In the wake of the great 2017 virtual reality bubble — and its subsequent burst — several things have happened. While augmented reality (AR) has taken over much of the momentum and attention, we’re seeing broader changes in the way we create and distribute 3D content.
News outlets like The New York Times and Quartz are already combining AR with journalism to create augmented reality features, providing readers with new understanding and interaction with their journalism through 3D models.
One recent example of 3D and journalism combining to make something greater than the sum of its parts came as Norway experienced a collective information vacuum. A major and seemingly impossible collision between a battleship and an oil tanker led to a media frenzy — but mostly unanswered questions as the Norwegian navy largely kept silent.
But by combining old-school journalism with open data and off-the-shelf 3D models, several Norwegian media outlets were able to piece together an advanced recreation. Both virtual 3D-models and real-life 3D-printed models helped explain the “impossible” scenario of the collision to the public.
Simultaneously, we saw how improved graphics capabilities at reduced cost make gaming-level graphics available to journalists — creating tremendous possibilities for explaining current affairs visually. In the U.S., The Weather Channel is pushing boundaries by using the Unreal Engine that also powers Fortnite to create explainers:
In 2019, we’ll see great improvements in mobile 3D volumetric capture, a technology that enables the digitization of three-dimensional space. While it’s been possible to capture 3D space with drones and phones for some time, quality has been a limiting factor.
Now, the rear-facing cameras on new phones will make 3D accessible to smaller newsrooms and independent journalists too. LG’s recent patent for a phone featuring 16 camera lenses, with 3D movies and images touted as a central feature, is a sign of what we can expect in the near future. All these new phone cameras will make it easier to create models that can enhance our journalism.
The first of many gaps between different mobile 3D technologies are now being closed. Currently, we’re seeing advanced camera technology and depth sensing on new phones with two or more cameras. Now, through Facebook’s recent adoption of 3D images and services like Depthy, easy-to-create 3D content has the potential for broader distribution.
As mobile 3D technology matures, it will undoubtedly provide new possibilities and pitfalls for media and journalism — and find its way into even the smallest newsrooms.
Ståle Grut is a journalist and strategic advisor at NRKbeta.
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change