ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a brief timeline of the emergence of drones as a journalistic tool, discusses barriers and challenges to their use and explores key aspects of the roles of drones and aerial imagery in the current media landscape. The drones used in journalism and media production are basically mini-helicopters with multiple rotors that are equipped with cameras. A key property is that they are unmanned and can be piloted remotely, which makes it possible to shoot still images and video from a distance. Photojournalists started experimenting with mounting cameras on remotely controlled flying multi-copters at the beginning of the 21st century. The quick development of drone journalism has also led to more skeptical assessments. A critique has been that although drones increase the use of aerial shots significantly, many times the drone aerials are used as non-essential complementary visuals, which provide context but not content to the news story.
