FROM DRONES TO WEARABLES: WHAT’S NEXT FOR NEW MEDIA?

LBy Deb Wenger ook up in the sky; it’s a bird; it’s a plane; no it’s a drone! We will see a lot more drones in the future, and drones will be a major topic of conversation in 2015 for those interested in the intersection between communication and technology. Already CNN is working with the Federal Aviation Administration to begin testing drone systems for newsgathering. The change is significant because the FAA, with some few exceptions, has previously blocked the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) for commercial use. “Our aim is to get beyond hobby-grade equipment and to establish what options are available and workable to produce high-quality video journalism using various types of UAVs and camera setups,” CNN Senior Vice President David Vigilante said in a news release. Journalists and those involved in integrated marketing communications will be watching the CNN experiment closely to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t in terms of relevant, ethical and legal uses of drone technology. At the Meek School, faculty and students will be experimenting with a drone this year and discussing the impact of its use on privacy, as well as the expanding newsgathering options it provides. For example, imagine relatively easy and safe approaches to capturing aerial views of armed conflicts, massive protests or an inexpensive way to see the extent of flooding or the scope of tornado damage on a community. Loosening of FAA rules could pave the way, not just for aerial newsgathering, but also for Amazon’s proposed air delivery service. Along with that, it’s time to imagine how the delivery of branding and marketing messages might change with drones carrying billboards into individual neighborhoods or dropping off on your doorstep sample products that won’t fit in your mailbox. However, concerns about possible invasions of privacy created by the use of drones are very real, and we already have seen some pushback from consumers on tech developments that they consider too intrusive. For example, Google recently scaled back its Glass program. Jake Swearingen wrote in The Atlantic that Google Glass “wasn’t just a way to keep a screen in front of your face all the time; it was also a way to record everything going on in front of you. And it turns out very few people are willing to be viewed as walking, talking invasions of privacy.” Certainly there are other reasons why Glass failed to become ubiquitous. Students in our advanced TV reporting and journalism innovation classes wrestled with questions about the fundamental usefulness of Glass. But, it’s too soon to count wearables out. From a newsgathering standpoint, wearables can be less obtrusive, creating opportunities for more intimate views of news events. Live streaming what the journalist or another witness is seeing may make for dramatic breaking news coverage, as it did when Tim Pool of Vice used Glass to cover events in Ferguson, Missouri. The handsfree aspect of wearables makes alternative interview styles easier. They facilitate recording audio or video of a newsmaker demonstrating something or giving the audience a different point of view. For example, one of our students put Glass on champion Ole Miss pole-vaulter Sam Kendricks to let the audience experience what it’s like to fly over that bar in real-time.

This year’s launch of the Apple Watch will likely have IMC practitioners thinking, too, about wearables as the next screen for mobile marketing efforts. Any media with health-related content should be all over this trend, as the biometrics angle is clearly an important point of entry. Finally, with individuals 25-34 in age most likely to own wearables today, this tech trend could help pave the way to capturing a traditionally hard to reach demographic.

Last but not least on the list is a prediction that this could also be a pivotal year for the use of media metrics. After years of “clickbait” driving a significant amount of the content produced in a digital environment, audience measurement companies like Chartbeat are making it easier to monitor audience engagement and attention. The new metrics for attention value the amount of time a user spends with news and information versus focusing on the number of people who click through and often leave within seconds. The Financial Times is a test site for the new metrics system, but the big hurdle is the advertisers — they will need to get on board before the new approach can have any real impact.

A focus on audience should be a new media trend every year as we develop better measures of audience desires and better methods of delivering on those needs and wishes. Expect to see the power of visuals continue to expand with smartphones, tablets, computers and gaming consoles all providing outlets for what was once the domain of television. And look for more research from Nielsen and other companies this year to help us gain a better understanding of the relationship between social media messages and audience or customer engagement.

Bottom line? Whether you are in industry or education, your ability to figure out what audiences really want and care about, as well as the formats and platforms they prefer, will mean the difference between relevant and economically sustainable journalism and journalism that fails to have real significance. Clearly, that ability also is important for anyone working in the field of integrated marketing communications.

Training graduates to be adept at connecting with audiences remains a core of the Meek School mission in 2015.

The author, an associate professor, is director of undergraduate journalism at the Meek School.