Virtual reality and emerging technologies for small news organizations
Should small newsrooms invest and experiment in VR?
The following are more (long) excerpts from a Slack chat with members of The Little Rebellion, part of Nancy Heiz’s SUNY New Paltz advanced editing journalism class. Here’s part I.
In this follow-up post, I’ll explore immersive storytelling and emerging technologies, specifically virtual reality and 360 content as they relate to journalism and small newsrooms.
Let’s get right to it!
Will virtual reality have a transformative role in journalism?
Virtual reality is not going to fundamentally affect journalism in a revolutionary way, for a number of reasons, which include its limitations (too expensive, blocks your view of reality) and market penetration (not many people have it and nobody has it at all times).
It is, currently, another tool that helps tell stories in a new way.
However! Some of VR’s parts and other technologies are starting to form a new paradigm, which I do believe will change the way we consume information in a fundamental way, which could shake up and disrupt journalism’s forms and distribution, just as the internet and social media have done before.
Because with these new technologies, everything’s a platform.
On their own, a number of these emerging processes have failed to live up to their potential or overhyped promises (hello QR codes and Google Glass). But if you take these technologies’ best traits and seamlessly incorporate them into existing everyday affairs, then you can see how the way we get our news will change, and we won’t even notice.
For example, QR codes “failed” because they were cumbersome to use and goals for them were too ambitious. But they didn’t go away; they were simply absorbed by other technologies to perform modest and realistic functions — from Facebook Messenger to Snapchat codes to authenticator and recognition apps, which include Google Cardboard viewers.
Similarly, there are many good things that came out of Google Glass, and you can see its influence in Snap’s Spectacles or the emerging augmented reality field.
And then there’s the internet of things, plus artificial intelligence helpers like Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant and Cortana. And we’re not that far off from augmented and mixed reality (look at Microsoft HoloLens) on a mass market scale, but we won’t be there until the tech gets small and comfortable (or invisible) and affordable, and one of the ways to get there is to integrate such tech into everyday objects.
Right now, basically, we are in the baby stages of this emerging tech. So you need a phone to catch a Charizard (I know, “nobody” is doing that anymore, but whatevs). The next step is probably glasses that add 3D models to your view; the step after that is probably holograms and screenless displays.
What would your favorite news provider look like in a mirror when you’re brushing your teeth? How do you design the news for a fridge? Already, there are news apps for smartwatches and smart assistants.
Take artificial intelligence, for example. It’s already here, although not quite in the way we think of it (pick your favorite sci-fi movie or Boston Dynamics GIF).
From algorithms to automatic captions that learn the user’s accent, there are a number of processes that already use AI aids in the production of stories.
A lot more of these aids involve not-so-intelligent processes (automation), for example, code that scrapes primary documents for content, or Twitter robots, or AP articles written by robots for basic business stories or sports results (and also video).
All these emerging processes are supposed to make jobs easier — as they should and do — but they will also replace the people who do these jobs to a degree, depending on how the tech is applied in the industry. I know the academic version of this is that AI and automation will make everything simpler, but they will also displace those who do the work currently and have not developed new skills.
I can certainly see corporations overreaching and trying to replace actual humans with “machine learning” and “funnels” of content.
But generally speaking, the change is positive in that a single journalist is able to do a lot more, thanks to technology. The analogy I’d use is doing old-school research of an academic paper in a physical library to find a quote versus finding the same quote quickly by doing a search via Google Scholar.
Our small newsroom’s experimentation with these emerging technologies is part of a realization that platform adaptation is a constant. We go where our audience is, yes, but the idea also is to have a good handle on these platforms and technologies by the time they become commonplace.
So when is this happening?
In a sense, it’s all here already. Your Android phone or iPhone (6 or higher, sorry) is a VR device. All you need is a viewer, and viewers are cheap.
There are tons of apps, and everything that’s on YouTube can be seen in VR in the YouTube app. It’s entry level because the quality is limited by the phone capacity and connection bandwidth, and you can’t move around in the space or grab things. But the wow factor is there, and it’s a good introduction to VR.
If you get the Google Street View app, you can use the same phone to take a 360 picture that you can view in VR with the very same phone plus a Google Cardboard viewer.
If you want to check out VR for the first time, I’d start with the Cardboard app, and then some VR roller coasters (just do a search for that in the app store). For story examples, check out NYT VR, RYOT (via Apple or Android) and Within. There are many others, and, yes, some stories overlap among the apps.
If you want to make some 360 and VR content in a smaller newsroom, it’s not super simple to create. That’s just a reality.
Simplicity is something we had in mind when we purchased a Ricoh Theta S over a year ago, with the idea that it would be as easy as pressing a button (which it is), and then the upload happens in the background or at the office, and everything else that’s part of the reporting still takes place as usual.
The Ricoh Theta S is not good for videos, though, as the resolution is too low (1080p is not good when you have to wrap the pixels in a sphere), so we’re playing with an Insta360 Nano (with an iPhone), which has better resolution and is also easy to use.
Both cameras have their own apps for simple stitching and editing, and that’s enough for us.
(For the cost-conscious among you: The Theta S was $360 at the time. The Nano is $200.)
But is VR or 360 needed?
When you’re planning to cover a story, a good starting point for determining if VR or 360 is not needed is to ask yourself a simple question: Is this something people may want to look around?
Many times, a reporter or videographer has gone to cover an event with the camera and returned without 360/VR content because the story did not need it or doing it was not practical, and that’s okay. As a small newsroom, we’re not going to be doing high-caliber documentary-level VR stories. So covering stories in VR and 360 can be a challenge. We’ve covered some protests, festivals and sporting and weather events, which fit our resources and capabilities.
Larger publications and outfits are doing more immersive, personal stories. Reveal did an interesting, character-centered narrative, “Disfellowshipped.” StoryUP has done many empathy-centered narratives, including one on what it’s like to experience a stroke. And then there’s PBS’s “Frontline.”
But if you’re a small publication with limited time and resources, and you’re trying to create something that will resonate with your community, the immediate ideas that come to mind are stories covering protests, sporting events and fairs, or extreme weather, such as a storm or flood, as these are news events that have an immediate impact when they happen. Travel pieces are another option.
This is basically a recognition that, in our newsroom, at least, we won’t be doing a documentary-level production (which we don’t do with regular video either); we won’t be making the kind of film that can really push the envelope. Furthermore, the proper length is still being debated. How long will people watch a VR feature that’s not interactive? For our purposes, we top the experiences at two minutes longer if doing them live, because that’s another matter. Processing time is yet another reason we keep them short.
But these are not rules. Everyone is currently trying different things, from The New York Times’ Daily 360 to AP360° to our less polished “at the scene”-style videos.
It’s worth pointing out that, for us, Facebook is best for distribution of 360 videos and even 360 live videos. We aren’t producing content to be necessarily seen in a VR setting, because there aren’t that many consumers in our community with VR devices.
As a side note, Facebook — and Vimeo — have 360 controls; Facebook and YouTube both have automatic captions, as well. (Thanks, artificial intelligence!) But a Facebook embed won’t work on all mobile devices. And YouTube embeds will stretch the video.
I haven’t talked about monetization — it wasn’t part of the chat — but I wanted to touch on it briefly. Currently, VR can work better as a complementary tech when it’s rolled in with the other news offerings, so the monetization is already built around it (YouTube, page views, etc.). That is likely the most reasonable way to go — unless, of course, you have your own tech and players and apps and you are The New York Times, you bastards.
But the main purpose from a news perspective is to better inform your audience. VR and 360 content have the potential to bring your audience to the very place where the news happens. The basic production is easy and relatively cheap, and getting easier, and the platforms are already there, with built-in audiences to boot.
So today, as a tool of the trade, 360 and VR content can be a reasonable offering from a small newsroom.
Go break some things.
Originally published at dailyfreeman.blogspot.com.
