There’s no debating that journalism is in the throes of a major digital overhaul. Media companies are placing big bets on video, Facebook has become a force to be reckoned with and 169-year-old publishing powerhouses are completely rebranding.
Modern readers have moved online, and are skimming articles in a haystack of content that floods their inboxes and social networking feeds every day. With this influx of easy-to-access content, a desensitization to the world’s news has ensued. Headlines of bombings, shootings, rape and death regularly flood the many corners of the internet.
Empathetic Media is a company looking to change that.
In a nutshell, Empathetic Media is a media and technology agency looking to relay the world’s stories using virtual reality, augmented reality, 3D scanning and 360-degree video. At the core of the startup’s technological capabilities is a mission to foster empathy in its audiences, utilizing the storytelling power of graphic journalism.
One of the company’s first projects, called Ferguson Firsthand, was completed in partnership with Fusion in 2015 to allow viewers to move through an immersive recreation of the Ferguson shooting — and experience the event as an eyewitness through virtual reality.
On the augmented reality side of the business, Empathetic Media recently released an app called “ARc Stories.” When you download the app, you are presented with two stories. One, walks you through the events preceding Freddie Gray’s death after he was arrested by police officers in Baltimore on April 19, 2015. The other takes you on a tour of Donald Trump’s real estate empire to help you understand the wealth of the presidential GOP frontrunner.
Both stories allow viewers to experience first-person accounts of major world events, supplemented by 3D animations, infographics, textual annotations, maps and audio content.
Not only are these types of experiences viscerally powerful, but they also give viewers agency in how they digest a story. Using Empathetic Media’s technology, viewers interact and experiment with a computer-generated, 3D world, as the company wants its audiences to feel the weight of this type of narrative.
Empathetic Media was founded in 2015 by Dan Archer, a journalist who has pioneered virtual reality journalism. The company currently works out of the Made in NY Media Center in DUMBO, Brooklyn.
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