Proposal for a new communicative model in immersive journalism

Abstract

Different forms of communication have emerged throughout history and most of them have been linked to technological innovations. This fact has allowed the development, since the 1950s, of a powerful theoretical tradition specialized in the analysis of communication processes, which has resulted in the formulation of different communication theories. Recently, the emergence of Virtual Reality and 360-degree video has opened new analytical perspectives in relation to communication mediated by these technologies. Precisely, this article analyzes the narrative elements that are modified by the intervention of Virtual Reality and the peculiarities caused by the introduction of this technology in the communication process within a specific context such as journalism. This area of study has been selected because Virtual Reality and 360-degree video technologies are increasingly being used in the creation of journalistic content, which has resulted in the emergence of the so-called ‘immersive journalism’. Based on this analysis, the article proposes a new model for ‘immersive communication’ and a model for ‘the structure of immersive journalism’, which is totally novel in the journalistic context.