ABSTRACT
Within the last decade, drones have evolved from primitive toys for activists to amazingly flexible tools for journalists. As airborne sensor platforms, drones equipped with cameras provide unique visual perspectives and add new dimensions to societal transparency and journalistic accountability. Drones can be viewed as the prolonged, digitized eyes of journalism (Gynnild, 2014); they are the robotic servants of tech-savvy journalists in the twenty-first century, with an increasing capacity to hunt for the hidden, the dangerous or the extraordinary news beats that would otherwise have been inaccessible. In this opening chapter, we introduce and explain the rationale for what we have termed responsible drone journalism. Leaning on principles of Responsible Research and Innovation, RRI, the chapter discusses drones as ubiquitous tools in new cultures of learning.
