Panel Debate: New Media at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games (Discussion‪)‬

This panel engages some of these issues in the form of a round table debate about the future of journalism at the Olympic Games. It reviews some of the implications of emerging new media platforms, arguing that the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games can be characterized as the first Web 2.0 Summer Games. While some principles of Web 2.0 (1) have been visible since the Internet's inception, critical aspects of its current architecture began to flourish around 2005. To this extent, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will be the first Summer Web 2.0 Olympics, where many of the Olympic spectators will be enabled to publish, broadcast, and report what they see in and outside of the venues via their hand held devices. It will also host the largest number of non-accredited media present at an Olympic Games, with an expected 13,000 arriving to complement or challenge the 20,000 accredited media. (2) Applications from this era, such as YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, more adequately enable users to report the Olympics as citizen journalists. The implications of this within China and for the Olympics, more broadly, are considerable. As mass media organizations begin to strike partnerships with new media institutions--for instance, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) purchased a YouTube channel in March 2007--questions remain over how the Olympic Movement will protect its intellectual property, as the base broadens over ownership claims and via distributed publishing syndication.