Proposal for a new communicative model in immersive journalism

Abstract

Different forms of communication have emerged throughout history and most of them have been linked to technological innovations. This fact has allowed the development, since the 1950s, of a powerful theoretical tradition specialized in the analysis of communication processes, which has resulted in the formulation of different communication theories. Recently, the emergence of Virtual Reality and 360-degree video has opened new analytical perspectives in relation to communication mediated by these technologies. Precisely, this article analyzes the narrative elements that are modified by the intervention of Virtual Reality and the peculiarities caused by the introduction of this technology in the communication process within a specific context such as journalism. This area of study has been selected because Virtual Reality and 360-degree video technologies are increasingly being used in the creation of journalistic content, which has resulted in the emergence of the so-called ‘immersive journalism’. Based on this analysis, the article proposes a new model for ‘immersive communication’ and a model for ‘the structure of immersive journalism’, which is totally novel in the journalistic context.

Immersive Journalism: The Effect of System Immersion on Place Illusion and Co-Presence in 360-Degree Video Reporting

“…A growing number of studies have been particularly addressing the actual human experience of VR non-fictional storytelling in journalism, examining how it affects perceptions and cognitions in presence-related outcomes as the sense of being-there, social interaction, realism, source credibility, story-sharing intention, and feelings of empathy [7,[29][30][31][32], as well as analyzing its potential to engage users and fight misinformation [33]. There are also proposals of new models and frameworks for the ideation and design of immersive experiences by practitioners [11,[34][35][36][37]. In terms of the construction of the news story, some scholars have also focused on the specificities demanded by the 360-degree video, concluding that despite the opportunities that the format introduces for journalistic production and consumption, many media outlets fell into the technological hype and pushed the special narrative and immersiveness demanded by the spherical video to the background [38].…”

Journalistic innovation: How new formats of digital journalism are perceived in the academic literature

“…Similarly, various studies have concerned themselves with examining virtual reality, focused on the effects that this technology has on the perception of the news in terms of its credibility and audience opinions (Hendriks et al, 2019; Herranz de la Casa et al, 2019; Kang et al, 2019; Mabrook and Singer, 2019; Yang et al, 2019), its content and communicative models (Barreda-Ángeles, 2018; Paíno-Ambrosio and Rodríguez-Fidalgo, 2019), user experience (Shin and Biocca, 2018) and its interactive narrative possibilities (Toursel and Useille, 2019). There have also been academic studies of augmented reality, in which scholars have sought to characterize this type of media reporting (Azkunaga et al, 2019; Parra et al, 2017) and examine its use as a narrative tool (Meneses-Fernández and Martín-Gutiérrez, 2016).…”

Características estruturais dos estudos sobre Jornalismo Imersivo 2010-2020

“…Entre 2015 a 2016, foram publicados relatórios analíticos e de previsão para o futuro da produção imersiva no Jornalismo (Aronson-Raht et al, 2015;Doyle, Gelman & Gill, 2016;Sirkkunen et al, 2016;Watson, 2017). Entre 2016 a 2019, importantes pesquisas foram publicados sobre o objeto de estudo com abordagens distintas: i) estudos teóricos sobre os diferentes elementos (imersividade, empatia, experiência, interação, tecnologia, etc) do IJ (Sirkkunen et al 2016;Sánchez Laws, 2017;Hardee & McMahan, 2017;Costa, 2017;Longhi & Caetano, 2019;Toursel & Useille, 2019;Jones, 2017;Paíno & Rodríguez, 2019a); ii) análises robustas sobre conteúdos jornalístico imersivos e informativos gerados pelos meios de comunicação afim de levantar classificações de gêneros jornalísticos imersivos (Benítez & Herrera, 2017;Colussi & Reis, 2020;Paíno & Rodríguez, 2019b;iii) ética no Jornalismo Imersivo (Pérez-Seijo & López-García, 2019; Sánchez Laws & Utne, 2019); iv) e consumo de Jornalismo Imersivo (Wang, Gu & Suh, 2018;Steinfeld, 2019;Kang et al 2019;De Bruin et al, 2020;Rocha, 2021).…”