Points for Participation?

Into the thick of the Olympic sporting competition, Canada is rolling in a litany of 5th, 6th, 7th places … but with track and field, rowing finals and trampolining yet to come, the Canucks still have a chance to visit the podium.

As Tod Maffin twitter’ed: "Maybe Beijing will at least give us a courtesy Participaction pin?(Dont understand this? Ask a Canadian over 30.)" (ed note: or view this Participaction toque).

In the social media production department, Scales continues to create video at an epic pace despite losing his co-hort Kris who was repatriated to Vancouver in time for a glorious summer weekend. Scales is staying busy by picking up more tickets for varied events at the incredible new venues including the whitewater kayak run (plus visits to the Danish hospitality house).

I’m heading to the hills with tent and beverages so here’s a few highlights to enjoy with your weekend viewing:

Buzz Speaks of the Conundrums

Buzz Bishop, an on-air personality at 95Crave, also writes a tech column for daily paper 24 Hours. In an Aug. 13 dispatch, he addressed the fine line between professional accredited media and "grassroots" coverage created and disseminated by non-paid enthusiasts in an article he titled: Olympic Coverage From the Streets of Beijing. Here’s a nugget about this tension between MSM and the rest of us (joined in progress):

But Robert and Kris didn’t pay anything to have official broadcast rights for these games. Is what they’re doing by posting blogs, tweets, photos and streaming videos a violation?

“It’s a really complicated issue,” admits Krug.

“They’ll end up realizing that they can’t control all of it, and they’ll spend less effort trying to block people like us, and more effort monetizing the content they do control.”

The IOC has taken steps to rein in the content online as rights holders’ geoblock their websites to be only accessible within the rights holder’s borders. YouTube has also been approached to make sure highlights from the Games do not appear on the site, until after the rights window has expired.

Youtube with a takedown move

Reminiscent of the Judo competition, Youtube issued a swift takedown to Krug regarding his fan-made clips of a women’s basketball game.

As a registered USA Library of Congress DMCA agent, I know how the procedure works and have received many of these boiler-plate take down notices spewed out by the leery hosting companies with their phalanx of laywers, lackeys and salivating rights-holders. Methinks besides a nicer bedside manner, they could use a better copywriter.

Dear Member:
This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by NBC Universal claiming that this material is infringing: Team USA Women’s Basketball – Beijing 2008: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=fyPrwBVG9zY Please Note: Repeated incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to prevent this from happening, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others.

Dear IOC/VANOC, Join the Conversation

No doubt the IOC need to listen in to social media makers at least a little. With 2010 happening in our open-everything-friendly backyard, perhaps they’ll listen to our message of: We are here and plan to document our experiences.We don’t seek to supplant the rights holder, rather we aim to enrich the experience for worldwide fans, athletes’ families and ourselves for personal expression. Call us, we’ll have coffee and talk – no big whoop.

Fencing De-mystified

Scales often casually mentions jobs/careers/experiences/adventures/skills which we, his colleagues, have little/no idea about. E.g. he’s a reiki practitioner, dive master, served in Canadian Forces, worked for Greenpeace etc. He’s also a fencer – not someone who sells stolen goods but a real sword-wielding fencer.

At my request, he prepared a video to explain this simultaneously classic and futuristic looking sport.

He also delves into the ticket buying scenarios in a video: Buying tickets and Empty seats in Beijing. Empty seats along with a few minor quibbles about the opening ceremonies have become touchstones for the mainstream broadcasters who seem to seek any topic which diminishes the Chinese efforts (or is it just me?)

Up Next

Scales is exploring more sports, armed with a new Canon D9, a Nokia cameraphone and uploading movie with Qik. Check his Flickr photostream for more photos as per his latest tweet which says (sic):

I am beat and amazed at the amount of pictures i took today: 1500+ of fencing and archery.. I need to do some downloand but 1st sleep..

PS I’m Tivo’ing the end of the rain-delayed Canada vs. Cuba Baseball game so don’t tell me who wins.

I’ve mentioned some pre-Olympic and Olympic Games related activities coming up in passing. Now, as topics are piling up and the Beijing Summer Games are nearing (complete with controversy), henceforth begins a blog mini-series called, “China, The Olympics, Social Media, Symposiums, etc.” – I think I’ll need a better name for the series though. Suggestions are welcome.

Background

As you likely know, Raincity Studios actively conducts business in China with an office in
Shanghai and the Raincity Studios site is published in English and Mandarin (French underway) and we collaborate with Chinese colleagues and some of us (not me) study Mandarin language and foodery. Just so ya know where we’re coming from.

Social Media at Olympics

As for the Olympic games, RCS crew were at Torino 2006 – documenting the Olympic events as social media journalists using the Torino Piemonte Media Center and creating heaps for grassroots coverage (see Torino Flickr pool, DailyVancouver Torino, coverage) as well as participating in BC House activities on a professional basis.

Along with Scales, BMann and KK in Turin, Roland, Will Pate and I linked up for a cross-ocean symposium “Web 2.0 and the Future of Sport” about tech and athletics featuring gold medalist Ross Rebagliati (Flickr coffeewithross).

Among other topics, we discussed the restrictions (or lack thereof) put on self-expression by athletes as well as ways the participants can use technology to better communicate with friends and family back home. Really so many athletes will never make it to TV and their families seek the micro-coverage possible only by crowd sourcing e.g. the first ever Nepali winter Olympian (SLC 2002 Olympics collection).

Olympian Politics

With the 2010 Winter Games coming to our HQ city of Vancouver, and the resultant controversies (mostly concerning tax money spent on events rather than poverty and homelessness), we, like much of the world, are watching as the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing is becoming increasingly politicized and watching the reaction of the government and the citizens of the world.

The most visible conundrum is the torch relay which was used as a rallying point for anti-China protesters and widely reported about on Now Public among other citizen journalism and mainstream media sites.

Certainly political gamesmanship is a staple in the modern Olympic games and the heavy handed security surrounding the torch parade is only the beginning of a conversation about the perceived emphasis on tight security and enforcing the stringent policies of the Chinese government rather than using this global event as a springboard to openness.

Having met several Olympic athletes who are eager to chronicle their experience freely, I am curious if athletes will be allowed and encouraged to speak openly while at the Games? (Blogging, Athletes and web sites – …). Can they report on their experiences in candid fashion? Can they explore the region and travel the country without hindrance? or will the world see just the parts of China which look good on TV?

Make Your Own Media

Beyond the political conversations, as social media content creators and advocates of journalistic access for indie producers, we are also watching carefully as the policies about social media coverage are created (by who?).

So far there are mixed signals about athletes not/allowed to blog, and how amateur created content can be used (is posting your personal Olympic photos Flickr OK?) How about creating podcast coverage of the games with reaction to in-person and/or televised coverage?

International Symposium

Well, we’re not the only ones with these questions. Olympic scholar Dr. Andy Miah is organizing a panel at the 9th International Symposium on Olympic Studies, in Beijing, August 5-7, 2008.

Before we get too far along, what is the ICOS?

The International Centre for Olympic Studies, established at The University of Western Ontario in 1989, was the first of its kind in the world. It remains the only such Centre in the Americas. It has as its primary mission the generation and dissemination of academic
scholarship focused specifically upon the socio-cultural study of the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement.

And the event blurb:

The Symposium’s theme, “Deconstruction and Discourse: Odysseys in Olympic Socio-Cultural Matters,” focuses on research studies dealing with the history, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy of the modern Olympic Movement.

Emerging Journalism Panel

Dr. Miah (who is a Reader in New Media & Bioethics, School of Media, Language & Music, University of the West of Scotland)’s topic is “Emergent Journalistic Practice at the Olympics” will feature a panel of Ana Adi, Beatriz Garcia, Raincity Studios President Kris Krug, Raincity Studios CEO Robert Scales,Garry Whannel, and Tina Zhihui.

Here’s the panel description from the abstract:

{Ed note: Paragraph breaks mine to make easier reading}

Research into the role of the media within the Olympic Movement has focused predominantly on representational questions. Far less research has investigated the journalistic culture of an Olympic Games or the Movement more generally, besides analyses of its contribution to sustaining the Olympic Movement.

Moreover, nearly no research has examined the work of those journalists who are peripheral to the organizational staging of the Games.

This category includes journalists who are associated with accredited media institutions, but whom might not have formal accreditation due to restrictions on numbers of passes. It also includes journalists who are from major media organizations, but whom have no intention of working from Olympic facilities. However, it also includes non-accredited journalists, which encompasses professional journalists from a range of organizations, along with freelance or citizen journalists, whose work is utilized by the mass media and is duplicated in independent domains.

This panel engages some of these issues in the form of a round table debate about the future of journalism at the Olympic Games. It reviews some of the implications of emerging new media platforms, arguing that the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games can be characterized as the first Web 2.0 Summer Games. While some principles of Web 2.0 have been visible since the Internet’s inception, critical aspects of its current architecture began to flourish around 2005. Applications from this era, such as YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, more adequately enable users to report the Olympics as citizen journalists.

The implications of this within China and for the Olympics more broadly are considerable. As mass media organizations begin to strike partnerships with new media institutions – for instance, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) purchased a YouTube channel in March 2007 – questions remain over how the Olympic Movement will protect its intellectual property, as the base broadens over ownership claims and via distributed publishing syndication.

Next up, More Questions

Now that you are briefed with sufficient background, the next post will pose a variety of questions which the panel will discuss so you can share your opinions about “China, The Olympics, Social Media, Symposiums, etc.”