Immersive journalism has been defined as "the production of news in a form in which people can gain first-person experiences of the events or situation described in news stories". There is growing interest in the exploitation of virtual reality for the recounting of news stories, especially topical with the advent of consumer oriented virtual reality in very recent times, and set to grow even further during 2016. Major news organizations such as the New York Times and BBC have taken up this media, with many others set to follow suit. Immersive journalism is heralded as a revolutionary way to give people first hand experiences of news stories, but also with some wariness about its ethical implications, so that this area is rapidly becoming of major importance in the world of journalism and beyond. For this Research Topic we invite articles addressing some of the many topics that have arisen in the course of discussions about ‘immersive journalism’. For example:

- The purpose and scope of news via virtual reality
- Ethical and legal aspects of news through VR
- Technical issues, including the comparison of computer graphics based VR compared to 360 degree video
- The impact on methods of production
- New paradigms for storytelling in the context of news
- Methods of interaction – for example, how to allow consumers of VR news to move through an environment, how to ensure that they actually focus on the core of the story rather than be looking elsewhere
- The use of AI techniques in production
- Advantages and disadvantages of immersive journalism compared to traditional media presentations

Frontiers offers many different types of possible papers – see here: http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/robotics-and-ai/section/virtual-environments#article-types

For this Research Topic we will also allow “Demonstration Papers” where authors submit downloadable examples of immersive journalism pieces, with the corresponding articles focusing on aspects of those pieces – for example, the technical issues involved, the interface for the consumers, how news production values were realised, the objectives of the piece including why immersive journalism was chosen as the production method, and so on. The goal is to be informative, to be informative for practitioners and researchers in this emerging field.

Keywords: Journalism, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Immersive, News, 360VR

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.