Virtual Reality Journalism

Taylor Owen, Fergus Pitt, Raney Aronson-Rath, & James Milward
November 11, 2015

Image: The Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University

After decades of research and development, virtual reality appears to be on the cusp of mainstream adoption. For journalists, the combination of immersive video capture and dissemination via mobile VR players is particularly exciting. It promises to bring audiences closer to a story than any previous platform.

Two technological advances have enabled this opportunity: cameras that can record a scene in 360-degree, stereoscopic video and a new generation of headsets. This new phase of VR places the medium squarely into the tradition of documentary—a path defined by the emergence of still photography and advanced by better picture quality, color, film, and higher-definition video. Each of these innovations allowed audiences to more richly experience the lives of others. The authors of this report wish to explore whether virtual reality can take us farther still.

To answer this question, the authors of this report assembled a team of VR experts, documentary journalists, and media scholars to conduct research-based experimentation.