ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates opportunities and dilemmas in virtual reality journalism through a case study of Nonny de la Pena’s pioneering production, Project Syria, from 2014. Project Syria exemplifies a computer-generated imagery experience that prompts crucial journalism concerns that still await further discussion. As Project Syria was created mostly in the United States by an American team, our deliberately naïve point of departure is thus the expectation that de la Pena and her crew created the piece in alignment with established ethical norms in their country. There are three scenes in Project Syria. First, the viewers are put in the middle of a street in Aleppo. A girl is singing, and a bomb explodes somewhere close by. Chaos spreads. The second scene witnesses a food shortage at a food bank. In the third scene, the viewers are transported to a refugee camp in Jordan that slowly fills up with more and more tents and ghostlike refugees.
