Immersive journalism: a narrative analysis in virtual reality apps

This paper, which is part of the field of immersive journalism studies, compares the narrative of contents published in El Pais VR, Folha 360 degrees, Estadao RV and NYT VR, specific applications for 360 degree productions of the newspapers El Pais (Spain), Folha de S. Paulo and Estado de S. Paulo (Brazil) and New York Times (United States). In addition to identify the main characteristics of 51 publications, the main of this study is to verify the level of immersion these contents provide to the users. Due to this, a content analysis has been carried out, based on methodological contributions by authors from different countries. The final result points out that the spatial immersion level is much higher than the sensory level in most of the sample, which leads to a relative virtual reality experience for the user. Hence, with the exception of the content of NYT VR, the user does not usually feel involved psychologically about to immerse totally in the story and forget reality. Therefore, it is necessary to encourage the creation of more innovative initiatives with digital avatar narratives.