Over the past decade, journalists have created in-depth interactive narratives to provide an alternative to the relentless 24-hour news cycle. Combining different media forms, such as text, audio, video, and data visualisation with the interactive possibilities of digital media, these narratives involve users in the narrative in new ways. In journalism studies, the convergence of different media forms in this manner has gained significant attention. However, interactivity as part of this form has been left underappreciated. In this study, we scrutinise how navigational structure, expressed as navigational cues, shapes user agency in their individual explorations of the narrative. By approaching interactive narratives as story spaces with unique interactive architectures, in this article, we reconstruct the architecture of five Dutch interactive narratives using the walkthrough method. We find that the extensiveness of the interactive architectures can be described on a continuum between closed and open navigational structures that predetermine and thus shape users’ trajectories in diverse ways.
Interactivity as part of journalistic narratives is a common practice in newsrooms around the world. Interactive journalistic narratives developed as a subgenre of online journalism in the decade following Snow Fall: The Avalanche of Tunnel Creek (The New York Times, 2012) after which news organisations started to engage in interactive and multimedia storytelling. This complex journalistic genre involves a significant investment of time and money. It encompasses extensive research and engaging online storytelling, which both require advanced technological and journalistic skills. This thesis focuses on interactive journalistic narratives in the Netherlands. Using innovative qualitative research methods, this PhD research explores the consequences of interactivity for the narrative, the production process, and the user experience. The results reveal a tension between the promises of interactivity and the practical application thereof. Creators of interactive narratives hope to engage their audiences with interactive elements woven into their stories. This is part of the changing relationship between journalists and their audience. The results of this thesis indicate that journalists reimagine this relationship in a traditional way, meaning the audience is seen as a recipient of journalistic stories. However, creators deliberately use interactive elements in their journalistic storytelling to engage audiences. With moderate success it seems as the results of the audience study suggest; users reported an increased sense of involvement with the narratives when interactive options allowed them to personalise the story
The 18 full papers and 17 short papers, presented together with 17 posters and demos, were carefully reviewed and selected from 99 submissions. The papers are categorized into the following topical sub-headings: Narrative Systems; Interactive Narrative Theory; Interactive Narrative Impact and Application; and the Interactive Narrative Research Discipline and Contemporary Practice
