The Virtual Revolution was a collaborative process, and many people from around the world contributed to its development. Big props to the many people from around the Web who helped us to create it.
The BBC production team always thought we needed to engage two audiences: first, an online community who we recruited last July during pre-production, who helped us flesh out the themes of the four programmes, helped us to hone the content, and helped us to identify title of the series. We encouraged this audience to download the rushes of all the interviews with the contributors that we uploaded as we recorded them (warts and all – including a few embarrassing ones of myself looking moony in San Francisco), and you duly mashed them up and distributed your vids for your own purposes. They are awesome.
The second audience is the traditional linear audience, the TV viewers. These are the people who we recognise aren’t nearly as engaged in this area as the first audience, who need the messages described in a different way, and who need to discover the key concepts in a fashion that’s closer to more familiar TV storytelling. Clearly there’s a crossover to some extent, but we’ve chosen to think of the two as separate entities.
We hope we managed to get the balance right, although we accept that there will always be people from the first audience who feel that the finished product (for the second audience) under-represented the depth of what was discussed in the development. But if your appetite has been whetted by the themes and topics discussed in the TV version, you can wallow in the rest – including my manifestos that put the stakes in the ground, and responses from luminaries like Jimmy Wales, Feargal Sharkey (digital enfant terrible) Andrew Keene – at the Virtual Revolution blog, lovingly curated by the magnificent Dan Biddle. For the best of the pre-production discussion, go to the July, August and September archives.
Comments
I thought you bridged the divide perfectly. I’d consider myself in the first audience but there was plenty in there I didn’t know about — The Well for example. What’s clever about the series is that you’re tell the story but using imaginative examples.
I am definitely 2nd audience, what were you on about? Only joking. The audiences are Ying and Yang; Receiver vs Transmitter. Whilst the two audiences are separate, they are both parts of a whole. What applies to one will apply to the other, just in a different way. I was going to mention the net, but it sounds fishy, so I won’t.
I would have considered myself to be part of the first audience, but sadly no-one told this webmonkey anything about it until the TV came along. See that’s the problem with the web, there’s just so much of it. Unless you know someone in the weberatti, you can feel left out in the cold.
Ah, but Alex you know that the archive is still there…
Alexs, I watched The Virtual Revolution with interest and think you missed a BIG opportunity. You had access to the minds, insights and first hand experiences of the cream of digital royalty (Gates, Berners Lee, Jimmy Wales etc.) at your fingertips and yet you chose to limit them to soundbites and instead persistently fill the screen with shots of you in various poses, staring into laptops or into space, walking purposely (to where?), littered with generic shots of global cityscapes, as if this conveyed some sort of meaning, when instead it felt like an abuse of a travel budget and 6th form documentary making.
Is this too self-reflective/narcissistic for the production team to post on Aleks’ blog about the production Aleks presented? Or is it gloriously open and modern?
Anyway – I think Aleks highlights the great balancing act of the series very well here: between the audience who don’t want to be misrepresented and let down by a production they either had a hand in, or feel they have a stake in the subject at hand – and the audience who may know a lot less about the web, the internet, (the difference between the two!), and have come to discover more about the world transforming around them.
A case in point could be the intro to episode two, Saturday 6 January; here we open with the dramatic story of the Iran election of 2009 and Twitter (and the internet)‘s role in defying the Iranian government’s attempts to close down the information being exchanged within and the reports leaving the country during that time of unrest.
This may at first appear a little ‘old news’ and preaching to the converted for a lot of people well versed in Twitter and the web, but it’s a dramatic story that’s worth recounting to all as a kicking off point of where the web is now.
We of course get considerably deeper into the debate of state, power, politics and security, with some pretty awesome interviews and disclosures around the Estonian cyber-attacks… Something for everyone, we hope – but no spoilers here :)
To Alex’s comment above about missing out on the open source production – really sorry word didn’t reach you. We tried our best to get the word out, but, like you say – the web’s a mighty large place to try and get yourself heard by everyone. Hope you’ll enjoy the series, dig into the swathes of info online, and join us for live tweetage during the shows via #bbcrevolution.
All the best
Dan
I’m not sure that I understand the title of the series even though I appreciate that this was thrown out to the audience so to speak. ‘Digital’ is not the same as ‘Virtual’ for the latter implies an approximation of something real – the Internet/Web/Digital space is very real indeed. We have real conversations with real people, purchase real products and manage our money online using real banks…so what’s virtual about the web? It is not another place which is distinct or separate from the ‘real world’ – it is in fact a continuation of the ‘real world’ and increasingly so.
Or is this a clever play on the word ‘virtual’ as in ‘this is almost but not quite a revolution’???
Interesting series none the less!
I think you’ve got it, Susan.
And no, Dan, you can post here any time.
As for the shots of me, the production team of Programme 1 thought a lot about how to visually present the film and it was clear across the board that we didn’t want lots of shots of the web. It just felt too 1990s ;) So it’s me you get.
Looking forward to seeing your responses to the next episode; I know there are far fewer shots of me and more shots of other people. But there are a few of me in there for good measure.
Prezada Dra. Aleks:
Assisti 3 vezes e com muita atenção o seu documentario sobre o mundo da internet, as empresas de comercio digital, “homointerneticus” e “Bandidos do poletar” pela UCS TV e cheguei a conclusão do quanto importante foi seu trabalho, suas pesquisas, viagens, entrevistas, etc e voce só merece elogios, pois é uma mulher batalhadora pelas boas causas, muito estudiosa e muito linda também.
um abraço
antonio jorge dorigatti
passo fundo rs brazil