Aleks Krotoski, presenter of The Virtual Revolution, BBC2
Alex Krotoski was a surprising choice as presenter for The Virtual Revolution – what BBC 2 were surely intending to be the most complete, current, global and ground-breaking piece of interactive documentary ever created on the subject of the digital world. Despite being a PhD-certified expert on digital culture, government policy advisor, and well-respected speaker and Guardian blogger in the real world, in the world of TV ‘Dr Aleks’ (as she apparently now insists on being called), is still for many the smiley bouncy one from Bits.
For any Generation Net readers, Bits was Channel 4′s magazine review show about games, presented by a fizzy bevvy of 3 lovely girls in tight t-shirts, occasionally tied-up together in the style of a teenage Dungeons and Dragons geek’s sexual fantasy; it fizzled out fairly quickly at the end of the nineties. Was it a mistake to stamp the show with such an old-media personality? Dr Aleks is certainly interested, intelligent and qualified enough, but it’s difficult to get excited about all these claims of revolution, democracy and a global voice when they’re presented by what could be perceived as the ghost of TV past.
The old experts being interviewed on camera, the shots of the presenter strolling through fields and typing away at one of those portable computers on a park bench, the stock presenter-led format, the fact that they sent that presenter all around the physical world to report on the virtual world, in fact the fact that’s its a TV show… the whole idea of having a presenter at all smacks as being very old media. In a BBC series about the global online community, shouldn’t we be the presenters?
We-Speak?
The first episode, called The Great Levelling?, which aired tonight, featured a stella lineup of interviews with web heavyweights such as inventor of the internet Tim Berners-Lee, YouTube boss Chad Hurley, and Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington. It focused on the idealistic beginnings of the web before its corruption at the hands of a young Bill Gates (portrayed through still images of Mr Microsoft as an alternative version of Mick Jagger who could still jump and shout, but who worked hard at business school and took different drugs), and featured some 3D graphics which explained how Napster used to work, and why eBay, Amazon and Facebook are the only sites that really count (Twitter is already aflame with disgruntlement about its exclusion – surely it deserves a graphic of a bingo ball suspended in The Matrix too?).
Clips from the show were made available online prior to broadcast, which is fantastic, and users were encouraged to download these assets to make their own documentaries, with a competition rewarding the best mash-up. It’s a nice idea, and site shows the short-list of the entries.
The producers also claim that the programme was shaped by web users ‘from Teeside to Taiwan‘. The source of this input seems to be limited to comments made on the BBC website – could the programme have reached out to the world wide web rather than demanding that it came to them?
The multi-platform element of The Virtual Revolution is otherwise limited to blogs, forums, twitter, and not-yet-launched resources such the 3D Documentary Explorer and What Species of Web Animal are You? – both of which sound pretty interesting. The blog accompanying the programme is written by a small number of core authors, including Krotoski and Dan Biddle, and is generally really good. The posts are intelligent and thought-provoking, and attract real debate in the comments boxes.
Overall, this is a thoughtful documentary series full of relevant, important questions, and the promise of some influential experts to help answer them. The series aims to examine how the web is changing our world, but it doesn’t explore how it could change documentary-making. It’s a very worthwhile programme which makes a stab at community engagement, but in terms of its delivery, there’s not really anything that is either virtual or revolutionary so far.
Hi there,
Many thanks for watching and your considered post about the first episode of the Virtual Revolution series – very much appreciated. Glad you enjoyed it!
Re your question The producers also claim that the programme was shaped by web users ‘from Teeside to Taiwan‘. The source of this input seems to be limited to comments made on the BBC website – could the programme have reached out to the world wide web rather than demanding that it came to them?
We did try to reach out wherever possible and appropriate: we hosted our production photos on Flickr, posted out research links on Delicious, we were very active on Twitter… On a number of occasions we got web users to sanity check our ideas (which were hosted on the bbc blog, yes); we crowdsourced footage of Wikimania 2009 in Buenos Aires (this didn’t make the final film, unfortunately); we even tried to crowdsource the series name – with great response, if not, ultimately, a spot on result. And we put out the rushes for download etc. (Links to all this available through the Virtual Revolution site.
The above probably sounds defensive – but honestly not meant in that spirit. We know we could have reached out and collaborated more; we had great intentions of making more inroads and conversation on other blogs, with other web communities, but ultimately we could only so much in the time we had.
But we’re not in this to slap our own backs for trying – we’re in it to learn from the experience. So, if there are gaps in the outreach you mention, one or two things we could / should have done better, we’d appreciate the feedback.
Many thanks again – I hope you enjoy the rest of the series,
Dan
Hello Dan
Thank you very much for your response. It was interesting to hear more detail about the early outreach and crowsourcing activity of the show as these details had been glossed over a little in the press coverage. Did you explore some other ways of using the BBC’s red button functionality to add interactivity to the on-screen part of the project?
I see that the 3D documentary explorer is now live on the site too – it’s pretty good, and really useful to have a programme like this available in segments.
Really enjoyed episode 2. Congrats on the whole project – I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.
Best wishes
Rebecca
What I found interesting about the first episode was how hierarchies naturally develop. It was implied with the story about Wikipedia that hierarchies formed because this is the natural inclination of all humans once we have freedom to interact. From my understanding Wikipedia implemented rules and an overseeing hierarchy because those in power wanted to manipulate content for their own purposes. Essentially hierarchies that already existed enforced that structure upon the free. This is the classic anarchist paradox, an anarchy can only exist in isolation or totality. A more organised – hierarchical force – can always dominate, subdue or force the free to copy their modus operandi, a top down organisation. This is because power attracts complicity and thus more power.
There is a solution, a systematic real-time regulator, the FSFP does this. It is an economic flow Siphon and flat payment that enables the creation of hierarchies while maintaining freedom. It enables constant flow see … http://demokratia.jesaurai.net/2010/09/29/flow-siphon-flat-payment/ for more details.