All You Need to know about Immersive Journalism

In immersive journalism, you get first person experience of situations and events that are described in documentary films or news reports. With the help of ‘immersive technologies’ a sense of ‘being there’ is created. It allows an individual to engage with a story personally, placing them into the event directly. 

Under immersive journalism, one gets to enter a virtually recreated scenario that has been created to represent a particular story. Constructed as computer graphic imagery (CGI), it is easy to insert virtual environments into online virtual worlds. There are various characteristics of immersive journalism. For instance, it includes audience that participates spatially in the story, audio, images and environment that contextualises the story, illusion of a place that is related to where a particular event has occurred and a story that reflects good journalistic practices. 

According to the industry experts, immersive journalism has the potential to drive changes in the media industry. For many years, journalists have been trying their best to identify ways in which the audiences can be better connected to serious events that happen across the globe. They wish to do this in order to build a better understanding and empathy. This is one of the main reasons why many media organisations are turning to virtual reality technology to achieve this goals. For instance, media organisations such as Outside Magazine and Discovery have launched VR initiatives of their own. 

Immersive journalism is getting popular; however, questions of transparency and ethics are also growing among scholars and journalists. This is because media companies are now experimenting with the VR technology and AR (Augmented Reality). With these technologies, it becomes easy for users to interact personally with news reports through virtual screens that can be viewed through VR headsets. 

Another challenges of virtual reality journalism is that it can become difficult to prevent dishonest organisation or individuals from producing fake virtual reality work and passing it off as original. Some media ethicists are also worried about the high cost that goes into creating immersive journalism experience. Experts believe that in order to curb dishonest organisation from making fake VR news, it is necessary that people doing VR journalism should have an ethical code. This code should be published by them and they should also explain their ethics. It will be better if the viewers are aware of the details of the VR piece and whether or not it is scripted.  

Virtual reality technology is getting more intricate and precise with time. Not just journalism but virtual reality filmmaking has also become a trend. Even film makers are taking advantage of this technology. They are creating an immersive sensation besides just the experience of sound and sight. Instead of just creating a scene to be watched, film makers are using virtual reality to create an environment that can be explored by the user. This gives the viewer the liberty to control the viewing experience and choose where to look and how to interact.