Torino 2006

The cauldren is about to be lit here in Torino. The city squares are full of people watching big tv screens and the final arrangements to the city are over. The Olympic Truce moment in the Opening Ceremony was spectacular, creative and poignant. Beatriz and I are now in the Media Centre among around 30 other journalists. The city has become progressively busy today, though still no major queues around ticket offices.

We learned that the medals plaza will be open to non-residents and that 400 tickets will be available each night for those who try to obtain them.

A couple of nights ago, we saw the dress rehearsal of the opening ceremony, but they didnt include the amazing ferrari moment. The red lookof the city is in clear coordination with the TOROC look of the Games. There seems to be a good collaborative branding to both elements and the Cultural Olympiad has a strong, subtle and stylish presence around the city.

Tickets were hard to obtain today. The website was unavailble for some time and although cheapest options were shown available, it was not possible to select them. WE eventually accessed some from the ticket office near Medal Plaza where a very small queue had formed. Typically, each customer took around 20mins to serve as they had to pick which days they wanted to visit venues.Not simple.

Repoxygen

Last week, a new gene doping story broke just as I was preparing my final grades for the end of semester and desperately trying to finalise details for the the research trip to the Torino Olympics. Repoxygen has been billled as the first case of genetic doping. Naturally, the media has gone crazy trying to understand what this means and sports officials already claim that a test is already under development. Interestingly, the claim about this new method of doping using 'repoxygen' was discovered through heresay:

"The springboard for these dire pronouncements was an email German police found on the computer belonging to former east German coach to Katrin Krabbe, Thomas Springstein, who is on trial at the moment for doping under-age female athletes. The message complained how "difficult it is to get hold of Repoxygen. Please give me new instructions so that I can get hold of the product for Christmas". Michael Butcher, Scotland on Sunday [who, by the way, didnt bother to call me for an opinion!]

I'm off to Turin tomorrow and already have interviews lined up on this subject. On the approach to Athens, scientists were claiming that Beijing might be our first Gene Games, but it seems Turin might have that famous title.

Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games

The next research trip will take place at the Torino Games where Beatriz Garcia and I will continue our work looking at media and culture. This visit is funded by the British Academy and links with some research planned for Beijing 2008. View the flickr photos.

Sony Reader - the end of paper?

The sony reader claims to be look just like paper and hopes to revitalise the digital book market. I use a palmpilot lifedrive and frequently read articles from my endnote database in this unit. It is not particularly easy, navigation is frustrating and the size of the text field small, but it's possible and reasonably enjoyable. I have never used a digital book reader but look forward to the prospect of integrating it with my work. This new technology reminds me of a piece I wrote a few years ago about the future of publishing. At the time, there were still no clear means through which to archive websites and urls really seemed to matter. Recently, I have noticed that films no longer have a unique url attached to the trailers. One reason for this is surely that urls are becoming much less relevant as a decriptor of some virtual place. With increasingly powerful search engines, I rarely bother to note down urls anymore, especially when they are attached to articles. All too often, the domain name of the articles changes and the easiest way to find the piece is just to google the title.

Here's the title and url [;)]: (e)text:Error...404 Not Found! or the disappearance of history http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j005/Articles/AMiah.htm

Mediating Celebrity

Information from Westminster: The Communication and Media Research Institute is proud to announce the most recent issue of Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture. Full text versions of the papers are available free by following the links below.

MEDIATING CELEBRITY

CONTENTS

Sofia Johansson Editorial

Su Holmes `Starring Dyer?': Re-visiting Star Studies and Contemporary Celebrity Culture

Anthony McNicholas EastEnders and the Manufacture of Celebrity

Gareth Palmer The Undead: Life on the D-List

Kathie Muir Media Darlings and Falling Stars: Celebrity and the Reporting of Political Leaders

Jeremy Hockett Brand "W" and the Marketing of an American President: Or, Logos as Logos

Maria Claudia Coelho Experiencing Television Fandom: Notes on the Tension Between Singularization and Massification in Brazil