This document discusses how digital technologies have accelerated communication and enabled citizen media makers to participate in narrating large events like the Olympics in real time. It presents a case study of #citizenrelay, which used a distributed network of smartphone reporters across Scotland to provide grassroots coverage of the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay that circumvented traditional media controls. By lowering participation barriers and coordinating through blogs and social media, #citizenrelay empowered citizens to instantly share local perspectives and alternative interpretations of the event outside official narratives.

1. Digital Cultures,
Acceleration and
Mega Event
Narratives
Dr David McGillivray
Reader in Events &
Culture
@dgmcgillivray

2. the subtle allure of technology promises convenience,
immediacy, interactivity, and mobility
Speed, like power, is everywhere in the era of new mobile
modernities and mobile city cultures…especially evident in
sporting cultures and more specifically in mediatized sporting
events (Redhead, 2007: p226)
To communicate, purchase, learn and even vote all that is
required is the press of a button, click of a mouse or swipe of a
touchscreen. These are velocity interactions permitting
communication and circulation of content across continents
and a contracting globe

3. The Olympic Games is a media platform with an assumed
dominant narrative; the IOC, Games organizers, sponsors and
athletic federations attempt to defend the narrative against
counter narratives
a problem for the Olympics is that there is some ambiguity
over the ownership of the Olympic Games platform and the
narrative. Who owns it? Is it the IOC, the organizing
committee, the host city or nation, or the sponsors?" (Horne &
Whannel, 2010, p762)

4. IOC robustly protects its
commercial assets, restricting third
party associations and retaining
storytelling power

5. The Olympic Torch
Relay a key brand
activation vehicle

6. Small, alternative or citizen media offers space for
the digitally empowered citizen to break stories,
become media makers and storytellers of the now
digital tools permit flattened hierarchies, enabling
citizens to participate in leisure cultures (e.g. mega
events) to subvert controlled narratives and create
alternative, localised readings outside of commercial
media platforms

7. CASE STUDY: #citizenrelay
60 reporters
Smartphones & flip cams
Mobile newsroom (a minibus)
June 2012 Olympic Torch Relay

8. #citizenrelay used a hybrid media
environment, including blogs and
social media, to mobilise, organise
and discuss issues pertaining the
Olympic Torch Relay in real time

10. Immediacy
Speed, of communication and
representation, is a prominent feature of
the accelerated mega event spectacle,
creating challenges of narrative control
and management for event owners and
corporate sponsors alike

11. • WHAT DID WE DO?

15. Networks and
connectedness
The project intentionally adopted a
decentralized and distributed structure,
where heterogeneous actors could
network and amplify their messages
through a shared communication
platform

18. Users of #citizenrelay

19. locality
volunteer reporters were recruited from four
regions of Scotland supported by a mobile
community media centre (a minibus) to help
support citizen media makers in each locality

22. empowerment
mass media and institutional gatekeepers can
be circumvented by citizen reporters and
commentators who provide first-hand, real-
time coverage and non-hegemonic
interpretations (Bakardjieva, et al, 2012),

24. • HELPMEINVESTIGATE THE OLYMPICS

25. participation
digital infrastructures offer citizens
new channels for speaking and acting
together and thus lower the
threshold for involvement
(Bakardjieva et al, 2012: i)

28. Concluding thoughts
as boundaries blur between new and established media, consumers
(or citizens) enjoy the play of liberation such technologies bring
whilst established media institutions struggle to cope with an
amorphous and deterritorialising medium
institutional strategic narratives and control attempts collide with
that of digitally empowered citizens, producing counter movements
that organises, mobilises and amplifies locally-derived content
lowering the threshold for involvement using everyday digital
technologies, effective coordination and immediate amplification of
key messages transforms the individual into an agent of acceleration

29. Thank you
& questions
http://www.citizenrelay.net