Social Media and the Future of Citizen Journalism

Here’s a great film about the Vancouver 2010 Social Media coverage. Highlights include recognition that citizen journalists gave the Paralympic Games a profile, when broadcasters fail. As well, recognition of the different roles of citizen and investigative journalists.

Admission is by donation.

Feb 18 CONTRACT 7pm-9pm

(Updated to add full live stream from 18th of February, via W2 TV)

An Olympic Games raises a number of exciting and challenging questions for a city. It proposes new spheres of investment, the redistribution of funds, inclusion and areas of exclusion, new laws that affect civil life and a vast, global media profile. How do these structures affect the obligations of citizens and institutions who become bound by collaborative contracts? And how does the scrutinization of this work by traditional and new media affect local identity and global perceptions? What can be learned from Vancouver 2010? How can this inform London 2012? How is work by artists contributing to urban city and citizenship development?

Feb 20 COMPETE: Faster, Higher, Stronger 4:30pm-8:30pm

(Updated to add full live stream from 20th of February, via W2 TV)

The Olympic Games are measures of human excellence but what happens when those measures are disrupted by self-augmentation and body modification? Our biological apparatus is in flux, vulnerable, yet re-imagined by technology. What will ability and disability mean in an era of genetically modified athletes and surgically sculpted children? How are artists contributing to this research and debate? For example, genetically screening for ‘perfect pitch’ may produce ideal singers, but whose ideal? Alternatively, what will the integration of future technology within biology mean for how humans communicate with each other via performances (dance, music or sport)?

Web editor of Culture @ the Olympics (blogger and PhD student) Jennifer Jones was featured in a short video by Vancouver City Hall which was captured during the opening celebrations of W2 Media and Culture House. The series documents stories from Vancouver – from the people who live and visit the city. For more information (and more stories), visit Vancouver City Hall’s channel on youtube.