Information Sheet

Introduction

I am Kaixin Cheng, a PhD candidate at Erasmus University Rotterdam. I am doing research on immersive (VR, AR, 360° video) news. Your working experience in the news industry could be valuable for this research. I am going to provide you information and invite you to be part of this research. This consent form may contain terms that you do not understand. Please ask me for explanations when anything is unclear.

Purpose of the research

Immersive journalism (news presented in VR, AR, 360° video, or other immersive visual experiences) has been a hot topic in journalism industry. In the past decade, this kind of news received much enthusiasm, and showed both the progress and the challenges in news media innovation. We believe that your experience and opinions in immersive journalism could help us learn about the past and the future of innovation in news presentation from a professional perspective.

Type of research intervention

The research takes place over 3-6 months. But it only takes about 1 hour from you to participate in our interview (unless you feel like to talk more, we’re all ears).

Participant selection

You are being invited to take part in this research because we feel that your experience with news media can contribute much to our understanding and knowledge of immersive journalism and new forms of news presentation.

Voluntary Participation

Your participation in this research is entirely voluntary. It is your choice whether to participate or not. The choice that you make will have no bearing on your job or on any work-related evaluations or reports. You may change your mind later and stop participating even if you agreed earlier. Before the research results become a research article, you will be given a chance to read your interview transcript and correct yourself/withdraw part of your words/withdraw from this research completely.

Right to Withdraw

You have the right to withdraw your consent to use the personal data that you have provided at any time (unless the data has been anonymized). Data processed before the withdrawal of your consent is lawfully collected and can be used for the research. You do not have to justify your decision to withdraw your consent and there are no consequences for withdrawing your consent.

Procedures

We are inviting you to take part in this research project. If you accept, you will be asked to participate in an online interview with me (Kaixin Cheng, the interviewer). If you do not wish to answer any of the questions during the interview, you may say so and the interviewer will move on to the next question. The entire interview will be recorded.

After the interview before the research article is drafted, you will have an opportunity to review your responses. You will be sent the interview transcription. If you do not agree with my notes or if I did not understand you correctly, you may ask me to modify or remove parts of them.

Potential Benefits

Our aim is to empower journalism innovation and provide reference for news media. There will be no direct benefit to you, but your participation is likely to help us find out more about how to improve news presentation and engage with news audiences.

Privacy

During this research we will ask you to provide some personal data, which is information that can directly or indirectly identify you as an individual.

Your experience with news media is valuable to this research, and the interview potentially concerns your working experience. To better understand and analyse your experience, by default, your (current or previous) affiliation status with news media/organisations will be included in the interview data. Such data may appear in the research publication. In this way your contribution helps this research the most. However, you can choose to participate anonymously without giving any reason. You can switch to anonymity at any time before the end of this research. If any interview question triggers secrets or information that you would not like to share with the public, you can: indicate that this information should only be used anonymously or refuse to answer. 

As indicated above, this research project involves making video/audio recordings of interviews with you for the purpose of transcribing and analysis. Transcribed segments from the recordings may be used in published forms (e.g., journal articles and book chapters).

Confidentiality

• We will only share your personal data with people who are directly involved in this research or who need access to maintain the IT systems used in this research, unless such data are agreed to be open to public according to previous clauses.  
• By default, you will be identifiable in this research. However, you can choose to remain anonymous in the research output, in which case we will make sure to de-identify your personal data during our research.
• Please be aware that due to your specific position the answers you provide (e.g. your working experience, your media affiliation) may lead to you, also when they have been de-identified.

Retaining and Sharing your data

• Your personal data (e.g. audio or video recordings, forms, and other documents created or collected as part of this study) will be stored in a secure location for a minimum period of 10 years.
• A selection of the data you provide us with may be useful for educational purposes and for future research, also in other areas of research. Therefore, we would like to re-use your personal data and will ask you to consent to this in the certificate of consent. 

Sharing the Results

The knowledge that we get from this research will be shared with you and your community before it is made widely available to the public. We will publish the results as academic publications (e.g. journal articles, conference papers)so that interested people may learn from the research.

Your Privacy Rights and Contact Information

You have the right to request access to your personal data and to request rectification, erasure, restriction, data portability, and to object to the processing of your personal data under certain circumstances.

If you want to invoke your rights or if you have a question concerning privacy about this study, you can contact Erasmus University’s DPO (Data Protection Officer) at fg@eur.nl. If you would like to lodge a complaint concerning privacy, you can do this with the national supervisory authority in the Netherlands on personal data (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens).

Whom to Contact

If you have any questions, you can ask them now or later. If you wish to ask questions later, you may contact: Kaixin Cheng, cheng@eshcc.eur.nl