Buhigas, acting dean, lecturer of the Faculty of Communication Sciences and assistant director of transmedia projects at RTVE, has participated in this publication, in which science communication and scientific journalism research specialists address topics such as data journalism, how to report on health, interactive narrative, transmedia and immersive storytelling, infographics, environmental communication, etc., in a practical way.
Specifically, Buhigas wrote chapter 12 (“Interactive, transmedia and immersive narratives in the service of science”), together with Arnau Gifreu. “The immersive infographic in 360 degrees is a very effective tool to explain things that are not easy to explain and range from the smallest, the microscopic, to the immensity of the distances and dimensions of the cosmos. We are facing a revolutionary moment in front of us in which journalism and technology support can make science infinitely more understandable and attractive,” Buhigas said.
In the chapter, Buhigas analyses the premises for constructing an audiovisual, interactive, transmedia or immersive narrative and gives several practical cases: from an interactive map of the coronavirus in the world in the El País newspaper, to RTVE’s immersive storytelling of the volcano in La Palma or to an initiative to explain Alzheimer’s disease (“La memoria del hombre invisible [The Memory of the Invisible Man]”), through transmedia narrative, with a comic, podcasts, a blackboard, and a website with games, infographics, etc.
The publication, promoted by the Lilly Foundation, was coordinated by Bienvenido León, lecturer of Communication at the University of Navarra; Carolina Moreno, professor of Journalism at the Universitat de València; Cintia Refojo, head of the Advancement of Scientific Communication Unit at FECYT; Gema Revuelta, director of the Science, Communication and Society Studies Centre at the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and Elena Sanz, editor-in-chief of The Conversation España. Also cooperating in the publication were the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), The Conversation and the Spanish Association of Scientific Communication.
