Tomorrow's presentation for the British Academy visit to my uni has inspired me to re-articulate my Olympic research on media activism. I'll cover a range of the salient points of the last 10 years of research, from Olympic disruption to full blown 'ambush media'. Everything I've discovered convince me that the more powerful dimensions of media change are all about the opening up of traditional media to citizen reporting, but the trick is to ensure that a) the core professional dimensions of journalism are not lost and b) that the economic foundation of investigative journalism can be maintained. At present, we're not thinking enough about either and, while I'm fully behind the rise of online journalism - see recent on Huffington Post online surpassing Washington post online - we do need people to dedicate their whole careers to this work. Either we need to find a way to accelerate that process or better support the really great journalist we have among us: and there are many. So, this title 'We are the media', is one I've used before, but the 'we' here takes further account of the fact that our professional journalists are also part of our collective. So, here are the slides from the talk tomorrow. Enjoy. Comments appreciated! What can we do better in London for 2012?
[slideshare id=2644724&doc=miah2009wearethemedia-091203154944-phpapp01]