When you're working in an evolving medium, the rules change in the middle of the game.
"Project Syria" by Emblematic Group
It was 2014 when an interactive video called “Project Syria” was an official selection for the Sundance Film Festival. Using audio recordings from a bombing in Aleppo as the soundtrack, computer-generated characters reenacted the attacks in a 360-degree environment. It was called the birth of immersive journalism, and Nonny de la Peña, the driving force behind the project, became known as the “godmother of VR.”
The future was exciting, and the technology was improving with new gear every few months. Google Cardboard viewers that transformed smartphones into virtual reality devices were the rage. Facebook forked out $2 billion to buy the VR technology company Oculus. In 2016, The New York Times published The Daily 360 project, posting a new 360 each day for a year. In 2017, USA Today created a VR tour of the U.S.-Mexico border viewed through the HTC Vive virtual reality system.
Today, Google cardboard is over. Oculus designs headsets more for gaming rather than video viewing. The New York Times shut down their VR smartphone app. News organizations have shifted from 360 video and virtual reality projects to augmented reality apps that take the Pokeman Go AR experience and adapt it to journalism projects.
Immersive journalism is developed enough that there are experts, but is the idea of best practices better described as best guesses? What is the future for interactive storytelling in journalism and documentary work?
Research for this website began in 2018, but my first work with interactive journalism was in 2010, creating 360-degree still photos displayed in Flash on the Orlando Sentinel website. The process required special lenses, a custom tripod head, and photo stitching software to convert multiple still photos into an interactive .mov file.
Visitors to orlandosentinel.com could use their mouse to grab the image and rotate around the scene. For a couple of projects, we embedded audio files of ambient sound from the scene. It took a lot of practice to get the DLSR camera exactly positioned to capture the fewest number of still photos to make the panorama. Stitching the Panos together was tedious and sometimes disastrous. I also took the time to perfect those skills.
Even when the technical skills improved, producing panoramas was time-consuming. I trained several photographers in the capture process to cover more stories, but it was only for a handful of assignments.
Online metrics for the interactive Panos showed we could generate traffic. Our best success was when I photographed the Harry Potter Experience attraction at Universal Studios Florida before it opened in 2010. The huge Potter fan base was eager to have a sneak preview of the attraction and our panos fit the bill. Other popular panos were from Cape Canaveral on a launch tower with a space shuttle on the pad and from Victory Lane at the Daytona 500.
What became clear was that while the technology was interesting, the story was more important. Viewers gravitated toward the panos from places that were either brand new, like the Harry Potter attraction, or ones that were very restricted, such as NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Technology challenges weren’t new to me. The Sentinel was one of the few newspapers publishing daily color photos when I started in the early 1980s. It was a specialized skill to expose and develop color transparency film. The newspaper was also wan early adopter for printing color photos for transmitting, using film transmitters, adding video to our coverage, and publishing online. Each step was trial and error, with refinements along the way.
------- ------ ------ ------
Mass media platforms have historically followed an evolutionary pattern. The technology develops first. When it becomes easy enough to use by someone who didn’t build it, content creators begin making stories in the new medium. When there is enough content, an audience arrives.That audience shares and recommends the stories to their friends, and a mass medium evolves.
The progression is neither quick nor smooth. At each step, adjustments happen when users give feedback. Technology improves to be easier, faster and innovative. The content changes when creators experiment with the medium and then discover what the audience embraces. Investment from large businesses looking for the ways to create revenue fuels the mass media.
Virtual reality, augmented reality, 360 video, mixed reality, immersive media,and more can be collectively referred to as emerging media.This media could be in the early years of the next mass media.
The beginnings of emerging media technology go back father than the last couple of decades. Some scholars cite the huge panoramic murals of the 19th century as a storytelling device that created an immersive experience. In the late part of that century, stereoscopic viewers created 3D images popular through the end of the 20th century. The kinetoscope invented by Thomas Edison in the late 1800s allowed one person at a time to watch a short movie through a peephole viewer.
The first technology we would easily recognize as virtual reality happened in laboratories. In 1960, a patent for the telesphere mask had diagrams that look remarkably similar to the head-mounted devices (HMDs) we use today. Other devices followed, and in the early 1970s, flight simulators were developed for military training. Another 10 years later, the first HMD was used outside of a lab.
Still, it wasn’t until 1987 when Jaron Lanier, the creator of the visual programming lab (VPL), is credited with coining the term “virtual reality.” In the early 1990s, consumer products began hitting the market, including arcade machines. By the end of the decade, researchers began using virtual reality to treat soldiers suffering from PTSD, and gaming companies such as Nintendo and Sega were experimenting with rudimentary VR products.
The most recent jump in emerging technology came in 2012 when a Kickstarter fundraiser launched to produce a prototype HMD, the Oculus Rift. It was seen as a dividing line between past failures and consumer product successes that followed. Facebook bought Oculus and Sony announced a VR add-on to their gaming console.
By 2016-17, more companies were making HMD devices and more content was produced. Mobile apps increased. Google cardboard was shipped to subscribers of The New York Times and was sold in the Google Store. The Oculus Go HMD was unveiled, and the device was free-standing and wasn’t tethered to a computer. Also, the Go had a consumer-friendly price as low as $199. The future looked bright.
------- ------ ------ ------
Emerging media platforms continue to develop and evolve, but non-fiction storytelling in documentaries and journalism has stalled, especially in 360 video and VR. Instead, augmented reality (AR) has surpassed VR in the U.S. market. Industry experts surveyed in 2020 and reported by Statista said the lower cost of AR production is a factor and that AR is perceived as more accessible and safer than VR headsets.
Time spent using video games did increase during the 2020-21 pandemic, and virtual platforms benefited. Sales of VR headsets grew 30 percent in 2020. Still, both AR and VR are niche markets. Even among gamers where the market is the strongest, emerging media is still a small subset. A 2020 report from the Entertainment Software Association showed of the 169 million gamers in the U.S., 73 percent said they owned a gaming console. Only 29 percent owned a VR device and 25 percent owned a mobile VR device.
What is standing in the way? The Statista survey showed that industry experts felt user experience (UX) such as glitches or poorly designed hardware was slowing down mass adoption of AR. And while poor UX is also holding back VR, the experts cited a lack of content as a bigger factor holding back virtual reality platforms.
The lack of content means emerging media, especially the 360 video/VR medium, is at the stage of mass media evolution where content creators are trying to gain a footing and catch up. They are experimenting, searching for financial backing, and trying to get their work seen. For people working in gaming, the support is growing. it isn’t as easy for those working in the arts and non-fiction storytelling such as journalism and documentary videos,
People working in interactive and immersive journalism have no guaranteed path, but persistence will be helpful. The ability to watch thousands of movies on Netflix today has origins in those kinetoscope machines that showed only one very short movie to one person. It takes time for a medium to evolve.
While you continue your work, don’t be tied to a platform or a device. They will change. “Moore’s Law” says the speed of computer processors doubles every two years, and technology will be fueled by that. The imminent use of 5G broadband networks will also make immersive and VR content easier to distribute.
Focus on storytelling. The key will be to keep making stories, find places to put them, and build an audience.
Comments