Olympic fever & the social web

Vicky July 28, 2012 26 Comments

Did you see the opening ceremony of the 2012 Games yesterday? If not it’s worth watching!

I really enjoyed it and found it very moving. However, for me the experience was as much about engaging with Twitter as it was about watching the TV.

The commentary from Twitter friends was hilarious and thought provoking in itself!

This is a key way that the so called ‘Digital Revolution’ is changing the way we watch TV.

We rarely watch without (what people are calling) ‘second screens’. These second screens could be a smart phone, a tablet, a laptop etc.

Using two or more screens like this is getting referred to as ‘circular TV’.

We watch the TV, then engage with a second screen and the community there, then watch the TV, then engage with the second screen. It’s not necessarily ‘circular’ as it’s more complex/erratic than a simple circular motion, but ‘circular TV’ is a useful concept and gives the basic idea.

Obviously we’ve always watched ‘circular TV’ in some senses, if anyone else is in the room with us we’re engaging with them as we watch.

But with the internet, we engage with those outside the room.

Granted this could’ve been possible by talking on a phone while watching TV, before the rise of ‘net. But the introduction of online second screens means our engagement is with multiple people, crossing timezones and oceans, and potentially visible to countless multitudes.

I love web 2.0! Social media is made to be social and this is a great way we can interact and share experiences.

It’s a great redistribution of power. Now it’s not just the TV producers who can produce and transmit media. We are co-broadcasters and co-producers via social media. If someone’s tweet gets RT’d a great deal, it could reach the same audience as the TV show itself.

Social media is all about giving everyone a voice and I enjoyed experiencing some of that last night with the opening ceremony. We shared jokes, emotional moments and discussions on the content of the show.

Circular TV and second screens make it all SO much more fun. It’s even greater when TV shows themselves enter directly into the ‘circular’ process by inviting and responding to tweets and emails in real time. Hopefully that’ll be more common in future.

Hooray for Web 2.0 and the re-distribution of broadcasting power. It’s an exciting time.

Over to you:

Do you use a ‘second screen’ and engage in ‘circular TV’?

How has it changed your experience of TV – has it made it better?

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http://www.tanyamarlow.com/ Tanya Marlow

When I most enjoyed this method of watching TV was during Eurovision. Somehow shows like that were just made for sarcastic and amusing comments to be shared worldwide…

It was an exhilarating experience, but on the negative side, it did make it harder to watch the subtitled lyrics, which is a great shame as some are hilarious…

Another negative side of this kind of TV watching is that if you, for any reason, have videoed a programme such as the Olympics opening ceremony, but happen to go on Twitter, you discover a zillion spoilers announcing that the Queen turned up with James Bond. Gutted.
- http://www.cyber-soul.com/ Vicky Beeching
  
  Yes – Eurovision was a great example of this! It was sooooo much better watching the comments on Twitter than the songs themselves (I thought!).
  
  Totally agree on the ‘spoilers’… There have been lots of times where I’ve had to miss a TV episode (e.g. X Factor that I watched religiously!) and had to stay off Twitter until I’d got home and seen it, or everyone gave away the outcomes!
- http://jpc-design.com/ James Cooper
  
  I loved the twitter Eurovision as well! (and agree watching with subtitles is great :) )
  
  I guess with shows like X Factor it’s possible to mute the hashtag to avoid some tweets, but there are always some that slip through…
http://jpc-design.com/ James Cooper

Following the (incredibly brilliant) opening ceremony certainly added a lot for me. It was great to see people’s excitement grow and then see a flood of tweets at the ‘wow’ moments.

I guess I follow like-minded people as there were many similar Lord of the Rings references in my timeline at the start (one of my LOTR tweets was RT-ed quite a bit)! And when the countries were entering the stadium, it was fun seeing tweets, and tweeting about, some of the great outfits the athletes were wearing. (I’ve currently got ‘olympic lag’ from staying up late watching it all!!!)

Watching twitter and the TV during the Tour de France also added to the experience. Many pro cyclists, inc Brad Wiggins, are very active on twitter, using it as a fully two way communication tools with their fans.

I guess circular tv comes into its own with ‘event tv’ like big sporting events/the diamond jubilee/olympics/x factor, etc.

The down side can be when sports and big entertainment shows only use their viewer’s use of Circular TV as a further marketing tool for their product (promote their own hashtags so they claim to be ‘trending worldwide’) and only use it one way – not responding to tweets – only using tweets about the show as free advertising…
- http://www.cyber-soul.com/ Vicky Beeching
  
  Hooray for LOTR!
  I agree that circular TV seems to already be getting hijacked for marketing…here’s hoping that won’t dominate it.
  I love it when people in the programmes engage with Twitter (like your Brad Wiggins example). It was fun to hear the XFactor contestants sharing their nerves and backstage experiences on their Twitter feeds. Makes watching reality TV feel a lot more ‘real’ and less slick if you can hear what doesn’t make it into the show.
http://sipech.wordpress.com/ Sipech

I’ve heard it said that social media has rescued the concept of live television. With the rise of iplayer and on-demand services, there was the risk that people would just watch whenever they wanted. But, like watching a DVD at home, on-demand tv is a fairly isolated activity. 10 years ago, we had “water cooler” conversations with colleagues the day after a tv event was on. Now it’s just much quicker and with groups of people you choose to associate with.

I was actually out of all television and mobile signals during the whole ceremony. I did feel as though I missed out on the event and only caught a glimpse of the insights of others when I arrived home.
- http://www.cyber-soul.com/ Vicky Beeching
  
  Great point about social media ‘saving’ the live TV experience. It’s true – I’m mainly an iPlayer person, but I’ll make sure to watch big shows in real time so that I get to engage with the ‘second screen’ experience too, as it’s come to mean so much to me.
http://alastairadversaria.wordpress.com/ Alastair Roberts

Perhaps the thing that I find the most fascinating about the place of this ‘second screen’ is the manner in which it facilitates a greater self-consciousness and expression of ourselves as spectators. This second screen mediates a shared experience between the spectators that isn’t the performance itself, but their own voice, distinct from it. In most traditional performances, even ones that seek to break the ‘fourth wall’, the audience members are still focused outside of themselves and lack an articulated self-consciousness that isn’t already absorbed to some degree in the performance itself. The second screen allows for this articulated and distinct self-consciousness to come into existence.

As this occurs, a gap between the performance and the audience can come into clearer view, allowing for the audience response itself to be a sort of counter-performance, which exists in ironic detachment from the actual performance itself. As Tanya has already mentioned, a show like Eurovision is absolutely perfect for this. The camp seriousness of the show itself demands the sarcasm and irony of the audience’s performed response for its true reception.

Postmodern irony is interesting here. As postmoderns, we are acutely aware of ourselves as spectators, and never really suspend belief and lose ourselves within the narrative. A comparison of old children’s movies and more recent ones such as the Shrek series might be a good example of how this can play out. The Shrek series is painfully self-aware of its artificiality, replete with sly winks to a knowing audience. The person who is entranced by it is largely oblivious to its truest character. The older Disney movies, however, can often have a seriousness and sincerity that comes across as camp to us. Purest camp is that which aims at seriousness and sincerity and fails, like Eurovision. As we do not find ourselves absorbed and entranced by it, we become aware of ourselves as spectators, and the absorption of the experience is precisely the experience of shared ironic detachment.

Watching any film with my youngest brother is like experiencing an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, as he incessantly makes sarcastic and ironic (yet quite hilarious) remarks on the events onscreen that make it impossible for you to take it seriously. This completely transforms one’s experience of watching a film. This is the sort of shared experience that the second screen can mediate: the performance is displaced from its commanding position by an audience that refuses to take it seriously.

An awareness of audience was one of the things that I most enjoyed about the opening ceremony last night. Whereas the typical opening ceremony is a serious and po-faced work of imposing Art, a powerful presentation of a nation’s self-identity and ambitions, ours did not take itself seriously at all. It was full of in jokes (perhaps the entire thing was one big in joke), laced with irony, some intentional camp, its tongue always slightly in its cheek. It perfectly suited the British temperament – a show that took itself seriously would have alienated us: it was so entrancing precisely because it calculated on our ironic detachment. Its projection of a Britain that didn’t take itself seriously reminded many of us of what we most love about this country. Rather than project some strong and serious image of ‘Britishness’ to the world, it recognized that knowing theatricality and knowing spectation are perhaps the most British traits of all. The things that we most love about our national identity and public life are always tinged with a hint of the ridiculous.

In maintaining this knowingness and non-seriousness in its theatricality, it presumed upon the presence of the second screen, upon which the knowingness of our spectation would serve as the fitting response. It gestured at its audience to play along. I don’t think that many works are made for the second screen to quite the same degree, especially those serious works that do not enter the realm of camp. For a country most bound together in its ironic detachment, the second screen might be a real gift!
- http://www.cyber-soul.com/ Vicky Beeching
  
  Thanks Alastair! You always bring a really interesting and deep perspective here. I agree on the ‘extra awareness of self’ that social sharing creates. Perhaps it hinders us from getting lost in broadcasts…or like you say, perhaps we rarely get lost in them anyway due to our post-modern propensity to always detach and critique.
http://twitter.com/scurrior Sheldon Curry

Olympics was/is a case where I don’t WANT to know wassup beforehand. So I closed down all social media.

Love the Opening show though. Better than Beijing IMHO.
- http://www.cyber-soul.com/ Vicky Beeching
  
  Glad you liked it Sheldon! Were you watching in delayed time, from across the Pond? In that situation Twitter must have been like one giant spoiler yesterday! I hate it when that happens too (usually with American movies that are released Stateside before they hit the UK and USA people tweet their thoughts on the film and give important stuff away!).
  - http://twitter.com/scurrior Sheldon Curry
    
    I’m in the US (8hrs behind GMT). Not a real fan of TV at all (In fact – last time I watched was months and months ago). I had forgotten about commercials. (ugghh!) But I thought the cast’s & Boyle’s work was stellar. Greatly appreciated health, children and lit focus. (Never seen circular or Euro TV so I’ll leave that one to others.)
    - http://www.cyber-soul.com/ Vicky Beeching
      
      Nice to hear so many positive things about the NHS from my American readers! :)
KtMatt

I’ve been dissapointed sadly with my FB friends and their feeds about the Olympics…. Most have been really negitive. One was really funny, and I liked looking at her posts about the cerimony, but after a while I had to just get off the internet, cuz half were spoiling, and the other half were Debbie Downers…and frankly I reallllly enjoyed this year’s opening cerimony…
- http://www.cyber-soul.com/ Vicky Beeching
  
  Glad you enjoyed the ceremony! Agreed – the ‘second screen’ content can really affect how we experience the TV…so if all the comments made (like in your experience of the ceremony) are negative, then it can potentially damage our own enjoyment of the show. Good decision to switch off and enable yourself to enjoy it!
  - ktmatt
    
    FOr the rest of the time of run of the Olympics, I made it a bit of a mission to post possitive, non-spoiler statuses on FB… it actually ended up being quite fun in the end, and I even had a blast doing a bit of a viewing party for the women’s team gymnastics with a dear friend who lives hours away. But I am glad I shut off the web durring the openings, it was just tooo much down on such a great event. I’m so glad that GB did so well, it was sure a great year to be watching. A LOT of history was made =D
Andrew Graystone

I share your enthusiasm for social networking as an extension of the linear TV experience. But to talk in terms of “redistribution of power” is to exaggerate the degree to which social networking can currently compete with or enhance the TV experience.

Let’s look at using twitter to discuss the opening ceremony for instance. It was great fun and may have added to the experience for some people. However, some might suggest that since we only have a finite capacity for dealing with information at any one time, engaging with the second screen actually diminished the experience and impact of the TV spectacle. It was the equivalent of going to the cinema and talking to your friends all through the film. You might come away saying you had enjoyed the film because you’d been able to express your thoughts as it went along. But undoubtedly both you and the people you were talking to will have missed a lot. Currently films and TV programmes aren’t made with this in mind. I guess in the coming few years we will see directors reshaping their film-making to reflect that fact that people will be using two screens. I’m not sure that this will enhance their craft.

On the point about the democratising effect of social networking – again, I don’t think you can yet say that there is any significant redistribution of power. Danny Boyle’s copmplex (and wonderful) vision was communicated to over a billion people. The most connected social networkers will only have been able to respond to a few tens of thousands, and then only in the most basic of ways. In terms of redistribution of power that’s about as effective as having a pee at the top of Niagra Falls. I’m not saying its not fun (the tweeting that is, not the peeing – that would be disgusting!) I’m just saying that any sense of the democratising power of twitter for the ordinary user is illusory. I’d go so far as to say that an illusion of democracy is often dangerous. “Broadcasting power” is real (though that’s not a term I would normally use for it.) We need to have a proper sense of what it is, where it lies and how citizens should respond to it.

Great opening ceremony though, wasn’t it? Did you see the Philippino’s hats?
- christopherpinches
  
  Hey Andrew, some nice points there sir. I partly agree with you that it can disengage you from the actual experience itself but i think this is a bigger mistake if you do this at a live event. I think it’s more a case of when we tweet (maybe during a lull in proceedings and making sure we add value with what we say). My personal take is I’d rather comment socially after the event rather than during it..because we shouldn’t let the virtual world dilute our real world experiences. If you find it enhances your experience however then i don’t see this as such a bad thing.
- http://www.cyber-soul.com/ Vicky Beeching
  
  Thanks for commenting Andrew :) It always makes things more fun when we don’t all see eye to eye, so I’m glad you didn’t agree with all my points.
  
  I agree that we can’t see social media as an *equal* redistribution of power in media, as the numbers watching a TV programme are vastly bigger than those engaging in Twitter.
  
  Like you say, it is dangerous to imagine we really do have equally redistributed power, as we certainly don’t yet. But I do think it’s important to celebrate the ways it is giving us a voice. Web 2.0 is a huge step forward and even though we don’t have equal power, it seems crucial to recognise that we have been given a digital voice in a way we didn’t have before – which makes it a redistribution of power, because previously we had very little and now we have a bit more.
  
  I do believe that the response on social media can hugely effect the way a TV broadcast is interpreted and received by society. E.g. someone singing on Xfactor – people’s opinion of their performance may well be influenced by reading others real-time tweets about it. Peer pressure has always swayed us in this way.
  
  Social media is becoming the ‘clap-o-meter’ of whether people like or don’t like a broadcast and the money companies are pouring into social media marketing shows how seriously many of them are taking the responses of the public’s Twitter and Facebook feeds.
  
  I loved the Opening Ceremony! But I think if most of social media had responded to it in a ‘this is ridiculous’ way, those watching with a second screen may have been influenced by that. I’m guessing TV producers are very interested to watch how Twitter responds to their shows in real-time, as the public voice does have a strong impact now that everyone can share their responses.
  
  On your comparison with TV and film, for me those two mediums are very different. I’d see film as a set length of time where I follow a specific storyline and want to get lost in it. The ritual of ‘going to the cinema’ where you sit quietly and watch in virtual silence still shapes the way I watch films when I’m at home. I like the ritual, so I preserve it. Film is created to flow as a whole unit.
  
  In contrast, when I approach a TV show I see it not as a set length of time with a set storyline, but more of a kaleidoscope of ideas and experiences that I dip in and out of. (Although this wouldn’t be true for a documentary, as that often follows the arc of film).
  
  But with most TV programmes I watch, they’re not a ‘whole unit’ like film, especially as advert breaks chop them up. Like with the Opening Ceremony – parts were Boyle’s theatre, then it changed to the long entrance of all the nations, so it was a mix of genres.
  
  Because of this, I enjoy involving others in TV watching. I guess TV has been a social medium since it’s birth, most often viewed in community in living rooms, whereas film has traditionally been viewed in silence in a cinema. So I wouldn’t personally compare tweeting during TV to tweeting during a film.
  
  On ‘tweeting and watching means you miss out as we can only handle a certain amount of info’, I’m enjoying researching this at present. Studies show (as I’m sure you’re aware as you know loads about all this) that new technology may in fact be re-wiring our brains with the capacity to take in more information simultaneously, thus changing the way we learn and focus. So splitting out attention might not be entirely negative after all. It may represent a whole new method of learning and forming neural connections.
  
  I learn better when I multi-task in general (listening to a lecture, while taking notes, while thinking about how I’d teach it) so for me, engaging in social media actually makes me feel like I’m concentrating more, as otherwise my thoughts would probably be wandering anyway.
  
  Enjoying discussing this with you! And yes the Philippino’s hats were awesome! I also really liked the bouncing footwear that was worn during the ‘musical decades’ part of the night. I want some of those!
christopherpinches

I’m a big advocate of audience participation in TV as I believe it will lead to a more democratic viewing experience. Our brains lay pretty idle when we watch TV as we are merely receiving and not giving anything back in return; there is often little need for a thought process or at least no encouragement of one. Social TV will almost bring TV closer to the realm of gaming whereby you participate in the event rather than being just a spectator…this has to be a great thing!

Audience participation for me first arose when I watched episodes of ABC’s lost. Although not live, Lost enhanced the viewing experience by working croos platform: they created a website for the dharma initiative where you could learn more about a vital part of the show. The forums also went into overdrive speculating what would happen next and during the podcasts the producers would stoke the debate further!

It would be awesome now if live audience participation could influence the outcome of a show like lost…for instance you could choose which outcome you’d like to see via a debate or vote!

I also like the idea of social TV redistributing powers…for instance the most popular or influential commenters could be voted in to host a particular show thereby creating democratic TV. Currently there is a theory that the TV and media is a tool used by the government to control the worlds ways of thinking and this doesn’t always mean giving an impartial view. With social media we have the power to make TV the true voice of the people…very exciting times indeed ☺

The one thing I’d be wary of is an overly busy screen (like Sky sports news) with an overload of Streams, comments and of course advertisements.
- http://www.cyber-soul.com/ Vicky Beeching
  
  Hi Christopher – love your comparison of TV and Gaming. The rise of ‘gamification’ is a really interesting one, eh? (For any not familiar with that term, check out the basics here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification).
  
  The question of whether tweeting in a live context adds to or detracts from being ‘present’ is definitely a hot topic right now.
  
  Love your futuristic ideas about social networking shaping the outcome of shows, and leading to tweeters hosting programmes and choosing content..we can only hope that someday that kind of democratic TV will exist! :)
  
  P.s. I’ve never watched ABC’s “Lost” but it’s on my ‘to watch’ list!
  - christopherpinches
    
    Hi Vicky, yes I love the way gamification is currently being used to make mundane tasks more fun. Teamtreehouse.com is the best example of gamification i have seen, great work from ryan Carson and his team :)
    
    Yes with live tweeting I’m coming to think that it is dependant upon the individual. Personally I feel like it is not the best option for myself (as i believe my own personal development lies more in the real world, or meatspace as you call it!!) but for someone who is maybe more shy it could give them a platform and create common ground for them to meet someone in the real world; but I think the end goal should always be to drive a real world interaction.
    
    Yes you must watch Lost; my favourite show of all time!
  - http://jpc-design.com/ James Cooper
    
    Yes Lost is another must watch!!! :) Seriously brain bending stuff (in a good way).
http://www.facebook.com/paulychilds Paul Childs

I didn’t use my laptop during the ceremony because I didn’t want to miss anything – I thought it was brilliant on its own.

I did, however, use Twitter while watching last year’s Royal Wedding, which made for an interesting experience.

It’s sad that Twitter has had a fair amount of negative press during the Olympics (Tom Daley, George Linaker etc).

I found that using Twitter made watching BBC’s The Voice a much more enjoyable experience than just viewing the TV. It is a shame Will.i.am was criticised for tweeting during the show – I thought it added to it. Perhaps, next series, instead of having to hide his Blackberry, those fancy seat/desk things they sit in could have iPads hooked up to Twitter integrated into them.
http://twitter.com/PJtheNerd Phil

The only time I actually used a “second screen” was when the riots occurred, I was reading the tweets to see what was going on around the UK at the same time as watching the BBC News coverage. There are some of my “twitter friends” who have rewatched a series and tweet almost every quote from the program, I tried it and then my wife told me to watch the programme and stop tweeting! It does make it better as you can share an observation which makes you laugh with more than the people in the room with you
Beth

I was agog throughout the Olympic opening ceremony. My Dad and I couldn’t decide afterwards between us how far the program had been influenced by the British Labour Party winning the bid seven years ago (? Think this is right ?) .

From an international perspective I thought it was fascinating as the areas of labour and health have importance all round the world, especially in relation to children, and many commonwealth citizens became Brits on the terra firma after the NHS was introduced. I suppose shortages of health professionals are still staffed this way and the training of high grade doctors is in many cases gained abroad. There were so many perspectives incorporated within the ceremony I think it was very much suited to social media. Is this TV as coffee table?

Subjectively, I loved it. The music was great, there was lots of gold in the costumes. I felt proud without ambivalence to be British.

One of the things social media seemed to bring to the table was the ability to diffuse big ideas. I think it’s natural different groups who self identify differently from each other should want to “take ownership” of an international event of this scale, where consensus isn’t hugely important if you are able to enjoy the experience of watching it. I don’t know honestly if discussion is about power per se, if we are thinking of power as means of exercising control, but I do think new media gives social groups the opportunity to challenge straightforward narratives and make an intervention within the overarching storyline to assert their own personality and identities.

This is important as a lack of representation can soon mean community voices are silenced or not heard, and identity formation itself is a socially constructed process. I for example, was happier to see the influence of Romanticism in what I perceived to be the “story” of the opener whereas my Dad felt more affinity with the dramatic visualisations of the Industrial Revolution: we both identify and have been socialised differently. We’d picked up on the theme of change and had an impression of magnitude, legacy and continuity yet wrestled over the detail.

Naturally if I’d had a Twitter account I would NOT have tweeted any of this. But I still think there is a willingness to give one’s social identities away on Twitter and other social media sites through affiliations, praise or direct criticism. And this happens through interactions with celebrity and emotional and critical engagement with new or established stereotypes.

The villainous characters from children’s film and literature during the ceremony were a powerful and non-harmful varient of invoking stereotypes I thought. I’m sure social media is is equally able to deconstruct stereotypes, but when communication is repeated many times over new strongholds tend to form whatever the media. Film in particular is full of them and they help us quickly keep up with the plot, becoming “iconic.”

To me social media is all about membership. I know there is a membership element to watching telly in the UK as we have a licence and may subscribe to certain TV providers to get more channels. Social media exacerbates this and gives broadcasters the opportunities to be on the sofa with the fans. I think new possibilities for membership have certainly opened up and lateral memberships give social groups the voice of resistance and therefore promote democracy where it is a byword for twins, representation and change.

I’d question the ways users reach decision or consensus using social media because the conversational openings may be weighted towards reaching an agreement, a common area of disagreement, i.e) a negative identification; or even towards using the same high context signs; language, capitalization, stock phrases and so on, to reveal implicit or unheard unspoken opinions which may nevertheless be understood by subgroups.

There is so much differentiation between and within social groups on media platforms I see analyzing content could be very problematic. This is a shame as I would like to speak up more.

Olympic fever & the social web

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