Immersive journalism and new audience relationship

The chapter aims to explore the use of virtual reality (VR) and other immersive technologies, such as 360-degree panoramic video, augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR), in journalism and how these technologies offer new forms of storytelling and alter relations between creator/journalist and user/audience. We have proposed a new analytical model to study different actors in the forming of immersive journalism and its immersive experience through the conceptual lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). This chapter argues that technology, producers and users are three important actors that interact with each other in the formation of ‘immersion’. These new practices of immersive journalism have allowed the rise of new journalistic culture characterized with participation and gamification, in which there is a shift of power from journalists to users and a new episteme of fact and experience.