The diffusion of immersive journalism as media innovation from media professionals’ perspectives

While immersive journalism (IJ) has been seen as one of the most significant innovations in the journalism field in the past decade, its advance seems to have been halted. This article studies the diffusion trajectory of IJ in news media from professionals’ experience to better understand how media innovation works in the contemporary media field. What led to the news media’s decisions to start/stop their IJ project, and how were these decisions made? This study approaches these research questions by interviewing 13 experienced professionals from different roles in news media who have worked on IJ. The results identify three groups of core actors in the decision-making process in news media innovation: key users (champions), early adopters, and media leaders and managers. At the same time, there are clear influences from existing newsroom culture and conventions on news media’s innovation activities. Furthermore, the study sheds lights on the environment of media innovation adoption consisting of competing innovations, as well as actors in and out of the media.