Nonny de la Peña is a Senior Research Fellow exploring Immersive Journalism, a novel way to utilize gaming platforms and virtual environments to convey news, documentary and non-fiction stories. Her recent projects include, “Gone Gitmo,” a virtual Guantanamo Bay Prison in Second Life, which was prototyped with funding from the MacArthur Foundation and employs first person experience and spatial narrative. Another project, “IPSRESS”, is a collaboration with the Event Lab in London and Barcelona which investigates the use of head mounted display technology to evoke feelings of presence in reportage.
A former correspondent for Newsweek Magazine, de la Peña has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Time Magazine, Hispanic and others. She has also directed and produced a number of feature documentary films that have been screened on national television and at theaters, festivals, and special events in more than 50 cities around the globe. The Los Angeles Times wrote that “de la Peña expertly personalizes the stories” in her films and The New York Times called her work, “a brave and necessary act of truth-telling.”
While at USC, de la Peña will prototype several Immersive Journalism stories to further explore how spatial narrative might offer audiences an experience that can complement and extend reports in traditional media such as television, radio, print or online journals and blogs.