Istanbul Gelisim University IISBF SosyoCom: Monthly Events and News Bulletin (Issue: 23, November 2022)

Abstract

PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE NEWS: DRONE JOURNALISM

Drone, meaning bee and buzz in English, is the name given to vehicles controlled by remote control and command, called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Thanks to their ability to record videos and images, drones have also been widely used in the media field in recent years, leading to the emergence of a new profession: Drone journalism.

Drones appear as multi-purpose tools that can be used in many areas such as defense, intelligence, agricultural spraying, photography, search and rescue, meteorology, and cartography. It even came to the fore that Amazon would use drones in cargo transportation. Facebook has been working for a long time to distribute the internet to regions where there is no internet access in Africa via drones.

A new profession called drone journalism came into our lives with the use of drones in journalism activities. Being able to obtain high-quality video and images thanks to drones provides great advantages in the field of journalism. While people couldn't reach the area due to radiation in the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident, information about the situation of the accident could be obtained with drones. Considering that in the past, only major press organizations had the opportunity to raise a helicopter during important events, and this could be done at a very high cost, drone journalism is gaining more and more importance in the field of journalism as it is fast, cost-effective, easily accessible, expand newsmaking opportunities and facilitates news gathering. Drones allow quick and easy photo and video capture in situations where it is difficult to take images such as of social events, flood disasters, earthquakes, and fires.