#media2012 in 30 seconds – plz vote for it!
The #media2012 project is really ramping up now. We have been shortlisted for a prize, which will be decided on public vote. Please vote for #media2012 here (takes 5 seconds).
The #media2012 project is really ramping up now. We have been shortlisted for a prize, which will be decided on public vote. Please vote for #media2012 here (takes 5 seconds).
Latest film for the #media2012 project, makes a new argument.
In the last couple of days, @kk and @Dutchphoto have tweeted links to Olympic activism plans for Vancouver 2010.
Responses from their peers have varied, but there seems to be three primary modes of reading the performative act of tweeting. It’s either tweeted treated as advocacy ie. I’ve heard about something and, since I support it, I’m going to share it. Alternatively, it can be seen as a news service to something others may not find easily ie. I’ve heard about something you might not learn about through your own media sources, so I’m going to send it to you all as I think you should be aware of it, regardless of your position. A third option may be the vanity tweet ie. I’ve heard about something and if I share it with you, you’ll think higher of me.
Now, I’m not saying that all tweets are like this. Of course, some tweets are to friends and function rather like instant messaging as a chat device. However, I wonder if all re-tweets might be characterized by these three categories. The challenge, of course, is that readers cannot know for sure which act is being undertaken. So, when we tweet, perhaps twitter need to permit users to categorize the tweet as one of the three (or more).
Discuss.
Today, the headlines about Google in China prompt me to post something about Ai Weiwei out of respect for his troubles. He has been all over the BBC today, talking about being censored online in China.
In Beijing during 2008, I attended an event with Ai Weiwei and Norman Foster, which was about the new Beijing airport terminal Foster had built in time for the Games. Back then, Ai Weiwei had recently withdrawn from his role in the Opening ceremony of the Beijing Games out of concerns about human rights infringements taking place in China. He was accompanied by Steven Spielberg, who was confronted with protests over China’s relationship with Darfur, led by Mia Farrow.
Ai Weiwei is an artist activist, who has been in the limelight for China digital censorship issues for years. The Guardian has a nice editorial on his life.
So, to my thoughts on Google in China. As @CharlieBeckett put it on BBC today ‘Google isn’t a charity’. If China don’t enable Google to generate revenue, then it’s not a political act that it withdraws, but a financial decision.
Of course, what makes this newsworthy is not really the financial aspects of the story though, but the realization that global culture has not yet arrived. It has taken the foremost digital organization to prove this, but regardless of how you feel about the limitations of the Great Chinese Firewall, we may do well just to sit and reflect on that for a moment.
Finally, here’s a shot of Ai Weiwei taking pictures during the panel debate in Beijing reminds me of his playfulness.
and for poetic value, a shot of the photo book created for the airport terminal. It’s called ‘Becoming’ and consists of Ai Weiwei’s photography of the new terminal.
Last week, I was back in Lausanne and spent a couple of days in the Olympic Studies Centre at the International Olympic Committee Museum. I first visited the Olympic Studies Centre in Lausanne during the Winter of 2001, when I was researching the International Olympic Committee’s Medical Commission and Ethics Commission. The Ethics Commission had only just been established and I was able to attend its first press conference at the IOC HQ, which is a couple of miles west from the museum in Vidy.
The OSC consists of a library where a wide range of Olympic related publications are held, along with the IOC’s archive, which provides access to its meeting minutes, correspondence and multimedia documentation. It’s such a beautiful location and an optimal working condition. If ever you get a chance to visit, take it.
The trip was pretty useful, managed to progress a lot of the research on Computer Games and Sport, which was v helpful. Also managed to catch up with Dick Pound briefly, who was in the museum’s Olympic Studies Centre researching his latest book.
In case you’re wondering what the totem is all about in the picture above, they’ve just installed their Vancouver 2010 exhibition, which foregrounds the ‘four host nations’ dimension of their Games. This photograph is taken at the entrance to the museum. More photos here:
Miah, A. (2007) No Go Logo? London 2012’s Branding Hurdle,
Culture @ the Olympics, 9(3), 14-17.
Garcia, B. & Miah, A. (2007) Ever Decreasing Circles: The Profile of culture at the Olympics, Culture @ the Olympics, 9(2), 10-13.
Miah, A. (2002, April) Catching up with Frankenrunner, Sp!ked, Hypertext Document: http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006D86E.htm.
Garcia B. and Miah, A. (2002, March) The Olympics is Not a Sporting Event! Arts and Culture at the 2002 Winter Olympics, In Gauntlett, David (Ed), Some Things about Art and Cities at www.theory.org.uk and NewMediaStudies, Hypertext Document: http://www.newmediastudies.com/art/olympic.htm.
Miah, A. and Garcia, B. (2002, April) The Olympic Games Should Happen Nowhere or Everywhere, Spark Online, 31.0, Hypertext Document: http://www.spark-online.com/issue31/miah-garcia.html.
Miah, A. (2002, Jan) ArtFutura – 12 years later and out of Real-Time, Spark Online 28.0, Hypertext Document: http://www.spark-online.com/issue28/miah.html.
Miah, A. (2001, Nov 29) Letter to Editor: Alcohol Consumption, Spiked-Online, Hypertext Document: http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/00000002D304.htm.
Miah, A. (2001, Nov) Safe Sex on the Internet: hotsex@university.ac.uk!, Spark Online 26.0, Hypertext Document: http://www.spark-online.com/issue26/miah.html.
Miah, A. (2001, Feb) Digitising Sporting Arenas: The end of an arena!, Spark Online 17.0, Hypertext Document: http://www.spark-online.com/february01/trends/miah.html.
García, B. & Miah, A. (2000, November) Olympic ideals and Disney dreams: Opportunities and constraints for cultural representation during Sydney’s Opening Ceremony, Human Kinetics: Social Science and Sport News.
Miah, A. (2000, April) Can you remain faithful in cyberspace?, Spark Online 7.0, Hypertext Document: http://www.spark-online.com/april00/trends/miah.html.
Miah, A. (2000, February) Where Cyborgs can be Heroes: Sport, Genes, and Fair Play, Philosophy News Service: What’s Happening in Philosophy, Hypertext Document, now published on the Forum for the Analysis of Sport Technology website: http://www.fast.paisley.ac.uk.
Miah, A. & Eassom, S.B. (1999, October) International Conference in Philosophy of Sport, Philosophy News Service: What’s Happening in Philosophy.
Miah, A. (1999, September) Human Rights and Sport, Philosophy News Service: What’s Happening in Philosophy.
Miah, A. (1999, June) Sport Ethics in Oslo, Philosophy News Service: What’s Happening in Philosophy.
Miah, A. (2005) Virtually Posthuman, review of Virtual Worlds by Pramod Nayar, Delhi: SAGE, 2004. Media, Culture & Society, 27(4), 626-630.
Miah, A. (2006) Doctor, Can You Fix My Broken Heart? Journal of Medical Humanities [in press].
Miah, A. (2005) Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet by Lisa Nakamura, London and New York: Routledge (2002). Media, Culture & Society, 27(1), 145-147.
Drake, P. and Miah, A. (2004) Playing on the Level: Digital Games Research Association Inaugural Conference Media, Culture, and Society, 26(6), pp.906-909.
Miah, A. (2002) Trigger Happy: The inner life of video games by Steven Poole, Fourth Estate (2001), Media, Culture & Society, 24(6), 855-856.
Miah, A. (2000) Dying to win: Doping in sport and the development of anti-doping policy by Barrie M.J. Houlihan, Strasbourg, Council of Europe Publishing (1999), Sport Education and Society, 5(1), 92-94.
Co-Editor of Journal
Culture at the Olympics: Issues, Trends and Perspectives. Online: http://www.culturalolympics.org.uk [ISSN: 1747-4698].
Co-Editor of Forthcoming Refereed Journal Special Edition
(with Drake, P.) (2010) The Cultural Politics of Celebrity, Cultural Politics (Berg).
Co-Editor of Refereed Journal, Special Book Edition
(with Eassom, S.B. & Mitcham, C.) (Eds.) (2002) Sport Technology: Philosophy, History and Policy. Special Edition of Research in Philosophy and Technology, 21, Oxford: Elsevier Science [ISBN: 0-7623-0880-X; ISSN: 0161-7249].
Miah, A. & Jones, J. (2010) Virtual Worlds, in Barnett, George & Golson, J. (Eds) Encyclopedia of Social Networking. SAGE.
Miah, A. & Adi, A. (2010) Yahoo!, in Barnett, George & Golson, J. (Eds) Encyclopedia of Social Networking. SAGE.
Miah, A. (2010) Ethical and Policy Issues In Bouchard, C. & Hoffman, E. Encyclopedia of Sports Medicine, Genetic and Molecular Aspects of Sport Performance. Lausanne, International Olympic Committee,
Miah, A. (2005) Sport Technology, Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics. London: Macmillan.
Miah, A. (2001) Ice Boating, International Encyclopedia of Women and Sport. London: Macmillan, pp.142-143 [ISBN: 0-02-864954-0].