Wearable technology is the future of journalism
Snapchat Spectacles and Google Glasses are the next best tool for citizen journalists
Wearable technologies are fast becoming a consumer product and mainstream reality. They are constantly being developed. These new emerging technologies are trying to encourage the public to engage with professional media, more so than ever before.
The industry is suffering from reduced audiences and falling profits but wearable technology and hand-held devices provide a good solution to improving this.
Since the twin towers fell down on 9/11, citizen journalism flew off the ground and since then, some of the most important news stories of our time have been told through the perspective of people with mobile devices.
Traditional media have slowly realised that citizen journalists are becoming involved in the curation of news too and that the role doesn't just belong to professionals anymore.
Yusef Omar, co-founder of Hashtag Our Stories, a platform that allows ordinary citizens to create their own stories and be able to tell them, spoke to Newsrewired in a video in 2019 about his project.
Introduced in October 2017, Hashtag Our Stories has recognised user-generated content as necessary and needed in the world of journalism today.
The aim of the project is to help more citizens to become effective story tellers and citizen journalists through the use of mobile phones and cameras. By using digital tools, Hashtag Our Stories helps ordinary people tell their unique stories to a global audience.
The Hashtag Our Stories team have travelled to around 40 countries of low economic income and trained small communities on how to tell their stories using mobile devices. Then, the editing team curate that footage into content that can be shown to thousands of people online.
Alternatively, the team have created an augmented reality lens that can be sent to users via social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or Snapchat. Hashtag Our Stories created their own lens on Snapchat via Snapcodes that allow people to load on-screen instructions to guide them through the story-telling process. The instructions explain how to shoot good quality content and describe what shots to take in order to tell an effective story. Users were advised to accomplish all these prompts before sending their content in to be edited.
A team of journalists exist within this project to fact-check and verify content before turning it into millions of stories that people can view every day. The project’s purpose is to train more people to become citizen journalists too enable everybody's voice to be heard. It encourages ordinary people to tell their stories that often go unnoticed in mainstream media.
In the video, Yusef Omar explains how this project proves how citizen journalists and professionals can work together and collaborate to share news. Often it is thought that citizen journalism is over-taking the journalistic role of professionals because of the opportunities it provides. However, Omar believes that traditional journalism is still necessary for verification and truthful publishing of content onto websites and social media sites.
Snapchat Spectacles
Currently, Yusef Omar and his team are developing another form of wearable technology called Snapchat spectacles.
The glasses have 2 cameras, one in either lens and produce good-quality 3 dimensional video. Currently, the glasses are being used to produce a show called CU where stories are told through the eyes of different people.
“Global stories through people’s perspectives”
The same video linked above describes how these spectacles enable a person to jump into somebody else’s world by literally seeing it through their eyes. The glasses can record videos when placed onto someone’s face by simply pressing a button. The video’s record from a person’s eye perspective to give the effect of people being able to quite literally see what you see.
“Reality is the new quality”
This new device allows people to record good, raw and authentic footage that other citizens can relate too. Amateur, shaky and poor quality footage has never been valued more than it is today as it portrays realism of the world and what is happening inside it.
“We value authenticity and reality more than contrived production values”
In one incident, Omar explains how the Snapchat Spectacles were placed on the eyes of a young girl who had lost her leg as she was running a marathon. A professional camera would never have been able to keep pace with her whilst the spectacles gave an exclusive and intimate view of the girl in her situation.
Google Glass
According to journalism.co.uk, Popular American TV news channel CNN aims to turn Google Glass users into citizen journalists with it’s user-generated platform iReport.
A blog named ‘Journalism in the Americas’ discloses that currently only around 30, 000 people in the US own a pair of Google Glasses as they are exclusively reserved for ‘Glass Explorers’ at the moment. However, they are expensive which is currently stopping them from becoming a mainstream device.
Similar to the Snapchat Spectacles, the device allows users to tell their stories by sharing images and videos with CNN on an app. Users submit content which is assessed by editors and distributed online and even broadcast by CNN.
In an article named ‘Could Google Glass change the face of Journalism?’ written by Journalism.co.uk , iReport editor Katie Hawkins-Gaar explained how;
“You never know when you’ll spot breaking news, and it’s a simple, fast way to share the images and videos you capture with your Glass”
Google Glass allows citizens to capture breaking news quickly and easily and allows users to broadcast live from a scene when wearing the glasses using voice activation.
“I think Glass takes you to a place you can’t go by yourself or with a regular camera”
The glasses allows for audiences to get a feel for someones personality through the intimate perspective that the glasses provide them with. The glasses capture this because people are more willing to let you into their world when using devices such as this as it is less intrusive. The cameras aren’t obvious or in a person’s face making them feel more comfortable and empowering them.
Implications
Despite this, the development of wearable technology is still in its early stages. With the Google Glasses, there is a low battery life and limited storage space but there is still plenty of time for technology to improve and overcome this considering the glasses are still in beta.
The glasses may also raise some ethical issues as well due to their discreet impact and intimacy. In professional journalism, big cameras are used to film and interviewee’s are often asked if they give their permission to be on camera with the option to decline.
The Google Glasses and Snapchat Spectacles present the option for journalists to ignore traditional ethics. If the glasses are on your face and you begin having a conversation with someone, there is potential that you could be filming them without them knowing. Due to the intimacy and closeness of the glasses, the personalities and features of the people your speaking to will be identifiable.
“The problem with Google Glass is that, even if you’re not recording, you are now wearing something that is synonymous with being recorded everywhere, with being on camera whenever that person is looking at you”- Alex Hern, Technology editor for the Guardian
However, with all the implications considered, the Google Glasses and Snapchat Spectacles could be very useful in capturing altercations that may be disputed or rendered untrue. Once footage is captured, it is stored and streamed off-site and can’t be deleted from the person who the glasses belong too.
This video shows scenes of violence happening in Turkey captured by a journalist wearing Google Glasses. Although of poor quality, the footage captures exactly what is happening in the world at the moment and captures the fear and terror surrounding these events.
This kind of wearable technology is still being tried and tested and its wider implications still yet need to be explored and developed. The impact these types of technologies are having on journalism is already evident even at this stage. There is no doubt wearable technology could become ground-breaking in the future, providing yet again another major turning point for citizen journalism.