Immersive journalism in VR: Four theoretical domains for researching a narrative design framework

Abstract

A major focus of research in Virtual Reality (VR) media examines the technological affordances for creating immersion, which in turn can generate presence – the feeling of being there – in a virtual environment. This research has given rise to an emerging form of fact-based storytelling called immersive journalism, a term used to describe digitally produced stories designed to provide a first-person, interactive experience with news events. This paper examines the concept of immersive journalism and discusses both its potential and its limitations as a narrative and journalistic genre. Immersive journalism will require a new narrative design framework, and four theoretical domains are discussed as underscoring this framework. The four are VR presence, narrative, cognition and journalistic ethics.