Impact with VR
An industry I’d like to impact with VR is journalism.
I’d like to bring journalism closer to youth, who have drifted away from traditional newspaper driven journalism, who consume media in a totally different way from their parents and who don’t watch the news on TV anymore.
A persona likely to use my VR related to journalism would look like this:

- Age: 15
- Occupation: School student
- Name: Otto
- A Quote: ”Everything in life is possible.”
- Otto is motivated by social media, his friends and hobbies. He loves skateboarding, shooting his own videos and playing the drums.
- Experience level with VR: Some experience in VR and AR games, Pokemon Go and Angry Birds.
Questions to help to make a desicion on the platform:
- How accessible would each VR platform be to the target student in terms of price? Taking into account location, age, and income.
For someone like Otto who has no income yet, Google Cardboard would be the most accessible on all levels. Only if Otto had parents who are willing to invest in him more, they might purchase a High End mobile VR or High Immersion VR. Since Otto is not really an active gamer, high end devises would not make sense.
- How interactive does the lesson need to be? For example, do I need to pick things up or could I get away with just looking at objects?
Creating great journalistic narrative doesn’t necessarily have to be very interactive in the sense of picking up objects. Depending on the themes, interactivity might add to the experience, but overall, looking around, observing, listening and learning would suffice in this app.
- How realistic do the visuals need to be in order to teach? For example, could 2D images and videos be used in a 3D Environment or do you need high poly 3D models.
In this app 2D images and videos could be used in a 3 D environment.
- Does the student need to feel like a participant in the experience or can they be a passive viewer? Could they be both?
The participant would mostly be a passive viewer. If there is a journalistic story in which the participant needs to make choices — for instance something to do with the refugee crises – then a more active role would support the narrative. The journalistic stories could have multiple endings and alternative storylines, depending on which course of action the player takes.
- Given the answers above, what are potential platforms that could be useed for the experience?
Google Cardboard looks like the most likely option for this type of an app. High End mobile VR would be possible too (The Gear VR and Daydream VR) and High Immersion VR would give a different experience with the hand controllers, but the price category would most likely become too high for the end user.