Introduction: The Future of News Series

Exploring spatial computing opportunities for the future of journalism

Published in

The Stories Within

6 min readMay 27, 2020

This post is a part of The Stories Within series, a project by the students of Parsons School of Design as a part of the Spatial Computing Challenge under the guidance of the R&D team at The New York Times and NYC Media Lab. The project is introduced in The Future of News Series!

Immersive technologies, namely virtual reality(VR) and augmented reality(AR), are opening up a vast array of opportunities in a wide spectrum of industries, and the news industry is by no means an exception. These technological advancements are disrupting the ways journalists share their ideas and are redefining the storytelling media of the future. Rather than having digital media be an online replication of the print original, immersive technology introduces user-centered spatial dynamics and incorporates the notion of space, place and location into the process of journalism — unlocking a new degree of presence to the users. An increasing interest in these capabilities, today, is largely bringing forth the notion of “spatial journalism” to the forefront of the industry.

So What Does This Mean for the Consumer?

The use of AR and VR in the news space creates a new set of interaction methods that have the potential to immerse the reader and engage audiences deeper into the story. Instead of just reading or observing, consumers will increasingly be able to now experience news. By putting people in the center of these stories, traditional journalism is set to become a more impactful and memorable experience — more than text, images or even videos ever could. And this is precisely why news organizations have started engaging with and utilizing these technologies as part of their coverage. The New York Times is one of the most well-known news outlets experimenting with these technologies today as means to bring readers closer to the story. Through its app and website, users can “experience” select stories in augmented reality.

Our Approach

Within this context, we collaborated with the R&D team at The New York Times and NYC Media Lab on a Spatial Computing Challenge to speculate on opportunities that spatial computing might create for the future of journalism. At the beginning of this project, we thought about the use cases and potential of different media: audio, visual, and written.

Yet, since most of the experiences we see today are centered around visuals and written content, we realized that audio was being underutilized. In fact, when we think of immersion, the first thing that comes to mind is usually an experience where the visuals dominate and sound is left as an afterthought. Yet, imagine watching a movie without hearing its sound. How different would that experience be? Sound is crucial for immersion, it surrounds us in three dimensions in the physical world and should be thoughtfully considered in relation to the end-user experience.

With this in mind, we decided to experiment with different ways we can use audio to tell a story. Specifically, we explored spatial audio and leveraged the emotional appeal that comes from listening to a story, as it fosters creative imagination for the listener. So, we took a stand of combining the best of both worlds — the interactivity and spatial awareness of the visual with the convenience and emotional connection of the audio.

So What is Spatial Audio?

Spatial audio is a term which has been quoted since the 80s but has not been put into practice yet as effectively. It stands for any audio that gives a sense of space. Sound sources can be placed in a virtual sphere anywhere around the user, allowing their brains to recreate real world scenarios. When immersed in such a space, users are able to interpret and pinpoint exactly where sound is coming from — as we do in the real world. With advancements in technologies, specifically in movement tracking in mobile devices and head mounted devices, the ability to experience audio in a 3-dimensional space is changing the way audio is being created, mixed and shared over these devices.

Identifying the Opportunity in Local Journalism

As one can gather from these technologies introduced above, immersive technologies have the potential to disrupt the journalism industry in profound ways. These technologies tend to do way more than just share information, they deliver a message. With this said, after understanding the impact of these technologies and the benefits of the first-person nature these technologies provide news with, we decided to specifically tackle the issue of local journalism.

Local journalism today is declining and we could use spatial audio to revive it. The immersive nature of these technologies allows news to connect with local communities and to experience more personalized stories. It also makes every story feel real and important and makes the listener feel connected and engaged. We believe that this emotional connection immersive stories form with their users may be the key to inspiring a revival of local journalism and creating a new format to share community stories.

About the Series

In this publication, we describe three different formats for realizing an audio experience: Spatial Podcast, WebVR, and BoseAR. The series introduces, first, the process we went through to find a story and collect the assets to create these different experiences. Then, we describe how we used these three media to share stories. Since these terms are nascent and evolving, we are defining them to support our context.

Spatial Podcast: We define Spatial Podcast as a new format of podcast. The listening experience involves a three dimensional arrangement of audio, which is spatialized to create an immersive audio experience.

WebVR: Virtual Reality on the web allows ease-of-access to virtual environments. We have added spatial soundscapes to this experience to make WebVR feel more immersive.

360 Spatial Audio Experience

BoseAR: Bose introduced a new technology by integrating audio in Augmented Reality. This allows the sounds to be interactive based on the head movement of the listener.

Who Should Read This?

Reporters and journalists who want to get up to speed on how to use immersive technologies.
Audio and music producers looking for the future of audio storytelling.
Anyone who is curious about spatial audio stories or the intersection of journalism and immersive technologies.

Our aim of writing this series is to share the process we went through and to provide tutorials on how we designed our experiences to anyone interested in creating spatial stories.

And now, let’s jump straight into exploring the future of news with Part 2: Process!

About the Team

Akshansh Chaudhary is an XR Experience Designer. In his projects, he focuses on social and world issues like privacy and local news. His design approach is to create immersive and playful experiences to spread awareness. Follow his work on akshansh.net.

Karen Asmar is a design technologist working at the intersection of the built environment, society and human-computer interaction. Her work focuses on exploring the impact of emerging technologies on ways we interact in space, with space and with data in space. Follow her work on karenasmar.com.

Ponvishal Chidambaranathan is a fervent immersive storyteller and digital producer with a strong inclination towards innovative, philosophically charged content in unconventional storytelling and interactive media. Follow his work on ponvishal.com.

Yashwanth Iragattapu is a creative technologist and interaction designer. He creates products that encompasses human and spatial interactions through emerging technologies like Augmented reality and Virtual reality. Follow his work on yashwanthiragattapu.com.

Debra Anderson is an entrepreneur and educator specialized in XR. She is recognized for designing data-driven and research based approaches to immersive experiences with a focus on how data and emerging technologies can be used for civic engagement and social impact.