Protestors blogging near the Bank of England – via @solobasssteve Flickr
Images and footage of global protest from the 20th century are burnt into our brains, from Kent State University to Tiananmen Square. Single, iconic images become part of a shared psyche, a visual history of dissent. What yesterday’s protests, on the eve of the G20 Summit, confirmed for me, is that technology and new media have radically changed the game, and that the era of ‘one photographer, one moment, one shot’ may well be over.
In its place is a platform for shared experience, which in this case took the form of pooled Flickr images, Twitter feeds, Youtube videos and Qik streams – not to mention more fringe mashups like Audioboo G20 map all of which we’re free to use as the building blocks for a rounded perception of events. I was glued to all of these during the day, checking in to find out what was going on across town. The implications of this change are brought into sharper focus than ever when the public clash with the state. Here are a couple of them:
Compassion:
When it appeared that things were turning nasty at RBS over lunch, my hyper-connectedness with the morning’s events quickly translated more immediate concern for those at risk. This type of media’s capacity to forge compassionate links between people who’ll never meet might be where its real magic lies. I wasn’t there, but I feel one thousand times more invested and connected to the events than I did reading a dry, summarised report in the paper the next day.
Accountability:
Police tactics in these situations can often involve the documentation of the likenesses and actions of as many protestors as possible. With mobile phone cameras turned on the authorities, and instant tweeted reactions like this one broadcast to the world, all sides are equally empowered by technology when documenting any evidence of unnecessary use of force or brutality and upholding the rights of all sides.
Amplification:
Maybe it’s a simplified argument to conflate the idea of ‘acting up for the cameras’ with group behaviour at an event like this, but this is a human reaction we can’t totally overlook. With the world’s eyes on the streets, the pressure to live up to media hype can create a circle of performance. I think this picture from the Guardian captures the intense feeling of being overlooked and on display. The instantaneous nature of the coverage meant that these images were being debated moments after they were taken.
Protestors throw a Flatscreen trajectory into RBS branch – via The Guardian
A final point about media diversity – Nearly all national news outlets stationed people right inside the cordons on the ground specifically to tweet their experiences and speak with people. As Daniel Bennett’s far more in-depth analysis of the new media domination of G20 coverage confirms, they were quite literally all over it. Tim Bradshaw of The FT and Julie Reid of Sky News feeds were perhaps the most engaging, with Paul Lewis from the Guardian providing a compelling account of his feelings and reactions as the day wore on.
The whereabouts of these individuals and their take on the day was very engaging, with journalists being individuals first, trumpet of the press second – a mentality that Twitter healthily reinforces. An interesting discrepancy to this was The Daily Telegraph’s ongoing use of Twitterfall prominently on its site, contrasting with the unsavoury views we spotted of one of their more junior tech correspondents, venting not-very-privately. Where do the boundaries lie? That’s a debate for another time perhaps, but it seems yesterday confirmed that opinions are like cameras, and twitter ids. Everybody’s got one.
