Abstract:  Emotional journalism is being driven by audiovisual technology such as drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, which have demonstrated their usefulness in transforming objective news into news stories from a new visual perspective, facilitating access to dangerous or difficult places. They also allow for greater immersion by an audience that has become an active participant in the news, and they contribute to the storytelling of communication despite the risk to privacy and security that their misuse might entail. The aim of this research is to determine the differences in attention and intensity of the emotions experienced when viewing two pieces of audiovisual news: One was filmed with the technological support of a drone, and the other was produced in the conventional way. The techniques of eye tracking and galvanic skin response were used in 30 Spanish university students. The results suggest that attention was focused on the most spectacular visual elements, although the images filmed with a drone received a higher concentration of attention from the subjects, and this attention was spread throughout the entire image, which demonstrates that drones enhance the effectiveness of panoramic images with natural landscapes. The greatest emotion generated by viewing the images recorded with drones was statistically significant, but it was limited exclusively to these particular scenes, and not to the entire recording of the news.

Keywords:  audiovisual technology; breaking news; communication; drone; emotional journalism; eye tracking; galvanic skin response; neuromarketing; unmanned aerial vehicles

Published:   27 July 2020

Issue:   Vol 8, No 3 (2020): Journalism from Above: Drones, the Media, and the Transformation of Journalistic Practice