The Opinions of Tobias Grubbe is being displayed at the news window of @rusbridger’s Guardian on every Monday.
Below, is something written in the summer of 2009, but it seems apposite in view of the 2010 election campaign and the way some of the conventional media are covering it.
Before Digital Britain can arrive, the old analogue powers are going to have to be placated or assured they will be able to keep their traditional share of the money pie. Top-slicing the BBC’s license fee seems to be one of the chosen methods for struggling broadcasters and publishers. More independent and proactive media business people will have had other ideas.
Obviously, would-be prime minister’s have a key role in facilitating this sort of thing.
The news that the owners of the extremely good film about Hitler – Downfall – have asked You Tube to remove the many parodies of it on its site is fascinating.
Fitting actor Bruno Ganz’s Hitlerian rage to a political or social issue has become a mainstay of digital culture and is a proper art phenomenon.
These parodies can be very funny depending on the technical skill of the individual and the time at which the joke is delivered. There’s a skillful example below by Chris Applegate about the recent leaking of the British National Party membership list (apologies to Godwin’s law).
But, successful intellectual property such as Downfall = money and the law exists to support the rights of property owners. There are increasing arguments of this sort as traditional businesses of intellectual property attempt to control the anarchic and apparently uncontrolled* environment of digital derivation and creation.
Updated: 10.30am
There’s some interesting reaction from Nicholas Lovell about the benefits of mash-ups . These, of course, conflict with the traditional economic interests of rights holders such as Constantin Films, owners of Downfall.
Harvard PR offer some thoughts here to. This via Will Sturgeon’s Media Blog
* I’ll be writing more about this soon.
The latest weekly Devil’s Guide to IT. You can click through the picture for the site.
- I had an interesting day yesterday with Thomson Reuters after they asked me to caricature Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats at an experimental digital interview they were conducting with him. The project involved a massive gathering of crowdsourced, or submitted questions, mainly sourced through Twitter and user-generated video.
- One fine low-technology chair for Drawnalism at Reuters
Clegg took questions for over an hour without any knowledge of what was coming his way. It was interesting and impressive stuff from both the remote questioners and the man answering them. The journalists practised their new role as moderators and managers of the multiple conversations. Behind that, some very skilled technical folk did wonders streaming live data and social interactions using liberal amounts of communication device.
Reuters had thoughtfully provided me with a chair which had a clear line of sight to Clegg and I got down to about 40 minutes of watching and drawing. I had to work fast because of the interview deadline and so chose a splashy style and a high contrast colour set. You can see some of the results here.
- Nick Clegg MP. Live drawn at Thomson Reuters 13th July 2009 © Matt Buck Hack Cartoons
You can read a fuller analysis of my part in the event here and of the event more generally, here.
UPDATED: 11.25am. There’s a Flickr photo stream from the day here too.
The Opinions of Tobias Grubbe – 19th April 1710 Displayed at @MatthewWells‘s print shop window
If you have ideas and comments about the first of the leadership debates or the election campaign, you can contact Tobias by clicking the picture to send him a penny post.
The Opinions of Tobias Grubbe appears weekly at the news window of @arusbridger
Click the picture for the interactive cartoon
To be published weekly from Monday 12th April. Please click the picture for a taster and follow us @tobiasgrubbe if you like to converse with twitter.
As the old nags of general election 2010 passed the tree that started the marked mile, a punter thought…
The blue leads out but looks strangely unconvincing and the bookies odds don’t make me think they are convinced either. The red looks dead on its feet and is relying on the whip. The yellow looks perky-ish for something with three legs and then there are a whole host of long shots and non-dark horses.
This government looks more than ready to lose an election so the question is whether the novice jockeys, Dave and Gideon can steer what looks like a narrow winner. No given with the redactions and edits in their PR, policy and financial stories and the problems of the first-past-the-post-system.
Reading: Tactical voting – definition
Reading: Tactical Voting – what to do
Reading and watching: Hung parliaments in the UK
Watching: The Straight Choice – the election leaflet project
