Immersive Journalism: Immersive Virtual Reality for the First-Person Experience of News

This paper introduces the concept and discusses the implications of immersive journalism, which is the production of news in a form in which people can gain firstperson experiences of the events or situation described in news stories. The fundamental idea of immersive journalism is to allow the participant, typically represented as a digital avatar, to actually enter a virtually recreated scenario representing the news story. The sense of presence obtained through an immersive system (whether a Cave or head-tracked head-mounted displays [HMD] and online virtual worlds, such as video games and online virtual worlds) affords the participant unprecedented access to the sights and sounds, and possibly feelings and emotions, that accompany the news. This paper surveys current approaches to immersive journalism and the theoretical background supporting claims regarding avatar experience in immersive systems. We also provide a specific demonstration: giving participants the experience of bei...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: PRESENCE
• Authors: Nonny de la Peña, Peggy Weil, Joan Llobera, Elias Giannopoulos, Ausiàs Pomés, Bernhard Spanlang, Doron Friedman, Maria V. Sanchez-Vives, Mel Slater
• Keywords: Applied Computing, Experience, Immersive Journalism, Online Virtual Worlds, PRESENCE 2010