Keywords

Introduction

During the last decade, the role of drones in the field of journalism and the role that this technology could play in the production of information has been widely debated by the scientific community. In fact, with incipient users, concepts such as “drone journalism” and “dronalists” have emerged. The wide potential for drones to take images from the sky that are otherwise complex to capture with the subjective perspective of drones has been extensively emphasized by the academic literature. Compared to other types of technologies used by journalism that offer aerial perspectives, drones entail a consequent reduction in costs, as well as greater speed, availability, mobility, and safety for journalists.

However, despite these certain benefits and the media trend toward audio-visual consumption, there has not been a take-off in the journalistic field, proportional to the advantages offered by the technology itself, particularly when compared with other business areas, such as agriculture, surveillance, and security or the delivery of goods. Various factors in different countries have slowed down what was initially seen as an emerging technology with great potential. These include, among others, highly restrictive legislation, some ethical grounds (i.e., privacy protection), and the crisis in the media sector.

An empirical study developed by Adams [1] shows that the use of drones does not appear to be “revolutionizing” newsgathering but changes the viewer’s perspective in several distinct ways, using angles or movement that could not have been generated except with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Adams [1] observes the different purposes of drones for informative uses: “to underline the story content, to add meaning or insight, to provide surprise, novelty or a memorable image, to present a scientific approach, to give the viewer a sense of (unrealistic) power, to provide drama, to suggest surveillance, to add beauty or art, to involve, immerse or distract the viewer, to generate filler shots, to provide unnecessary gloss, or to create a sense of global connection”. According to Adams [1], drones have the ability “to make storytelling more engaging, using drama, novelty or beauty but are also doing the opposite, by simply providing padding without new information”.

After an initial stage of development, there has been a tendency to prioritize the use of drones in very specific contexts, mainly for photojournalistic purposes. In this sense, drones help in obtaining images from a bird’s eye view, which the human eye cannot reach, where the aerial perspective turns small details, which at ground level take a different form, into mosaics, textures, genetic codes, and abstract works.

1 First Images from the Sky: Hot Air Balloons and Carrier Pigeons

The media started using drones in the early years of the twentieth century. At that time, military practice used them for more than seventy years and their experimentation in other areas of knowledge was taking off. Nevertheless, the idea of obtaining aerial images for informative purposes dates back to the mid-nineteenth century, using the technology available in that period.

The photographer Nadar obtained the first aerial photograph from a hot air balloon in 1858. He was able to temporarily immortalize the rooftops of the houses of Petit-Bicêtre, in France, 80 m above the ground, an image that has not been preserved. Two years later, James Wallace Black obtained an aerial photograph of Boston, which is preserved in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was published in 1860 by the Boston Herald, which promoted it as the first bird’s-eye perspective of the earth in the United States. It was obtained at 650 m above sea level by Samuel King from a hot air balloon called Queen of the Air. It is the oldest archived aerial photograph of Boston.

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), correspondents, journalists, and photographers used hot air balloons to take images from the sky, although there is little research on this topic.

Forty years later, in the twentieth century, the photographer George R. Lawrence made photographic flights from 600 m altitude to photograph the bay of the city of San Francisco (California, United States), in ruins as a result of an earthquake [2]. However, it was not easy because the gas from the balloon expanded in the surrounding atmosphere as the balloon rose, inserting itself into the camera and forcing the photographer to take different shots. Fortunately, one of them was useable.

In 1909, Wilbur Wright took the first photograph from an airplane. As technology and aeronautics continued to progress, it became easier to take aerial photographs, while those advances also allowed obtaining more detailed images.

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, lightweight cameras fitted on carrier pigeons were also developed. This method not only reduced the danger for photographers shooting from hot air balloons, but also “this meant that the animal, not the photographer, controlled the apparatus and determined the final image” [3]. According to Hernández [4], in December 1808, the pharmacist Julius Neubronner obtained a patent for the technique of taking images from the sky with carrier pigeons, to which he attached a lightweight aluminum camera and a pneumatic system that controlled the time interval between the automatic shooting of a photograph and the next one. Neubronner was trying to find a formula to detect the route taken by his lost carrier pigeons, which he used to send small medicines answering urgent requests.

Users of aerial photography also resorted to kites, but the carrier pigeons were the ones that were mainly used for espionage tasks, photographing enemy territory during the First World War. Hernandez documents that to remedy the deficiency of these birds returning to their loft, mobile pigeon lofts were used: a trailer of two heights, with a darkroom at the bottom to develop the photos and the loft itself on top of it. The use of carrier pigeons during the Second World War, according to Hernandez, is unknown, as there is limited documentation on the matter, although he concludes that there is enough evidence to believe that they were transported by trained dogs hidden inside baskets to cross enemy lines.

Since the beginning of the century, aerial photography has used airplanes, but pigeons offer more discretion and a higher level of safety for the photographer by not being present when taking the shot.

2 First Cameras on Drones

Wilkinson explains that the contemporary drone could be viewed as the powerfully mechanized equivalent of carrier pigeons [3]. By the time drones reached the media, they had been used by the military industry for more than seventy years. Drones are historically linked to their military use in different ways: as espionage tools and remote-controlled weapons of destruction, and as an informative tool for news coverage of the conflict and prior exploration of the territory. The use of cameras in unmanned aerial vehicles became widespread during the war in Vietnam.

The use of cameras in drones became widespread during the Vietnam War. At that time, the Ryan Firebee model, one of the most common models in the military industry, was used. This model was equipped with a small camera to spy on the adversary in field reconnaissance missions. Using a rocket engine, this drone was launched from the ground. It could also be air-dropped from the air, with a manned airplane. It was then retrieved with the assistance of a parachute that was deployed when it returned to a suitable landing area. In the early 1990s, General Atomics developed the Gnat model, introducing video cameras.

The result was not optimal in the early years, as the images obtained were not of satisfactory quality because of interferences produced by lights or bad weather. Despite this, the cameras captured moving images of pedestrians crossing the Mostar Bridge in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The successor, the Predator model, incorporated technical improvements, such as the possibility to carry and fire two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles or other munitions. It was the beginning of a new era in the development of drones.

The contemporary drone age also coincides with the arrival of civil and commercial drone use. Having become smaller and cheaper, drone models for civil and military use were able to carry lightweight cameras, enabling aerial photography and video to enter into a new dimension.

The cost of the first drones for military use, the complexity of management, and their large dimensions made them prohibitive for use by mass media. However, in the last decade, and despite the distance that still separates the hobby from professional and commercial use, the situation in journalism has changed considerably.

3 Pioneering Journalistic Experiences

The use of drones in journalistic activity differs significantly from one country to another. The level of resourcing available within the industry and the presence of more or less permissive regulations have played a very important role in this matter.

In the United States, since 2016, a new market for journalism has been opened up by allowing the commercial use of drones. However, few companies jumped on this market, but it was already an advantage in comparison to other countries.

CNN (Cable News Network) was the first U.S. media outlet to receive the necessary authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate drones and provide the aerial images obtained to the various stations where it operates. However, many newspapers were reluctant to use drones, questioning the regulation of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), as they considered that it resorted to an excessively strict reading of the freedom of the press provided for in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Obtaining the FAA permit was related to passing a test that required knowledge of airspace and the aeronautical navigation map. The speed was limited to 160 km/h, the height to 120 m from the surface of the Earth and the drone had to be within the visual range of the pilot. In addition to these rules, night flights were not allowed.

Since then, CNN has encouraged research into the use of drones for journalistic tasks and has shared the results to help formulate the appropriate framework. For this purpose, it founded a media research enterprise with the Georgia Technology Research Institute. They reached an investigation agreement with the FAA.

The first experiences were highly satisfactory for CNN, and in 2016, it announced the launch of a fleet of drones for news coverage, called CNN Air (CNN Aerial Imagery and Reporting), in collaboration with Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner. In this way, CNN established an aerial imagery and newsgathering department with two full-time aircraft systems operators to distribute images across all CNN networks and platforms. Terence Burke, vice president of National News, explained, “CNN’s cutting-edge development of technology to improve the way we tell stories is part of our DNA. We are proud to continue the tradition with CNN AIR and to establish a unit that will expand our technological capabilities for newsgathering” [5].

CNN had already used drones to provide information with greater comprehensibility and context and to enhance storytelling and production value in different events: in the floods in Louisiana in August 2016 and the water crisis in Flint, Michigan in January 2016 (tap water poisoned citizens for two years due to lead contamination), to show the scope of both events. It also used drones in 2015 at conventions to select candidates for both the Democratic and Republican presidential elections; at the primary election debates; for covering the 50th anniversary of the civil rights march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, with marchers crossing the bridge; and the 10th anniversary Commemorating Acts of Hurricane Katrina.

In earlier years, some other uses were already recorded. The bibliographic review places one of the first experiences of drone journalism or pseudodrone journalism in 2010. The documentary ‘Sharks of the French Riviera’ used cameras attached to drones to obtain images of Paris Hilton and other celebrities at the Cannes Film Festival and hotels along the coast. Such controversy was generated by the fact that in the 2017 edition of this film festival, organizers banned the use of drones to record or film images.

From 2010 to 2012, there were hardly any recorded experiences of drone journalism, according to the study conducted by researchers Marc Tremayne and Andrew Clarke from the University of Texas at Arlington [6], which focused on natural disasters, protest reporting, and environmental investigative journalism. In 2013, CNN used a camera drone to record the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan’s passage in Tacloban (Philippines). CNN used drones to obtain aerial views of Tacloban ten days after Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines. It showed the dramatic scale of devastation. However, it was not until 2014 that the media showed a real interest in putting drone journalism into practice.

4 Contributions to Journalistic Narrative

The great contribution of drones to journalism revolves around obtaining images that are difficult to cover with the physical presence of journalists. Despite the clarity and evidence that images obtained with drones offer them, Gonzalo Prudkin, who focuses on multimedia narratives, argues that there are few signals of the use of such technology as a contextualization complement in the coverage and construction process of the news using a differentiated narrative and language. He thinks drones are used rather for their newness or as a pioneering technical breakthrough to offer to the audience [2].

In this regard, López Hidalgo [7] warns that despite the potential of journalistic applications, for the moment, the images captured by drones are not usually self-sufficient to create autonomous work. Instead, they are shown as pieces to complete journalistic investigations with interviews, images from archives, and other typical resources of television feature stories and reports.

The review of the specialized literature and the vision offered by numerous theorists about the value that drones can add to the information have allowed us to draw up a list of the most important narrative utilities. The following list is a summary of the major contributions of this technology to journalistic narratives highlighted by different researchers specialized in drone journalism, although conditioned by the regulatory framework of each country in which they operate.

Areas with difficult accessibility

Drones offer important advantages for obtaining images of hard-to-reach places due to the natural topographical features of the area (oceans, caves, forests, and deserts), the natural topography of the land (tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes), or intentional disasters (spills, forest, and fires). Remote-controlled flight guarantees access to the area of interest with an added advantage: the safety of the pilot.

These are perspectives that can generate great interest for the viewer and to which audiences would not have access using other means and with the same results. Aerial recordings obtained with helicopters, for example, would be much more expensive. In addition, drones, because of their size, can enter narrow spaces and nooks, between trees, near cliffs, or indoors, and avoid dangers that piloting a helicopter would entail in situations such as the aftermath of natural disasters, fires, or hurricanes. Newsourcing has also seen the development and use of underwater drones [8].

Most of the graphic coverage of the eruption of the La Palma volcano in Spain used drones. During the two months of the volcano activity, until November 2021, different media, and especially television channels, resorted to images obtained by drones to show the advance of the lava, which occupied a total of 258 hectares of surface. Remote piloting ensured safety against the effects of the release of toxic and irritating substances into the atmosphere as a result of the eruption. Radio Television Canaria obtained impressive images with a flight almost at the level of the magma (Illustration 1).

Illustration 1
A photograph of a volcano with smoke emitting from it. There is vegetation with trees, bushes, and a road with towers on the left. There are people on the road.

Source RTVC YouTube Channel

Image of the La Palma volcano (Spain) obtained by Radio Television Canaria with drones.

Full size image

A fact that not only Gynnild [9] but also many other authors point out is the enormous utility of drones to obtain images of geographical areas that are difficult to access due to the natural topography of the site (images of a cave for a documentary, for example) or by the consequences of natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, tsunamis).

Drone journalism could also play an important role in its application to raise awareness about environmental issues, as drone investigation enables long-term environmental monitoring [10]. In the coming decades, a healthier administration of the Earth’s resources is considered crucial, and the media has a role to play in keeping people informed and helping them to realize the importance of the situation as well as the engagements that need to be taken.

Investigative and whistle-blower journalism

Some media outlets that have begun to explore the potential of drones are also exploring the advantages of their use for investigative and whistle-blower journalism. This activity, guard and vigilance, has been widely used by police services. Visual documentation of illegal activities strengthens journalistic credibility and can be used to support investigations of criminal activity. Drones have been used, for example, to detect and document spills into rivers, fumigation with toxic substances, or other environmental abuses.

Drone journalism offers considerable documentary possibilities to obtain images without the presence of journalists, which enables them to avoid being observed [11]. Additionally, they are useful in places where access is not easy because of the risk it could involve reporters. Gynnild [9] explains that images could be obtained under safe conditions for journalists without exposing them to unpredictable conditions.

This section also includes the purposes of controlling and monitoring government activities as a counterargument. Concerning investigative use and secret recording, BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) [12] maintains that “Drones may be used for investigations where there is an evidential purpose in the footage to be obtained and providing there is a strong public interest justification for any intrusion of privacy”. For example, drones could be used, according to BBC, to document illegal activities such as fly-tipping, smuggling, or illegal agricultural practices where evidence could not be acquired without the use of an aerial vehicle. Nevertheless, any proposal that risks invasion of privacy by filming with a drone should be considered a proposal for secret filming, which must have BBC preapproval.

Data journalism

A variant of the use of drones for investigative journalism would be for the specific purpose of data journalism, although in this case, highly specialized expertise and large equipment are needed.

Matt Waite, who has been director of the drone journalism lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln since 2011, argues in an article by Sengul-Jones [13] for Global Investigative Journalism Network that there are several areas of opportunity for data journalists using drones: for heat mapping, 3D terrain mapping, detecting pollution or creating three-dimensional models of buildings. Waite cites the experience of Radiolab and WNYC’s Data News team as representative examples of this trend.

Immersive Journalism

The rise of miniaturization and the high performance of drones and their capabilities, portability, and battery performance have encouraged creativity and enhanced aerial video and photography capabilities, “including capturing news content indoors, as well as in various novel situations such as for documentary production for extreme sports, pointing toward augmented reality, virtual reality, and other immersive applications as well” [8]. This author explains that experiential news and immersive formats utilize media forms that feature six qualities: interaction, immersion (both audio and video envelopment as well as psychological immersion), multisensory content, algorithms and data-driven content, first-person perspective, and natural user interface design (e.g., voice or gesture control). Pavlik [8] identifies at least four implications of drones for virtual reality journalism, mixed augmented reality a mixed: geo-tagged audio and video, volumetric 360°, first-person perspective, video and 3D audio, and the capacity “to generate novel content types or content based on data acquired from a broad range of sensors including 3D photogrammetry as well as electromagnetic spectrum data beyond the standard visible light captured via video cameras”.

Media coverage of protests

Drones make it possible to show the size and scale of rallies and protests and to estimate the number of people gathered, thus adding visual context to reports. In 2013, for example, they were used by TV Folha for its coverage of the protests in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Many of the images used by media are provided by the police, which has specialized drone units for vigilance and control of protests.

Aerial images recorded by the media are limited by the legislative framework and authority’s control. In many countries, aerial drone photography of densely populated areas with large concentrations of people is prohibited.

Photographer Tomer Appelbaum won a Siena (Drone Photo Award) working in the daily Haaretz. It was an aerial image of the protests against Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel, during the COVID pandemic in 2020, when people maintained social distance in crowded places. Images and videos of these silent demonstrations, in which demonstrators wearing face masks protested in long lines in Yitzhak Rabin Square and with social distance to prevent contagion, spread quickly across the world’s media. Appelbaum, who frequently uses drones, was arrested, and his photographic equipment and drones were intercepted by police at one of the protests, although the media coverage led to his immediate release. The police claimed a day later that he had been mistaken for one of the activists participating in the protest, even though he identified himself as a reporter.

Journalistic coverage of sporting and cultural events

In the context of live broadcasting of sports and cultural events, drones make it possible to closely follow the trajectory of an athlete in sports that involves movements over long distances. Postema [6] foresees that sports coverage could be more complete in the not-too-distant future, without spectators having to miss crucial moments of the game due to the absence of a camera covering this point. He also recalls that studies are showing that a subjective camera has a significant impact on the visual experience of sports broadcasts.

The media and television channels opt for other quieter and safer systems, such as cablecams, in stadiums and enclosed areas with a high concentration of people. This system, as a counterpoint, requires prior installation work and support points. For the broadcast of the special concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona in September 2021, for example, Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE) opted for deployment with 13 high-definition cameras, including a cablecam and a telescopic crane, to avoid noise in a cultural event in which the ambient sound was strategic.

Urgent media coverage and live broadcasting

Drones have demonstrated their versatility for urgent coverage, the narration of breaking events, live and broadcasts, unexpected events, and events outside the agenda. The small size of drones ensures their transport and fast mobility, which has a positive impact on immediacy compared to the infrastructure that other technologies require or the time and cost required to deploy them.

To take advantage of the benefits that drone technology can bring to newsrooms for these specific purposes, journalism needs very light drones that facilitate their transport to the new location, as well as sufficient autonomy to obtain images without having to interrupt the flight. There are different aspects in which technological research is advancing at a dizzying pace and where the journalism industry can find an opportunity for a new business model: the dimensions of the aircraft, the quality of the lenses, stabilization systems, and the autonomy of the drones.

Armed reporting

Coverage of armed conflicts with drones provides images of difficult access areas for journalists due to the danger of the event narrated (armed conflicts), enabling informants to disguise their presence in dangerous areas.

In this regard, Postema [6] reflects the intense controversy among authors. Not all of them are in favour of the use of drones in these situations, although these aircraft represent a new working tool that can increase the safety of journalists when capturing images of the conflict. It should be taken into account the number of reporters who have been killed or injured during this coverage. This author especially highlights the advantages of drones in conflicts where reporters are no longer neutral figures but war targets or where journalists are not embedded with troops, having instead a certain margin of freedom to select the images they want to capture to ensure a certain impartiality and objectivity. In these cases, the use of drones can either directly provide images or explore the security and possibilities for journalistic coverage of a particular area.

Critics argue that it is an intimidating element because of its physical similarities to a military spy drone. They also consider that it obtains a mechanistic view that loses human contact. To reduce this mechanistic view, Postema advises combining drone footage with other perspectives, as audiences are accustomed to versatile storytelling.

In 2022, the war between Russia and Ukraine showed the extensive use of military and commercial drones to detect enemy troops and direct attacks. Ukraine came to question the power of the Russian Black Sea fleet using maritime drones. BBCFootnote 1 also used drones to show the devastation of large areas in Kyiv, Mariupol, and other locations: buildings and streets destroyed a month after the start of the armed conflict, firefighters and aid workers searching for debris in the rubble, shelling activity, buildings in flames… The bird’s eye view images hardly need words to explain the desolation of the war landscape.

Regarding this type of specific application, BBC [12], in its Guidance on the use of drones, in the public states, “Where a drone is used by a BBC remote pilot, it should normally be flown following the country’s aviation regulations, unless there is a public interest for not doing so. In a war zone, for example, it may not be possible to seek permission to fly”.

5 Pros and Cons

The advantages of drone storytelling, in its different aspects and journalistic uses, are clear. Drones make journalistic work safer, as they make it possible to obtain images and video without risking the integrity of the journalist or the team around him or her. In addition, the images add value to the information itself.

Moreover, the use of drones leads to improvements in innovative models of business since the cost of obtaining these images is much lower than that of obtaining images by manned aerial flights. Using the current technology offered by image stabilizers, it is possible to record with drones and deliver the footage to the client in hand without postproduction work, which also has an impact on the reduction of material delivery times.

This should be added to the relative ease of operating commercial drones and the Internet’s possibilities to seek free advice on how to fly them.

On the other hand, it is important not to lose sight of some obstacles (for example, the impossibility of their use under adverse weather conditions), the dangers of privacy violations, the damage they may cause in the event of an accident, the legislative restrictions, the administrative complexity to obtain legal licenses or permits required to operate and the owners’ fear of losing their devices.

Likewise, in daily journalistic practice, the presence of events outside the agenda and with appropriate visibility conditions to be covered with aerial images represent a very small percentage of the total volume of news flow. In these circumstances, it is currently more profitable for medium-sized channels to outsource these services in a context in which there is a growing number of agencies and individuals who offer products and services at competitive prices. In these circumstances, only in the large television stations would it be economically viable to create a drone journalism department to supply images to the different divisions of the channel. If the cost of drones followed this declining trend in prices, the context of the journalistic use of drones could change, but journalists would need additional training and the help of experts in drone technology to tell stories. It is not a simple language.

6 Limitations to the Development of Drone Journalism

Drones are highly versatile gadgets that are widely used in disciplines such as agriculture, engineering, forest fire detection and extinction, assistance in social and humanitarian catastrophes, emergency management, and the delivery of small products. As far as journalism is concerned, there is still a long way to go, and many factors have hampered its development. The literature review identifies different factors:

Legislative restrictions

One of the most commonly argued factors affects legislative restrictions, which vary from one country to another and have limited the use of UAVs due to various issues affecting the safety of citizens. In many countries, legal regulation has been characterized by its limiting nature, both in terms of safety (to reduce the results of any accidents that may occur) and the safeguarding of citizens’ intimacy and privacy.

These restrictions confined journalistic drone graphic resources in Spain between 2014 and 2017 to rural or thinly populated areas, which reduced the news material that could be narrated from the perspective of drone journalism. In December 2017, regulations in Spain changed and expanded journalistic uses by allowing drone overflights in the vicinity of buildings, towns, outdoor gatherings of people, and night flights, although they had to submit certain requirements to ensure the safety of operations. Since 31 December 2020, the European UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) regulation, established in the Commission Implementing Regulation 2019/947 and the Commission Delegated Regulation 2019/945, has been applicable, requiring users to register as operators on the AESA (Agencia Estatal de Seguridad Aérea) website and obtain a registration number, which must be visibly displayed on the drone. In addition, they must have a minimum level of training following the group in which they are operating: open, for low-risk (no authorization required); specific, for medium-risk flights; or certified, for high-risk flights, which require a regulatory regime similar to manned aviation. Training at nonrisk levels is free and online, and after the successful completion of an exam, the AESA must issue a certificate. An insurance policy must also be taken out to cover civil liability toward third parties in case of any damages that may arise resulting from carrying out each flight performed for both leisure and professional use.

In terms of flight rules, drones are subject to general operating rules which consider factors such as drone weight, proximity to buildings, and professional qualifications. In general, drones may fly up to 120 m, maintaining a direct line of sight with the operator (except in the category under STS BVLOS Operations). According to AESA [14], the operating distance should not exceed 500 m; pilots should avoid flying drones near airports and heliports and stay at least eight km away from airports and three km from heliports for safety. Additionally, they should avoid flying too close to residential areas or populated areas and maintain a safety buffer zone of one km around residential areas. Without consent from the owner or individual, drones must maintain a safety distance of 500 meters from isolated buildings, people, vehicles, animals, and structures. Additionally, flying over military installations, public utilities, archaeological sites, or public or private facilities is strictly prohibited. It is prohibited to fly over national parks, biosphere reserves, wildlife conservation areas, and any type of protected natural space.

UAS Operator’s normative indicates that the drone’s total take-off mass must be less than 25 kg, and it must be operated within a visual line of sight at a maximum altitude of 120 m. Considering the moderate level of risk involved, flights in this specific category require authorization before the operation.

The future of drones as a tool for journalism is unclear and conditioned by shifting rules and regulations [15], despite their potential benefits. In any case, regulations should not easily excuse the media from the caution they should exercise to avoid collisions and preserve air safety and the safety of citizens.

Protecting the privacy and intimacy of individuals

One of the issues of greatest concern from a legislative point of view is the safeguarding of the intimacy and privacy of individuals. In Europe, regulations make it clear that the right to privacy of the people who may appear in the images captured by the drone must be protected at all times. The media must be particularly careful in publishing images of anonymous people so as not to breach the Data Protection Act.

BBC [12] considers that only public interest justifies filming. There are various potential hazards concerning the use of drones, but the BBC particularly stresses the intrusion into privacy. In this regard, the broadcaster warns, “Drones can be ‘highly privacy intrusive’ and a privacy impact assessment may be necessary to comply with the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance and data protection legislation”. The BBC also recalls in its guide that “Drones should not normally be used to identify individuals without their consent or capture close-up images of private areas such as houses, gardens or offices without the consent of the owner unless these areas can be seen from a public vantage point or there is a public interest in showing them”.

There are fewer ethical dilemmas for the media in public and semipublic spaces such as railway stations, as it is understood that permissions are not required from people who happen to be captured by a camera by chance, as part of a general shot of the station, unless they are involved in an action where there is a high level of expectation of privacy. Private spaces imply obtaining permission to record, although the invasion of privacy will depend on the area of drone flight and the types of images captured.

In the digital age, people’s perspectives on privacy and their zone of immunity have been reduced, while the boundary between public and private has been blurred, as Tremayne and Clark [16] point out, an erosion, they insist, to which drones equipped with video cameras further contribute.

Accident rate

The high rate of drone accidents has been highlighted by Lavín de las Heras and Gallardo Camacho [17]. Although drones have GPS (global positioning system) devices and 3D maps, they can get lost and cause any accident, with the resulting consequences for public safety. In April 2014, for example, the impact of a drone injured an athlete in Australia in the middle of a race. In July 2017, the presence of a drone near Lisbon Airport (Portugal) forced two planes to suspend landing on the runway, and one of the flights had to be diverted to Porto.

The possibility of a collision with a manned aircraft has generated many concerns for aviation agencies because neither the traffic and collision avoidance system (TCAS) nor the controllers detect them, so the possibility of seeing them depends on the visual acuity of the pilot. This danger has led various countries to regulate this aspect and to include in their regulation the safety distance in airports and aerodromes, as well as limitations in areas with high concentrations of people.

Production costs

Another obstacle to the development of drone journalism is related to production costs. Despite being increasingly low-priced, investment costs for the media remain high, considering that drones have journalistic utility in a constant experimentation process, features that advance ahead at a rapid pace, and with a high accident rate.

In a context in which the media are trying to reduce costs to overcome the crisis in devastated newsrooms, they prefer safe investments that guarantee economic viability and survival in a highly competitive sector.

Indeed, the commercial use of drones opened up an interesting path toward lower prices for these products, but the cost of devices for professional use and those that offer appropriate image quality continues to be higher. Bearing in mind that durability may be limited (due to drone accidents, for example) or the constant innovations of a very young technology (new models with higher performance are constantly emerging), investment in drones does not represent a priority for the media.

According to experts, using camera-equipped drones for professional use experiences a continuous development process, with constant improvements that affect resolution, flight range, and dimensions.

Technical and administrative complexity

The process of obtaining licenses for piloting and filming is complex. This fact, linked to regulations, risks to citizens’ safety, and aviation involved in their use, has ended up intimidating the major media, which could in any case afford the investment.

The same circumstances could explain the shortage of specialized journalists, who also do not have an adequate academic framework. It would be necessary to provide training in the use of this new information tool to enhance journalistic specialization. Most journalists who have specialized in drone handling have held experimental workshops and multidisciplinary courses in the absence of formal academic training.

University education only adapts subject programs when tendencies and new topics are consolidated, so there is always a certain gap between the training received and professional practice. This gap is often filled by seminars and supplementary training courses.

In the United States, universities tend to sign agreements with research centers and laboratories. These include the agreements reached by the Poynter Institute, the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), and the Drone Journalism Lab (University of Nebraska). The University of North Dakota has had a degree for drone pilots since 2009. University education has pioneering initiatives, such as the University of Missouri (United States) initiative, which in 2013 launched a course entitled “Science Investigative Reporting: Drone Journalism”, to introduce students to investigative journalism with drones.

7 Future Perspectives

All these factors mean that in Spain, in line with the situation in many other countries, the mainstream media make very limited use of drone journalism, with few specialized drone journalism departments in their organizational structures. In television news programs, the images obtained with drones usually come from external purchases (from other pilots or news agencies) or the acquisition of images free from institutions, organizations, and even citizens. Postema [6] recalls, in this regard, the Worcester floods (United Kingdom) in 2014, which were filmed by a drone enthusiast. Alternatively, the views of the Costa Concordia accident in 2012 were obtained by a citizen with a drone, which made it possible to see the enormity of the ship stranded on the Italian coast.

When these services are specifically needed, they are often outsourced. Several industry reports point to the existence of an important industry characterized by the proliferation of small drone-based journalism production companies and freelancers that provide services to others.

As per the initial drone survey conducted by Todrone [18], for the 400 respondents (production companies and freelancers specialized in drone filing, among other actors), broadcasting holds a significant share of 46% of the market. This survey provides an overview of how the industry is currently evolving. The results reveal that the market is dominated by small, very new companies and freelancers (93% of the total), which makes it highly fragmented, volatile, and still very incipient, with substantial growth in the number of operators. Todrone goes on to indicate that production companies using drones in Spain were small companies or freelancers that regard drones as an interesting tool for enhancing their video production or photographic services or for initiating a new business venture. The survey notes that within this industry, innovation is somewhat constrained, and capital expenditure remains minimal.

The Strategic Plan for the development of the civil drone sector in Spain (2018–2021), published by the Spanish Government [19], highlights that the sector has huge potential for expansion. To realize its extraordinary development prospects, the strategic plan highlights two fundamental aspects: innovation and continuous technological progress. The future of drones will depend on technical innovation, but also on the ability to respond to the needs of the media.