I think I've just experienced - consciously - what Chris Anderson has called the opposite of broadcasting.
To put these recent Tour de France posts together, I relied on flickr to source the pictures that my temporary cameralessness prevented me taking myself.
And trawling through more than 6000 photos tagged "tour prologue london" I realised I was getting a feeling for the events of the day that rivalled the coverage I saw in the press and on TV. Not necessarily better, because we're in comparing-apples-with-oranges territory here. But of equal value. To me, at least.
That's because I had a greater scope of coverage (because it hadn't been constructed to fit a time/size that suited the media owner) and I heard more points of view (because there were more "authors" and no editors).
And in a way, it added to being there on the day. Because as a spectator on the ground you could never see the entire course in the way that you could within a few minutes on flickr.
It might be that this sort of media experience - I would call it peercasting, but apparently that means something already - is better suited to big events: I recall having a similar experience when The Sultan's Elephant came to London last year. Photos on flickr enabled me to see the bits of the event I couldn't get to.
But then again, perhaps not. Here's something I missed entirely. Relatively small (sorry) compared to the arrival of the Tour, but still ample coverage on flickr.
Comments