Journalists' definitions of immersive journalism ethics and its place in the modern media landscape

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Beyond the Frame:

Journalists’ Definitions of Immersive Journalism Ethics and Its Place

in the Modern Media Landscape

Master’s Thesis

Laura Urbonaviciute | Student ID 11896760

Thesis supervisor:

Penny Sheets Thibaut

Graduate School of Communication, University of Amsterdam MA Erasmus Mundus Master: Journalism, Media & Globalization

30th

of May 2018

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Beyond the Frame: Journalists’ Definitions of Immersive Journalism Ethics and Its Place in the Modern Media Landscape

2 Abstract

This study analyzes how immersive journalism (IJ) ethics are defined and understood by IJ professionals. Qualitative research interviews were conducted with 15 leading

journalists in the field, working for such media organizations as The New York Times, Al Jazeera and Euronews. The research aims to understand how new technology challenges current media ethics and whether traditional practices are still relevant in the changing media environment. Findings disclose that IJ professionals share traditional journalistic values and see their fundamental role in society as that of informing the public. However, immersive technology poses new challenges to journalists by enabling them to use such features as embodiment or recreation of events in a way that can potentially traumatize viewers. IJ also encourages the public to consume journalism more actively, diminishing the distance

between audiences and journalists. This proximity is seen as one potential way to re-establish the public’s trust in the media, and to strengthen journalism’s position in modern society. At the same time, the study raises interesting questions about ethics’ connection to market considerations. The interviewees recognized that ethical concepts need to be expanded and adapted as well as best practices established. It is important to discuss ethics while the field develops, and this research fills an important research gap on understanding IJ professionals’ perceptions of the ethics of their profession.

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3 Introduction

Imagine yourself somewhere in the dark alley of South Korea or being in the middle of a busy Aleppo market in Syria. What about having an ability to explore a prison cell or see a collection of legendary David Bowie’s stage costumes in your living room? “Something profound has happened to your camera,” writes Roberts (2018) while presenting The New York Times (NYT) augmented reality journalism. I would argue even further – something profound has happened to journalism. Introduction of immersive technology fundamentally changes storytelling. Audiences are not passive spectators anymore. With the ability to explore and even be a part of the story, immersive medium paves a new way of creating empathy. Moreover, it is reshaping audience’s relationship to journalism in general.

Nevertheless, such way of storytelling raises a lot of questions of how far production can go into re-creating people, events and experiences. To what extent it is journalism and what purpose does it serve?

“Seek truth and report it” states a Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics (2014) preamble, which champions accuracy, transparency, independence and community values in journalism. By most scholars, such words to live by are understood as the main fundamental values of journalism (Eberwein et al. 2016; McBride & Rosenstiel, 2013; Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2001). Nevertheless, things have changed with the Internet and, later, social media, which had a dramatic effect on conventional journalism. An interactive society “replaced one-way communication” (Holmes, 2005, p. 8). These changes have only increased with the advent of immersive technology, which particularly challenges traditional notions of professional journalism ethics.

Fundamentally, journalism ethics reflect values that characterize not only the

legitimacy and professionalism of the craft but which lie at the core of what journalism is and what function it serves. A discussion of ethics is a discussion of abstract philosophical values

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4 which crystallize into codes and regulations that many Western journalists live by. Often ethical values are presented as dualisms: propositions become true or false; individualism is juxtaposed to society; theory versus practice; objectivity versus subjectivity (Ward, 2005). Nevertheless, Hanitzsch (2007) sees real journalistic practices existing somewhere in the grey area, between both extremes. That is why it is important to research latter grey area of

journalism ethics, especially in such new field as IJ. Sirkkunen et al. (2016) stresses the importance of creating new knowledge that “has been lacking in the journalistic media houses and newsrooms” and suggests to study production methods and new genres of IJ that “meet the principles and ethics of journalism,” which is essential for building new best practices.

Based on current knowledge and ideas, this research will analyze how immersive media journalists see their profession, and understand the ethical implications of immersive technology. Qualitative interviews are used to investigate the mindset of IJ professionals as well as tackle into the grey area of journalism ethics by approaching it as a mindset rather than practical guidelines or a set of written rules.

Journalism’s Function in Democracy

Throughout the years, journalism as a profession has been put under great scrutiny. An ever-changing media landscape constantly challenges and questions the role of journalism as well as its meaning for democracy. Academics discuss whether it can even be perceived as a profession (Davis, 2010), which inevitably questions the legitimacy and perception of journalism.

Traditionally, western researchers describe journalism as having a social contract with democracy (Locke, 1988; Kieran, 2000; McQuail, 1992; Strömbäck, 2004 as cited in

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5 democracy that respects freedom of speech, while democracy itself requires a “system for the flow of information, for public discussion and for a watchdog function independent of the state” (Strömbäck, 2005, p. 332). Rosen (1997) names gatekeeping as a critical act in

selecting the stories and creating an “informational diet” that allows society to construct their worldview. It is the role of journalism to “construct the present world for us in such a way that we can live in it as responsible citizens and people who care about the health of the society.” There is a clear pattern among journalism researchers in the perception of its fundamental function. Kovach and Rosenstiel (2001, p. 17) describe it as “providing citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing.”

While many journalists feel this moral obligation towards democracy and the need to fulfill their role as a watchdog and information provider (Strömbäck, 2005), there are many debates about the ethical and legal limits that should be applied to journalism. Journalism’s relationship with the public is built on trust, but within this sense of loyalty there are two domains that bind journalists: ethics and law (Black, 2010). Whereas laws are provided by the state, ethics are particularly interesting, controversial, and ever-evolving, because they are applied by journalists themselves. As Davis (2010) notes, the fact that journalists as a

professional community voluntarily apply ethical rules and obligations helps strengthen the profession—ethical codes provide a source of legitimacy for journalists. Similarly, as in other disciplines like politics, business or medicine, journalism has its own ethics, which,

according to Eberwein and Porlezza (2016) “paves the way for a definition of ideal values like truth, freedom, and solidarity as well as order and cohesion, which are regarded as

prerequisites for democratic media to fulfill their social function” (McQuail, 2013, as cited by Eberwein and Porlezza, 2016, p. 329). Thus, we see that an understanding of journalism ethics is essential to understanding journalism’s ability to uphold its social contract with democracy.

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6 Evolving Norms in Changing Media Landscape

The conversation about ethics is deeply rooted in Western journalistic tradition, which for many years has been understood as questioning such values as objectivity. To better understand journalism ethics and its evolvement, in this section I will look into fundamental journalistic values and how they have changed throughout the years.

Iggers (1999) states that perceptions of objectivity have evolved since the nineteenth century when faith in facts was unquestionable. Author provides an interesting view, that nowadays notions regarding objectivity exist only to underline that journalism cannot be objective. It is important to note that objectivity, rather than being a practice, reflects on the purpose of journalism in a society: it assumes that the journalistic community serves the public good.

Nowadays McBride and Rosenstiel (2013) as well as Singer (2010) describe transparency as an essential principle of modern journalism, next to credibility and

community, since in the age of printed press journalism was seen as an elite profession that did not concern the general public. Through analysis of changing perceptions towards objectivity and transparency it is clear how journalism changes due to technology and the Internet, which, as Shirky (2013) states, destroyed the old model of objective journalism. The idea of transparency has become more prominent in the past years. It stands as an antidote in the context of new technology and the increasing mistrust in journalism, because journalists themselves share their work process with the public (Allen, 2008). The implementation of transparency implicates the changing way news are reported: rather than just publishing the facts, journalists aim to deconstruct and understand them.

Together with emerging technology journalism ethics is put under scrutiny.

Multicultural and immersive media landscape not only challenges the commonly perceived norms (Deuze, 2005), but also relationship with the public. Discussions are especially

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7 important for meta-journalistic discourse, describing journalists’ attitudes towards

objectivity, sensationalism, fabrications, reporting mistakes or scapegoating. The problem for years has been that conversations on journalism ethics serve more as a self-defense rather than criticism or dialogue (Carlson, 2016). With the help of new technology, journalists can become intermediaries to transfer the people’s voice directly to the audience, by enabling the public to engage and consume and criticize news more actively rather than passively. If the era of the press addressing the public is over, then is the era of traditional journalistic values over as well? Or does fundamental journalistic ethics manage to hold up against new

challenges? In the times where journalists are on a quest to fight fake news and

misinformation, media organizations need to find a way to convince audiences of their trustworthiness; ethics become not only the core value of the organization, but an outer validation mechanism (Shirky, 2013). Such new relationship of more engaged and critical public is crucial in the emerging visual journalism landscape, where immersive technology opens unknown territories for journalists and their audiences. The following chapter will consider what implications does the rise of visual culture have on journalism ethics.

The Rise of Visual Culture and Immersive Journalism

Visual culture researchers, such as Mirzoeff (1999) argues that we perceive the world and make meaning “through” pictures. New technology lets us to step further “into” a picture and form meanings not only by watching, but also by experiencing stories. These changes have a big impact not only for our daily meaning-making, but also to the way we consume news as well as how journalists report it. Stepping into virtual reality might seem exciting but could also be a cause for concern. Researchers, such as Madary & Metzinger (2016) predict that the rise of immersive visual technology will be a trigger that could potentially change the objective world and lead to shifts in value judgements. Our reality becomes mediated, human

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8 experience of space and time changes within. Nevertheless, media shouldn’t be seen as something “located outside of lived experience, but rather as intrinsically part of it” Deuze concludes (2011, p. 138).

Sirkkunen et al. (2016) conceptualizes virtual reality (VR) as “a computer-generated three-dimensional environment that is interactive and in which a person is immersed.” Augmented reality stands for a real world that is “overlaid with digital, computer-generated information or objects (audio, graphics, photos, video, animation)” and is a part of Mixed reality, where real and virtual could be mixed together. All of these realities are united under one concept – XR (Cross Reality). Growth of such production together with live streaming on social media as well as the development of 360-degree videos are expected to become

mainstream in near future (Pavlik, 2015)1

. Such technology is being more widely adapted to journalism as a medium that lets the audience gain first-person experiences of the news stories (Sirkkunen et al., 2016).

Even though de la Peña introduced immersive technology to journalism almost 10 years ago, it has picked up only recently. NYT invests in VR: its story “The Displaced”, released in 2015 was seen as a big breakthrough in VR journalism (Welsh, 2015). Together with NYT, such outlets like Frontline, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Deutche Welle, etc. are all experimenting with how to fit VR into their storytelling (Jones, 2017). Nevertheless, it is important to take into consideration that despite being an exciting

innovation, its capabilities are not fully explored yet. Wider range of research has been done

1_{The radical change that influenced the rise of VR was mobile technology (Pavlik, 2015; Hernandez, 2017; Jones, 2017) and}

lighter, more affordable VR headsets such as Oculus Rift developed by Palmer Luckey. Companies like Facebook, Google or Samsung are investing in immersive technologies and the predictions are, that by 2025, the market for virtual reality content will be $5.4 billion (Manly, 2015).

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9 on medical aspects of VR2

and not enough on how immersive technologies affect journalistic practices and what implications does it have on the public. Writers such as Wissot (2016) addresses the potential problems immersive technology poses and stresses that this medium requires full transparency, care and respect. In a presentation of her journalistic work in immersive media for Magnum Foundation (2014) de la Peña concluded: “whatever the language is, it’s not written yet.”

Despite the immersive medium being new in journalism, there have been multiple efforts to theorize current practices and to make sense of them. Techniques, such as 360-degree videos, 3-D scans or volumetric - CGI3

can overall be used to recreate the

environment, people and story better. Nevertheless, till now there has been a lot of focus on emotional aspect of this medium and such discussions have led to the popular VR

conceptualization as an “ultimate empathy machine” (Jones, 2017; Milk, 2015; de la Peña et al., 2010). The serious impact that immersive technologies can have on people allows one to wonder about its grim potential on mental and behavioral manipulation when concerning the interest of such groups as politicians, religious organizations, commercial companies.

Immersive technology directly targets the phenomenal human ability to identify with the content (Madary & Metzinger, 2016; Manly, 2015). Such concerns raise ethical discussions on how to adapt immersive technology in ways that does not compromise journalistic trust and credibility.

2_{Technology has been proven helpful for managing pain (Li et al., 2011) as well as research has been carried out on its impact on}

the brain (Hoffman et al., 2003) or possibilities towards changing attitudes (Ahn et al., 2013; Groom et al., 2009).

3_{360-degree VR videos are captured with single (monoscopic) or a pair of (stereoscopic) 360-degree cameras; Volumetric 3-D}

scan provides videos with real people and objects that are scanned in order to create walkable 3-D environment. Volumetric - CGI (Computer-generated Imagery) creates an environment where people or subjects can be recreated through videos and pictures using gaming software.

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10 Immersive Technology Challenges to Journalism Ethics

Iggers (1999) notices that journalism ethics focuses too much on the transmission of information then on the roles that news media play in a society. It is important, because, according to the author, journalists have a critical role in constructing a common reality, bringing the public into being, as well as helping to circulate moral values within the

community: “the news media play a central role in constructing the picture of the world that people who live in complex modern societies carry around inside their heads. That picture may vary in its details from head to head, but having a shared body of information is what gives us a common culture” (Iggers, 1999, p. 116). Based on these ideas, my research aims to understand how journalists themselves perceive the ethical challenges that IJ poses. Building from journalistic ethics theories analyzed in the previous chapters, the research will be divided into sub-questions guiding analysis further:

• Sub-RQ1: How does immersive technology change journalists’ relationship with the audience?

One of the main concerns that writers such as Marconi & Nakagawa (2017); Hernandez (2017); Kool (2016) raise are the way journalists treat the audience in immersive productions. What do journalists aim for when creating an immersive story and what do they want

audiences to take away from the experience? Immersive technologies are very involving. It is important to analyze how journalists approach such new features of immersive storytelling and how they understand its impact on the public.

• Sub-RQ2: How do journalists working with immersive technology see their role in society?

What journalists aim for when working on immersive story? What kind of impact of IJ is expected to have and how do professionals see their function in a society? Research will consider and analyze how IJ practitioners see themselves in a current media landscape.

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11 • Sub-RQ3: How do journalists define IJ ethics and what are the associated

challenges?

Kent (2015) writes about IJ potential to recreate people and events raising question of what is real in VR? Kool (2016) notices that it is easy to forget the production process that goes behind immersive experiences. Journalists have to balance out their creative choices and the danger of sensationalism as well as loosing context of the story (Marconi & Nakagawa, 2017). That is way it is important to consider immersive technology’s ethical challenges and how it can be implemented in journalism practices.

The technology is here and it’s already too big to just fade away. As any other advancement, it allows us to explore the evolving nature of storytelling (Roberts, 2018), although the question is how good journalists will manage to implement it and what purpose is it going to serve. It is clear that such changes do challenge journalism in a democracy: “it already feels as though we are living in an alternative science-fiction universe where no one agrees on what is true” (Farrell & Perlstein, 2018). In order to deconstruct challenges that IJ poses to journalism ethics and understand better on how journalists see themselves in evolving media landscape, qualitative interviews with leaders in the field were conducted.

Research Method

Qualitative interview research was chosen in order to understand better how journalists themselves perceive IJ ethics, rather than adapting already existing concepts. Qualitative research tends to concentrate on social processes (Bryman, 2012; Corbin & Strauss, 1990), which suits the changing nature of storytelling techniques, news consumption and understanding, as well as development of journalistic ethics, that should serve the needs of current journalistic landscape. According to Corbin and Strauss (1990) qualitative analysis

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12 not only seeks to describe conditions that social processes are developing in, but also to catch the interplay of actors’ responses towards those changing conditions.

Given the developing nature of the field, I employed an inductive approach to ground the theoretical concepts in the research itself. Since journalism ethics are closely connected to journalism practices as well as news production, I chose to conduct the interviews only concentrating on media professionals. Doing so allows me to understand the particular worldview of journalists and how they understand changes happening in their profession. Interviews are constructed from open questions, so that interviewees could have a lot of space to express their own personal understanding on the ethics, rather than imposing on them with existing knowledge. Memos with notes were constantly taken throughout the research, since descriptive and detailed information is important for qualitative analysis (Bryman, 2012).

Research Participants

15 journalists working in the immersive journalism field agreed to participate in the research. Participants were purposively sampled for this research so that they would fit certain attributes, such as deep knowledge and professional experience in the field or being known for their work in immersive journalism. After gathering initial contacts that were based on the researcher’s own knowledge of the IJ field, additional networking through the companies working with immersive technology followed. Potential respondents were

contacted via email or LinkedIn platform as well as approached through live events organized for VR professionals and enthusiasts in Amsterdam. Moreover, I asked for recommendations of similar contacts from interviewees who agreed to participate; one of respondents shared my request in a closed Google Group for VR Journalists. The sample grew and snowballed naturally. It is important to note, that the community of such journalists is small but very open and accommodating towards researchers, although due to the time constraints of their

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13 occupation it was difficult to reach them. Three of the interviewees were immersive

documentary filmmakers who did not have a journalistic background, although they still provided interesting input to the research. The full list of participants is provided in the Appendix.

Process of the Analysis

The interviews were conducted either in person or through video conferencing. Most interviews lasted between 40 minutes and 1 hour. After explaining and obtaining informed consent, a series of open-ended questions was posed and respondents were given ample time to answer them. As a researcher, I was flexible with the questions, adjusting my approach and follow-up questions to the answers given. Interviews were recorded as well as notes were taken during the conversations. After the first interview, the questionnaire was adjusted in order to accommodate research participants better and make questions easier to understand.4 The full interview questionnaire is available in the Appendix.

The coding process began through the analysis of a few transcripts using the open coding method in order to identify themes relevant to the RQs. After main categories were established, axial coding was implemented to the rest of the interviews, looking for repeated concepts as well as missing ones. Lastly, the selective coding process helped to unify all the categories under core concepts that could be connected back to literature (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). Such coding aims to find core the phenomena of the research, so that the main ethical

4_{After receiving first interviewees feedback that questions were too complex as well as noticing slight confusion during the}

interview, adjustments to the questionnaire were made in order to make questions more precise. For example, instead of asking interviewees to reflect on such journalistic values as credibility or community respondents were asked to name 3 values they find important in their journalistic work.

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14 issues in immersive journalism could be described and analyzed. In order to understand analysis process better, final coding list of categories and codes is added in the Appendix.

The most important implication of such a method is that, unlike in quantitative analysis, qualitative research suggests that there is no single account of social reality. That is why the research is aimed to be transparent and open as possible, so that it could show general trends and provide a better understanding of how journalists define and understand ethical issues posed by immersive technology rather than coming up with a set of practical guidelines or codes of ethics.

As Corbin and Strauss (1990) write, it is difficult to judge qualitative research as the usual canons evaluating quantitative research do not apply here. One of the most important credibility factors of this research lies in respondents. Interviewees chosen have gained respect and attention due to their work in IJ field. All of them are representatives or

collaborators with respective media organizations that produce meaningful work as well as are among leaders in IJ field. Another important aspect of transparency are the coding list together with interview protocol that is not only provided in the research but has been adjusted throughout the process of conducting interviews. Since data analysis has started simultaneously while interviews were conducted (DiCicco-Bloom & Crabtree, 2006), all seemingly relevant issues risen from the data were addressed during conversations with journalists (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). Moreover, all the significant aspects repeatedly emerging from the data has earned their place in the analysis.

Analysis

RQ 1: How does immersive technology change journalists’ relationship with the audience? One of the most important aspects of IJ is the implications it has for the audience. The relationship between IJ content creators and its users are changing due to the new technology.

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15 Analysis to answer sub-RQ1 centers around following themes: IJ is a democratic medium that gives more context to the audiences. Moreover, it provides an ability to explore stories actively. Nevertheless, such IJ features as embodiment pose new ethical considerations due to dangers of potential trauma. Finally, IJ paves way for a much closer and engaged relationship between public and journalists, which creates media economy based on trust and individual attention.

A Democratic Medium

Journalist professionals consider IJ unique because it is one of the most democratic mediums available. It provides the audience with a much wider context and enables viewers to choose their own individual pathways of exploring the story.

A founder of VR start-up, who chose to remain anonymous, emphasized the

immersive medium’s capacity to put viewer in the middle of another reality. Providing a full picture of it, giving audience more agency about how they are consuming news. IJ becomes more relatable medium:

“The reason why something becomes the news is that its abnormally

interesting, exciting, dangerous. The problem is that it is very hard to make someone care about the topic when they are only subjected to abnormal side of it. So, what I think is very powerful about 360 is that you can see abnormal event which is rivalry, police confronting demonstrators in the context of the normal – traffic, people shopping, observing… If you had seen that piece only through flat video, you would have thought that the whole place is a demonstration, you only get the part of the picture. What I think is interesting for people to understand in a big news event is what is the surrounding context. It doesn’t reduce the seriousness, it doesn’t change

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16 the narrative, but it does give a sense of context, which gives people a little more time to empathize.”

Thomas Seymat, immersive journalism and VR editor at Euronews, claims that a conventional logic behind guiding your audience throughout the story remains: “You still choose the angle, you choose where to put your camera, you decide when you're going to press record button, but you have to deal with the fact that the audience will look wherever they want.” Nevertheless, IJ requires a new set of skills and a different way of thinking, because in VR, the conventional linear storytelling shifts to a dynamic narrative. Marconi and Nakagawa (2017) state that in such story there is no predefined order and the audience is able to actively explore it: “Fundamentally, dynamic storytelling is the same as storytelling in its past and current forms — journalists answer questions posed by their readers and viewers. It’s just how those questions are being answered that’s changing.”

The conventional square camera frame disappears and the depth of field is transformed to the frame itself, once the ability of immersing oneself in the environment becomes fully available. Some journalists regard this as an issue, because they lose editorial control over the content. However, it is important to note that most of the interviewees acknowledged it as a positive new challenge, which they have to learn how to deal with. The medium becomes less mediated and controlled, simultaneously turning out to be more open to interpretation. Some interviewed journalists mentioned another important aspect

concerning the direction of the audience’s attention. For example, Catarina Gomes, a

journalist working with an IJ startup NowHere Media, explains that journalists who shoot in 360-degrees interfere and frame their stories using less noticeable cues, such as sound, colors, images, all of which the audience is going to see first once they put the VR headset on. Even though in conventional journalism such details are not common to consider from ethical

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17 standpoint, in VR they become more crucial, because they help guide the viewer’s attention and frame the story.

Immersive medium requires greater commitment and more trust between journalists and audiences, given that viewers are required to immerse themselves in an unknown environment and actively consume journalistic production. As Dominguez (2017) writes, “choosing what to see is not a passive act.” Thus, the analysis shows a changing relationship between journalism and the audience in the consumption of immersive stories. This

investigation will further explore the effects that such experiences have on the viewers.

Audience’s Embodiment

One of the most unique IJ features lies in the possibility of making the audience part of the story through active embodiment. Milk (2015) describes VR as a medium that gives audiences a possibility to be on the other side and inhabit another world: “It’s a machine, but being inside of it feels like real life, it feels like truth and you feel present in the world with the people that you are in.” In other words, a journalist has the opportunity to use

embodiment in limitless ways. However, this feature is potentially dangerous, given that it may lead to unwanted traumas if approached unethically.

Robert Hernandez, a digital journalism teacher focusing on immersive and emerging technology, says that during a production of immersive journalism everything is important: the position and height of the tripod, and whether the characters in production addresses the viewer. Many journalists are experimenting with embodiment because it opens exciting opportunities for new ways of storytelling. Nevertheless, it is important to consider the implications of such features. For example, what does putting someone in a sensitive

environment such as a warzone or a refugee camp, actually entail? An important example that may be addressed while considering this issue is the work made by The Emblematic group

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18 together with leading IJ practitioner and researcher N. De la Peña, entitled “Project Syria” (2014). The project enables any user to find him or herself in the middle of a busy Aleppo street, when suddenly a bomb explodes. This experience could potentially induce a serious shock for someone who has had a similar real-life experience or is sensitive to such content. R. Hernandez mentions one of the first VR experiences created by The Emblematic Group in an interview: “Emblematic did “Gone Gitmo” [on torture in Guantanamo Bay prison]. They never asked whether a person has been tortured before. Somebody who went in it has been tortured and that was way too real. Now they are communicating it.”

What should be done with sensitive content, and how much of pain and suffering should journalists show? Even though these questions apply to all journalism, showing a sensitive content on immersive experience could bring very direct and serious consequences to the audience. Al Jazeera’s immersive media studio Contrast VR producer Viktorija

Mickute considers various ways, for example, using animation to avoid potential shock while still telling the story. She admits that there’s still insufficient research on how IJ affects people. Madary & Metzinger (2016) calls embodiment “the deepest theoretical reason” to explore VR with great caution, especially bearing in mind the possible psychological effects it might have.

Finding the Audience

Having in mind potential issues discussed in previous chapters, journalists have to guide their audiences throughout the whole experience in order to successfully showcase immersive productions. Furthermore, journalists admit that after watching VR, it is important to let people talk and share their thoughts. The relationship between journalists and their audiences becomes very different, namely more direct and personal.

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19 C. Gomez says that journalists interfere quite a lot in the whole news production cycle, pre- and post-watching experiences. Technology is still expensive and hardly affordable to any mainstream user:

“It’s really important not only that community watches it, but also that the community watches it properly (…) You cannot expect people to have a cardboard at home so if you’re really investing a lot of money and you want to make it last – and we really truly believe in immersive power of VR – then you also have to make sure that you have an audience that you create for and your audience has a great experience with it.”

C. Gomez reflections expose another issue with VR experiences, namely that technology has not yet become mainstream, and the distribution as well as monetization of immersive technology is problematic along with being rather prestigious. VR producer, writer and educator Lakshmi Sarah stresses the need to democratize this technology so it is made available for everyone:

“I think it’s important whether a wider range of creators have access to the tools to create immersive content. It’s important to have in mind who has the access to the tools to create these documentaries as well as who has the tools and domains to consume them. The future should be more democratic and accessible, be a platform for everybody, not only for rich people in New York.”

All the interviewees mention distribution problem being one of the main issues when talking about IJ, because currently this technology interests only a specific group of people. T. Seymat sees it as a “chicken and an egg issue”, which not only affects the implementation of immersive technology but also poses a question of monetization:

“We don’t get as many eyes as we have hoped. The content or the audience is not there. On the other side, you also have a revenue problem, because doing

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360-Beyond the Frame: Journalists’ Definitions of Immersive Journalism Ethics and Its Place in the Modern Media Landscape

20 degree or CGI production is expensive, also you need technical skills and people who have those are expensive. So you don't have enough audience to monetize IJ via traditional advertising model. For me this issue slows down the adaptation of this medium. Time when immersive technology was just cool is already over. So, how do we make money and how do we make journalism? How do we make journalism that audience will be ready to pay for or subscribe to?”

New technology creates a “wow factor”, which is seen as a potential problem within journalists’ community, because the format becomes much more important than the content itself. A founder of a VR start-up, who chose to remain anonymous, perceives this situation as a unique opportunity to reinvent journalism and encourage people to care for the news: “People had lost their connection with mainstream news. It’s a unique opportunity to ask people to start from scratch and reimagine their connection. And for publishers to find a new way to give their audience a connection with what they are publishing.”

Some of the interviewees see journalists as an elite part of the society, which tends to fall out of touch with their audiences. While some researchers, such as Iggers (1999) saw a similar trend happening to journalists in the past, McBride and Rosenstiel (2013) observes same tendencies today: journalists have lost touch with the public. Nevertheless, interviewees see IJ as an opportunity to reestablish their relationship with audience. Moreover, such new relationship could be seen not only important to restore trust, but also as a commercially valuable aspect. Therefore, such implications lead to another important finding discussed in a coming chapter – ethics relationship with media market.

Trust Economy of News

From exploring current IJ landscape, it becomes clear that not only is technology developing overwhelmingly fast but the whole industry is changing. A founder of a VR

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start-Beyond the Frame: Journalists’ Definitions of Immersive Journalism Ethics and Its Place in the Modern Media Landscape

21 up, who chose to remain anonymous, mentioned ethics as a factor tightly connected to the media market and brought up the idea of trust economy of news:

“To my mind the commercial challenges are aligned with ethical challenges particularly in VR, because the ethical challenges are all about transparency and purpose (…) Past business models were based on advertising. Therefore, the ethical models have become a commercial driver, became way to understand your audience and to build that audience and build that connection. It’s all about direct connection and loyalty, which VR is great for.”

Catching viewer’s attention is also seen as very important. V. Mickute recognizes the audience’s disengagement problem and talks about importance for journalists to find new ways to attract and reach people:

“If you choose to watch VR documentary in a headset, this is the way to get rid of distractions. While working with NGO’s we are managing to get attention of decision makers, policy makers, because our documentaries travel to United Nations, we show it to security council members, and also with this new medium we manage to get their “eyes”, their time, their focus.”

Instead of relying on a standardized connection with massive audience, paying more attention towards individual understanding and relatedness is becoming a valuable asset, which could be monetized in the news economy. Moreover, attention gain and ability to challenge the audience’s biases is another recognizable issue in a modern media system (Little, 2017), which could potentially be addressed with the help of IJ.

Several dominating themes clearly emerge from summarizing the sub-RQ1 analysis: IJ audiences are encouraged to actively explore journalistic stories that provide more context and help them to empathize as well as understand those stories better. Nevertheless, due to new way of storytelling, journalists lose some of editorial control, which forces professionals

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22 to rethink conventional practices. Moreover, journalists face new ethical challenges of

exposing viewers to new environments that can be potentially traumatizing or stressful if not implemented correctly and ethically. Finally, it is important to stress that the relationship between journalists and consumers’ is changing: journalists are actively involved in the communities and seek to build personal relationships with their audiences, which can be seen as a new media market of the trust economy.

RQ2: How do journalists working with immersive technology perceive their role in society?

Introduction of immersive technology drastically changes journalist’s relationship with the audience. Therefore, it is important to consider how do journalists themselves perceive their role in changing media landscape.

Issues Related to the Traditional Role of Journalism

All the interviewees share the same fundamental understanding regarding the function journalism should serve, namely to inform. R. Hernandez sees his mission as: “informing my community, my neighborhood, my country, global citizens. And it is using any means

necessary if it’s accurate and ethical.”

Interviewed journalists imply that newly established trust through immersive journalism could help to solve issues professionals face nowadays: overreliance on social platforms (Little, 2017) and fake news. Newman (2018) names mistrust in the media as well as a lost connection with the audience to be one of the crucial trends of 2017. Journalists see IJ as a potential antidote to current media issues that could contribute in solving problems mentioned. G. Roberts sees current media landscape much more challenging than it used to be:

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23 “There is a problem of accuracy and truthfulness and even purposeful

manipulation in many cases. People are losing the ability to tell these things apart, especially when it all flows in a social network, where people are not even necessarily paying attention to the source of information but rather how many clicks or likes information generates.”

Even though fundamental understanding about a journalist’s role in society is not changing, interviewed journalists commonly express that they feel a social responsibility to educate their communities on immersive medium as well as the intentions behind immersive productions.

Intention of a Journalist

All the interviewees understand their mission as informing the society and providing access to information, which features another important aspect – behavioral change. C. Gomes explains: “you shouldn't just do a film, but you should also make sure the film is distributed, the film has an impact and that impact has a monetary value, which feeds into the news cycle (…) A lot of NGO’s are looking into behavioral change.” This point of view takes into account not only into the role that journalists see themselves in, but also the intention they create journalistic productions with.

Such behavioral change can potentially contain everything from raising awareness to encouraging the audience to donate for a particular purpose. Journalism, especially

immersive, becomes more socially aware and engaged. Some of the interviewees reflect on social responsibility that their journalism has not only towards the audience but also to the environment they are working in. V. Mickute reflects on the effect such production process has:

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24 “This medium brings responsibility in a sense that we need to explain what the medium is, people don’t understand the cameras, they don’t understand the process they don’t understand why we leave the camera and then run and hide. It’s weird, people are super confused and we explain that you should carry on, do your own stuff while we are hiding. So, this sort of reporting comes with a responsibility of

explaining. You don’t just do a story about one person, it includes everything around, so you do the story on the whole community, the whole environment.”

The important aspect of immersive stories is that space becomes itself a character (Dominguez, 2017). Involvement of more than a protagonist in a news story and the potential to impact audience’s behavior are very important implications to consider while having in mind journalistic intention. As Kool (2016) notices “under the realism of VR experiences, it is easy to forget as the viewer that the story is being told and constructed with intention”, while also it is important to use such technology for impact rather than entertainment.

Importance of Education

Interviewees agree that audiences need to be more informed and educated on immersive journalism. IJ researcher, Taylor Nakagawa stresses that education would also serve for more transparency in IJ:

“A lot of very skeptical journalists while seeing somebody talking directly to the camera – without seeing anyone asking them questions — perceive it as something being completely staged. I think that makers of those documentaries should talk audiences through the experience. Additional material aside from VR piece, would that be just a blog post writing about how it was made, could be a piece of a larger package.”

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25 Journalists see themselves as providing a traditional and fundamental function in a society – to provide information. Nevertheless, such functions become more complex due to previously discussed effects it has on the audience. Interviewees admit that they feel much more socially responsible and engaged, their journalistic intentions change depending on the purpose of immersive production. Moreover, interviewees expressed the aim to educate audiences on new technology.

RQ3: How do journalists define IJ ethics and what are the associated challenges? Stanford Journalism Program’s guide to using virtual reality for storytelling (2016) describes transparency as a key issue in IJ. Journalists need to find a way of clearly defining and communicating their ways of storytelling. Although practice is much more diverse than theory; not all the journalists agree on theoretical notions of key values and should they be implemented. Several key themes emerged while discussing IJ ethics with professionals.

Transparency as a New Form of Objectivity

Interviewees perceive journalistic values very differently, based on their background, education and culture. G. Roberts sees objectivity as a crucial factor for journalism: “I know that it’s difficult to extract one viewpoint, although I think that that’s the job. You should be trying to portray every story in an objective manner and extract the facts as they are,

presenting the information in as unbiased way as possible.” R. Hernandez also talks about objectivity and its importance to editorial decisions:

“A lot of people want to throw objectivity out and say transparency is the answer. I admit that objectivity is very difficult to do, we all come from our cultures with certain biases, whether male or catholic, or American. And those are the truth but I don’t fully buy that they stop us from doing fundamental journalism (…)

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26 Applying it to 360-degree video, VR and AR – a lot of people say that you are more transparent because the camera is looking everywhere and that is truth to a certain degree, but it’s still where I place that camera makes an editorial decision, what stories I choose to tell as an editorial decision, and that editorial decision is still based on pursuit of objectivity, an editorial control and nerve of storytelling.” It is notable that objectivity is more relevant to interviewees living and working in the US, while European journalists tended to identify transparency as a main value of journalism. T. Seymat connected such notions to his cultural background: “Maybe that's the French media system, but I was never big on objectivity. As long as you’re being transparent on how do you work and where are you coming from – that’s what’s important.” Another European journalist, based in Denmark, Ole Krogsgaard, sees objectivity as irrelevant and says that accuracy is main journalistic value: “Making sure to get the fact right is what’s important: maybe you can argue with the viewpoint of journalists, but they shouldn't be able to attack the facts. The facts should be there and survive under scrutiny.”

It is clear that the opinions and perceptions on objectivity and transparency highly differs among journalists. Nonetheless, all of the interviewees agree that the facts of the stories they cover have to be precise and truthful. On a daily basis, journalists make decisions based on their education, traditions, culture and work environment, but moral values of right and wrong stand. Ward (2010) sees the importance of objectivity as an encouragement for journalists to critically reflect on their work: “as an honest desire to confirm and cohere is the essence of good journalism and is vital to its public role” (Ward, 2010, p. 149). Even though journalism ethics theory does not always reflect practice, it is important to see a wider context of such discussion. Evaluating journalism and striving for the best standard is, as analysis shows, much more important than a set of rules or regulations.

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27 Best Practices

G. Roberts compares VR journalism practices to development of photography: “The whole philosophy behind visual journalism is that it has an efficient way for reporting information, delivering an understanding to people. Sometimes it’s a written word,

sometimes it’s a photograph, sometimes it’s data visualization and maybe sometimes that’s virtual reality.” T. Seymat compares immersive technology to television: “We didn’t set up anything new, we didn’t invent anything new, we just replicated the TV guidelines.

Discussions are important, but in reality it’s all about the screen and software.” Moreover, IJ can affect viewers not only psychologically, but also physically. Sarah Hill, CEO & Chief Storyteller of VR startup StoryUP XR, talks about ethical responsibility not to make people physically ill:

“Values are the same as in any other kind of journalism, and new kind of technology doesn’t mean that you throw away journalistic practices. Same rules still apply and in fact they might apply even to a larger degree because it’s a new medium, so, for instance, with an immersive media additional ethical consideration (…) is that you have to make sure you don’t make the user sick.”

Victor Agulhon, a CEO of immersive media startup TARGO, adds an interesting aspect to the conversation – IJ does not need to be reframed as a different medium. Latter aspect reflects the understanding that fundamental journalistic values and ethical considerations are the same despite of a medium or technology, it’s rather an enhancement of current

journalistic storytelling that has been underrepresented:

“I really don’t like the approach on VR when it started (…) we had a very conflictual view, it was not a peaceful technology in a way it was presented, it was only about how VR is going to change the world, which is too much. It was too

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28 of content, it’s a new technology, it allows us to do more, we ought to do things we couldn’t do, but let’s not try to pretend it will revolutionize the whole world (…) The fact that we change the tool we use, doesn’t mean we change the standard.”

Most of the interviewees were hesitant to talk about code of ethics or a set of rules for IJ. Preferred idea for professionals are the best practices that would be developed and

accepted within community. Not all journalists turn to codes of ethics when in doubt, not all of them work for specific organizations that they represent, although all of them have a moral compass guided by their education, personality and fundamental journalistic values.

Documentary Effect

The content creators share a belief that immersive technology has a big future for journalism. Mobile phones are accessible to most of the people which makes such technology as AR more adaptable in daily life. Even though technology is still very young and

developing, some of the IJ professionals see imperfections of it as an advantage to documentary genre. A VR documentary filmmaker, who decided to remain anonymous, notices: “people are used to see news coverage a bit rougher or more rudimentary, so they are more open to suspend their reality and immerse themselves in documentary.”

During the interviews difference between journalistic genres and documentary came up as an important aspect of immersive production. While documentary genre allows more interpretation and creative approach, journalism follows stricter guidelines. Nevertheless, such difference is not always clear among the public and journalists themselves. It is important to educate audience on such genres, because it affects how public receives and understands information. S. Hill sees journalism and documentary genres as different approaches to the story:

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29 “We have documentary filmmakers working for us, and yeah, when we started there was definitely the difference on how a journalist approach the story ethically, the questions they ask and their viewer balance as opposed to a documentary filmmaker. And to me they are kind of separate things but yet connected, different flavors of storytelling, neither one is better than the other it’s just a different way to approach things. Journalists want to display all sides and allow audience to decide, whereas documentary filmmakers want audience to feel certain thing.”

Question of documentary genres brings up another very important issue in IJ – depiction of events. How far journalist can go in recreating reality? Many of the virtual environments require certain level of recreation and journalists stress the importance in accuracy of facts. G. Roberts says that postproduction processes, such as stitching, cloning are more natural due to the nature of technology: “You just have to make sure that you’re still accurately representing what’s there in that process and give extra attention that something is not being lost or added when you combine multiple lenses as opposed to one.”

Such discussion is especially important for immersive media, since it has much deeper effect on its audiences that can be easily manipulated. Stanford Journalism Program’s guide to using virtual reality for storytelling (2016) raises this issue as a need to define what IJ is: “is it a filmmaker’s personal vision? Or is it traditional news with its traditional ethics standards of balance and fairness?” It is still a question of development and experimentation on how such productions should be perceived.

Discussion

The current research findings reflect on a few important aspects of the changing perceptions towards the function of journalism in a society as well as a profession’s relationship with the audience.

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30 First, IJ implementation is seen as one solution to reestablish the public’s trust in journalism, reassert its place in a changing media landscape, and to reinvigorate the public’s duty of being informed. The monetization of IJ is under development and the immersive technology’s ability to tackle feelings of empathy provides a wide context of the story as well as enables audiences to actively participate. These could be key developmental factors for the media economy.

Secondly, IJ has greater implications for the public. Such features as embodiment or recreation of events poses new ethical challenges which require establishment of best practices in order to prevent psychological or even physical trauma that viewers can

experience if immersive technology is not used ethically. Lastly, the relationship between the public and journalism is changing. Professionals working in IJ feel a greater responsibility to educate and to actively seek for audiences for the new medium.

Nevertheless, the theoretical perspective on the role of journalism in society, as seen by Kovach and Rosenstiel (2001), is reflected in the current findings that journalists

fundamentally see themselves as providers of information to the public. Moreover,

professionals admit that the main ethical challenges in IJ remain the same as in conventional journalism, but admit that stakes in immersive media are much higher.

For now, there is no right or wrong in the IJ field – there are questions that need to be answered. Nakagawa notices that it is important to discuss ethics as the medium develops: “If ethics can be established at the early development of technology, it gives more reasons for skeptical journalists to be excited about it. Technology develops very fast nowadays, which is why discussion about ethics is even more important.”

This research is not without its limitations. Despite the current study’s aim to remain impartial and transparent, it is important to acknowledge subjectivity of the analysis’

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31 based on participants. Also, my investigation is exploratory in nature and does not provide any particular answers. Moreover, it is important to understand that my research is aimed at gaining a better understanding of the changing media landscape rather then come up with solutions for the problems analyzed.

More qualitative as well as quantitative analysis must be done in order to better understand how immersive technology affect journalistic practices. This study could be followed up by research on immersive journalism and its effect to the public. It would be interesting to concentrate on audience’s perceptions towards immersive journalism ethics by exposing audiences to IJ content and conducting focus groups that could give an insight on how the public defines immersive journalism ethics.

All in all, the current research aimed to define journalism ethics as a particular mindset. By shedding light on journalists’ perceptions of ethical IJ practices, the research becomes beneficial for communication scientists as well as journalists themselves. This study was aimed to contribute to a bigger conversation and critique that could help establish best practices in new forms of storytelling and inspire further research on a new field of IJ.

(8692 words)5

5_{As agreed with my supervisor, the thesis is longer due to the necessary quotes from the interviewees. They were used in order}

to give enough space to reflect interviewees’ sentiments and provide more depth for the research.

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