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With the 2010 Winter Olympics starting in Vancouver, one of the more interesting aspects will be the role of social media.
Alexandra Samuel has described it as “a living social media experiment“:
Social media was around for the Summer Games in Beijing, but this is the first time it will be deployed in a free and democratic regime. There’s good reason to expect that the Olympic experience will be transformed by the social media presence: it’s already changed the Olympic planning process for both the Games organizers and the media that’s now descending on the city.
The Olympics tend to be one of the most tightly controlled media events in the world, with restrictions to protect the media companies that have paid millions of dollars for the rights.
In an interview with CBC Vancouver, I questioned the IOC’s approach to the media, such as its definition of blogging as personal expression and not journalism.
In the words of Dan Gillmor, the Olympic Committee is trying to accomodate social media, but there still is “residual cluelessness.”
Alongside the ranks of professional journalists in Vancouver and Whistler, there will be scores of independent and “citizen” journalists. No doubt many will be using blogs as a publishing platform for journalism.
For some, the hope is that “with Vancouver’s active social justice scene, the Olympics could be a lot more inclusive and dialogue-focused than other mega media events.”
A concrete (literally) example of this is the W2′s Media House in downtown Vancouver. It will provide resources and support for independent journalists and bloggers who are covering the Winter Games.
There is likely to be a wealth of media coming from fans capturing the action on their cellphones or sharing their impressions on blogs, Facebook or Twitter.
The Vancouver Organising Committee, VANOC, has itself branched out to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, recognising the increasingly role of social media.
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alfred regarding closing your bbc blog for comments..i now realise why nick was calling to you…didnt realise you were on a side..regarding thanks for understanding..and personal abuse comments you made on your last post im afraid i dont understand and dont see “personal abuse”..again i might not have the level of empathy that ;lets me understand how sensitive you media types are..so please help me understand what constitutes personal abuse on the bbc blog…ta
alfred..pretty dubious of you to remove the bbc blog from the most recent posts list..trying to hide things is the nick reynolds way..it seems to go against your professor title…poor show..just as well we have copies
Thank you for your comments John. You are incorrect in assuming there was any attempt to hide the blog post on the BBC blogs. The “recent posts” list is automatically generated based on the latest published posts. The post discussing the BBC and blogs is available in the archive at: http://reportr.net/2010/01/21/the-bbc-blogs-and-accountability/
Lucky for me, the BC International Media Centre did recgnize my website and granted me accreditation. It’s been a great hang out and resource so far. I turn to True North Media House’s abundance of online resources to find out what content people are producing and things like where I can post my venue photos.
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