ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the business of drones and how that might influence their use by the media. It covers the technological challenges and opportunities and where these are being resolved. Journalism has always been linked with technological change whether the invention of the printing press, the development of photography or the rise in personal computing. The technology behind the drone is explicitly military. As Rothstein reminds us by comparing aeroplanes and personal computers: Drones did not develop across Midwestern and European workshops, in the wind tunnel of a bicycle manufacturing company, in a Silicon Valley start-up, or in the special project division of an international corporation. Drones developed in the American military-industrial complex, and what they look like, how they work, and how they have been used all stem directly from that history. The battle over what to name drones is part of civilian industry's desire to get away from all the negative military associations.
