New Models of Representing Reality in Digital Journalism: The Case of News Games

In this paper we analyze a new model of journalistic reporting that aims to overcome the traditional dichotomy between the normative paradigm – centered on a narrative that is as neutral as possible, detached, and uncontaminated by subjective evaluations – and the increasingly emotional and interpretative journalism that has taken shape with the rise of digital technologies. Today, the affordances that guide the uses of digital platforms promote new mechanisms of collective consumption of information, within specific ‘modes of feeling,’ and new forms of sociality built largely by algorithmic logics. Moreover, the emotional nature of social media has led to an increasing disengagement with the problem of journalistic credibility, from a rational approach, starting with a reversal of the relationship between understanding and emotionality (Davies 2018). This does not imply, however, that the media representation of reality should be reduced to a postmodernist type of perspectivism, in which there are no longer parameters for establishing what is objective. Instead, we propose a new model of the “objectivity of empathy” based on Michael Schudson's concept of ‘objectivity 3.0’: this model seeks to merge the emotional involvement of the audience with an accurate and precise account of the facts. The model is particularly suitable for analyzing the journalistic account of reality carried out through immersive and interactive digital technologies. In this context, we will analyze a case study that fits into the “objectivity 3.0” model, that of news games, i.e. the use of interactive video games and virtual reality in factual journalistic reporting.