency and the Perils of Manipulation in Immersive Journalism

Deborah G. Johnson

8. It’s not just about Empathy: Going beyond the Empathy Machine in Immersive Journalism

Sarah Jones

Part III: Production & Design

9. Place-Based Journalism, Production Aesthetics, and Branding

David O. Dowling

10. Case Study: Creating A Business Value in Immersive Journalism

Ilona Ilvonen, Joel Vanhalakka and Nina Helander

　

11. The Hierarchy of Needs for User Experiences in Virtual Reality

Chelsea Kelling, Heli Väätäjä, Otto Kauhanen, Jussi Karhu, Markku Turunen, Vesa Lindqvist, and Pasi Ikonen

　

12. Immersive Gaming as News

Jonne Arjoranta, Raine Koskimaa and Marko Siitonen

　

13. Augmented Reality as News

Pasi Ikonen & Turo Uskali

　

Part IV: Education

14. Teaching Immersive Journalism

Turo Uskali & Pasi Ikonen

　

15. Immersive journalism as witnessing

Lars Nyre & Joakim Vindenes

16. Forecasting future trajectories for immersive journalism　

Editor(s) Bio

Associate Professor Turo Uskali is the Head of Journalism program at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. His research and teaching focuses on the interplay of innovations and journalism. His previous scholarly works have been published for example by Routledge, Palgrave-McMillan, and Peter Lang.

Professor Astrid Gynnild is the Head of the Journalism Research Group at the University of Bergen, Norway, and the Principal Investigator of the ViSmedia project. She is also a merited educator, and her research and teaching concerns in particular social implications of visual and emergent technologies in journalism.

Sarah Jones is Deputy Dean at De Montfort University, UK. Sarah is listed in the top 15 global influencers in VR, a Google Jump Creator and has advised the UK Government on Immersive Technology. Sarah has published extensively on immersive and emerging media.

Esa Sirkkunen works as a senior researcher at the research centre COMET at the Tampere University. His research focuses on assemblages of digital technologies and journalism and on broader themes, like social theory, privacy and freedom of speech.