VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGIES AS A NEW TOOLKIT OF JOURNALISM

Abstract

The article examines some aspects of contemporary English-speaking media space in the context of virtual reality (VR). The emergence of such media platform as VR headsets has led to new forms of delivering news and formation of immersive journalism. The purpose of the article is to examine the benefits of virtual technologies and their contribution to user involvement in narrative. Also to study the most relevant and prospective news stories for such new media space. And to scrutinize the potential problems journalists encounter during their work in virtual reality. The New York Times and The Guardian are one of the first major media brands to put in practice VR and 360 videos as a new storytelling platform. The vast majority of news stories are not suited for VR. It should be used to amplify stories that are suited to its strong point - putting a viewer in the scene. Places that are hard to get to or where people are scarcely likely to travel or where turning head side-toside is indispensable. There is no point in using spherical video if all the action is front and centre as it occurs in political debate. The benefit of shooting events in virtual reality is that it allows audience to rediscover new elements each time they watch it that they may have put out of account before. One potential future area could be to capture historical events so that we can do comprehensive analysis in the future tense. VR presents opportunities, but also brings up serious ethical dilemmas about representation, privacy, intellectual property and media effects. VR journalists may manipulate the viewer by designing virtual worlds for specific deliberate outcome. The second issue is cost and complexity of producing VR media. The post-production step for stitching is incredibly time-consuming and laborious. The slowest step in the spherical-video workflow is stitching together the files from multiple cameras. Virtual reality has the potential to reinforce storytelling by offering the audience experience and environment that are out of reach in terms of location: life in a refugee camp or in Fukushima after a devastating earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown at a nuclear power plant, or travelling to Paris after the terrorist attacks that occurred on Friday 13 November 2015. But we have to draw attention to the other side of new digital technologies when users perceive virtual objects as authentic physical space, which leads to false impressions and memories. It is also worth mentioning that virtual reality project is not a separate single story, but a part of complex narratives that are conveyed across multiple platforms which can be classified as transmedia storytelling.