Visual Ethics by Paul Martin Lester

Author:Paul Martin Lester [Paul Martin Lester]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Digital Media
Publisher: Focal Press
Published: 2018-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

The Future of News

It is quite possible that AR will eventually overtake VR, but in the meantime, virtual reality dominates news stories and the public’s imagination. Media entities such as “Frontline,” ABC, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Des Moines Register, Time magazine, VICE, the Verge, and Ryot, games from HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR, as well as educational institutions such as the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California (USC) have created critically acclaimed VR motion pictures.

Most notably, “Harvest of Change” (n.d.) detailed life on a family farm in Iowa produced by staff members of the Des Moines Register. The New York Times distributed more than one million Google cardboard virtual reality viewers to subscribers and smartphone users to watch documentaries such as “Walking New York,” a tour of the wonderfully crowded streets of my home town and “Seeking Pluto’s Frigid Heart,” a view of the dwarf planet from the New Horizons spacecraft. Film director Spike Jonze worked with the United Nations for a documentary titled “Clouds Over Sidra,” that featured a 12-year-old Syrian girl’s experience at a refugee camp in Jordan. Jonze, a creative director for VICE and Chris Milk, a digital artist teamed to produce “the first-ever virtual reality news broadcast” titled, “VICE News VR: Millions March,” an eight-minute film that featured New York City protesters concerned with police violence (Gutelle, 2015). Ryot in conjunction with the news website The Huffington Post produced “Protect the Sacred” about the Standing Rock, North Dakota pipeline protest in 2D, 3D, and anaglyph (blue and red filtered sunglasses) 720 degree versions. The New York Times was one of the first media entities to use virtual reality technology with a smartphone app to immerse viewers into news stories. In The New York Times’ 11-minute film, “The Displaced” (2017), three children from South Sudan, the Ukraine, and Lebanon are “driven from their homes by war.” The experience of riding a bicycle from the perspective of a child is exhilarating and emotionally connecting. Rawls’ empathic philosophy, the veil of ignorance, is again evoked.

On the academic side, university programs have collaborated with VR startups and news organizations to train a new generation of immersive storytellers. From assignments offered within traditional photojournalism classes such as at the University of Texas at Dallas to entire courses concentrated on AR and VR production such as those offered at Syracuse University, students learn to use the technology to engage viewers as never before. As universities offer more immersive storytelling courses and deliver their graduates to industry innovators, additional uses for MR and VR will be discovered with users demanding more. In the end, it will be up to consumers to decide whether MR, VR, or a hybrid will ultimately be the favored platform for immersive storytelling.

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