1.What is Immersive Journalism?
1.沉浸式新闻是什么？
Immersive Journalism is the production of news in a form in which people can gain first-person experiences of the events of situation described in news stories.[1]
沉浸式新闻是一种能让观众从新闻故事中获得相关事件或场景的第一人称体验的一种新闻生产方式。
In immersive journalism, the audience will be allowed to enter a virtually recreated scenario representing the news story, and thus become a participant.
在沉浸式新闻中，观众能够进入一个虚拟重构的代表新闻故事的场景，从而成为这个新闻故事的参与者。
Typically, the participant will be represented in the form of a digital avatar. Through the animated 3D digital representation, the participant can see the world from the first-person perspective.
通常，参与者将被一个数字化身所代表。通过这个动画的3D替身，参与者能够从第一人称的角度来感受新闻中的世界。
2.Project Syria – Bring the daily trauma of Syrian war to life
2.《叙利亚项目》—还原叙利亚战场上的痛苦
Project Syria is a 2014 project launched by the University of Southern California’s Interactive Media Lab. It uses VR goggles[2] to place virtual visitors inside the precisely recreated world of a Syrian citizen caught in the conflict.
《叙利亚项目》是由南加州大学交互媒体实验室于2014年发起的一个项目。它利用VR眼镜，将体验者们带入虚拟重构的场景中，亲身感受被战火困扰的叙利亚公民所处的环境。
It’s regarded as an exemplar of “immersive journalism” owing to its capacity to people inside the news story.
它能够将参与者带入新闻故事中去，被认为是沉浸式新闻的一个范例。
As is known to all, Syria has always been the most dangerous country in the world to see a reporter. It’s reported that media coverage since the 2013 chemical attack has trailed off precipitously.
众所周知，叙利亚一直是世界上对新闻工作者而言最危险的国家。据报道，2013年的化学攻击发生之后，有关叙利亚的媒体报道量已经急剧减少。
And that’s why virtual reality technology matters. Thanks to virtual reality technology, there is now a way to put people outside Syria on the ground in the middle of the war without risking their safety.
而这，正是虚拟现实技术大放异彩的原因。虚拟现实技术的出现，使得叙利亚之外的人们能“置身”与战场之中，同时他们的安全也不会受到威胁。
Project Syria gives the participants two scenarios. One is a bomb explosion on a busy street in Aleppo, and the other is a refugee camp. To rebuild the two scenarios, the team had to conduct extensive research to make the situations as accurate as possible.
《叙利亚项目》为参与者们提供了两个场景，第一个是在阿勒颇繁忙街道上的一次爆炸，第二个则是一个难民营。为了重建这两个场景，项目团队需要进行大量的调查来尽可能保证场景的精确。
For instance, for the bomb scenario, the team had analyzed diverse video form the aftermath of the explosion to come as close as possible to duplicating the actual event.
例如，为了完成爆炸场景的重建，团队分析了大量的在那场爆炸发生后流出的现场视频，来确保他们所复刻的场景与真实场景尽可能地一致。
Project Syria was displayed in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and people’s reactions after viewing it have been really intense. That might be a great beginning.
《叙利亚项目》在伦敦维多利亚阿尔伯特博物馆展映后，人们的反映十分强烈。对于沉浸式新闻而言，这也许是一个好的开始。
As VICE commented on it, “putting people into Project Syria obviously won’t end the civil war that’s currently tearing the country apart.
正如VICE所评论的，“把人们带入叙利亚项目中显然并不会终止这场正在分裂这个国家的内乱。
But the act of bearing witness is still vital, and the empathetic experience offered by virtual reality offers us the chance to bear witness like never before, and, in the process, better understand the plight of civilians caught in war.”
但是，‘成为目击者’的行动仍然是十分关键的。虚拟现实所提供给我们的同理心体验带给了我们史无前例的‘成为目击者’的机会。在这个过程中，我们将更能理解叙利亚人民所遭受的苦难。”
3.What distinguishes Immersive Journalism?
3.沉浸式新闻有何特点？
1）Objectivity and the sense of being on scene
1） 坚守客观性 营造在场感
Immersive Journalism doesn’t change the principle of objectivity in traditional journalism. What distinguishes immersive journalism and traditional journalism is the “sense of presence”。
沉浸式新闻并没有改变传统新闻的客观性原则。使沉浸式新闻区别于传统新闻的，是一种“现场感”。
Nonny de la Pena, the producer of Project Syria said in her TED speech, “You’re in the middle of that scene, and you hear those sounds, and you see the injured around you. It’s an incredibly scaring and real feeling.”
正如诺尼·德拉·佩纳，《叙利亚项目》的制作人，在她的TED演讲中所说，“你就在现场，你听到那些声音，你看到伤员就在你的身边。这是一种不可思议的真实且骇人的体验。”
2） From viewers to participants
2） 从观看者到参与者
Actually the immersive journalism is in some way quite similar to the VR documentaries. What’s different is that the participants in immersive journalism are far more free.
事实上，沉浸式新闻在某种层面上与VR纪录片十分相似。但这二者的不同在于，沉浸式新闻的参与者们更加自由，他们可以运动和互动。
In a VR documentary, the viewers just sit there, wearing their VR goggles, viewing the events. They can’t move, they can’t act, no matter how vivid experience they got, they are just viewers.
在VR纪录片中，观看者们只是坐在位置上，戴上VR眼镜，观看整个事件。他们不能移动，也不能有所行动。不管他们所获得的体验多么生动，他们也只是观看者。
But in immersive journalism, the exhibition space itself is equipped with motion sensing cameras that track your movement around the staging area, translating that real movement into the virtual environment.
而在沉浸式新闻中，展览场地自身配有运动感知摄像机，它可以记录下你在场地内的运动轨迹，并且把你的运动轨迹转化进虚拟场景中去。
For example, in Project Syria, based on the real-place audios and videos the team found the explosion time and spots by dealing with a large number of data and restored the authentic scene.
例如，在《叙利亚项目》中，项目团队基于真实的音频与视频，在分析了大量数据之后找到了爆炸的时间与地点，并复刻了真实的场景。
The audience is like in the middle of a Syria block which is suffering an explosion, and they will witness how the explosion happened and how the injured people panicked.
观众就好像置身于一个正在遭受轰炸的叙利亚街区的中央，他们将身临其境地看到爆炸是怎样发生的、伤员有多么恐慌。
3） Authenticity and the sense of powerlessness
3） 真实性与无力感
When the audience are seeing a immersive journalism work, their experience is quite like a game player’s. However, in the games, the player can fight, can change things, can do things to achieve their goal.
当观众们在体验一个沉浸式新闻作品时，他们的体验与一个游戏玩家的体验十分相似。然而，在网络游戏中，玩家可以战斗，可以做出改变，可以采取行动来达到他们的目标。
But in the immersive journalism, the participant are just a digital avatar, they don’t have the power to change anything. As Nonny de la Pena said in TED, “I won’t give you a real body or a physical existence in the virtual world, because the viewer shouldn’t have the agency to change the history.”
但是在沉浸式新闻中，参与者只是一个数字化身，他们没有任何力量去改变任何事。正如诺尼·德拉·佩纳在TED的舞台上所说，“我不会给你一个在虚拟世界里存在的身体或者一个物理存在形式，因为观看者不应该有介质去改变历史。”
And this principle, on the one hand, consolidates the authenticity of journalism; on the other hand, it deepens the sense of powerlessness of the audience.
也正是这样的原则，一方面巩固了新闻的真实性；另一方面，也加深了参与者的无力感。
（文中未注明详细来源图片来自互联网中可被允许使用的作品）
参考文献「Reference」
[1]Nonny de la Pena. Immersive Journalism: Immersive Virtual Reality for the First-Person Experience of News[J]. Presence, 2010, 19（4）：291-301.
[2] Goggle原意指“护目镜”、“泳镜”，VR Goggles是VR眼镜的一种。
[3]Christopher Malmo. A New Virtual Reality Tool Brings the Daily Trauma of the Syrian War to Life[EB/OL]. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/jp5jx3/virtual-reality-is-bringing-the-syrian-war-to-life.
