Tag Archives: archives

“Social media is cave painting”

The Mass Observation panel at Future Everything caused a bit of a spat (polite, of course) when Pauline from the BBC in Liverpool described social media as “cave painting” and “tweeting about having a latte”.

Mass Observation

Some tweeting around the panel sessiom

Storified by Brian_Condon · Fri, May 18 2012 01:42:23

Conference Panel: Mass Observation | FutureEverythingFutureEverything Conference Panel: Mass Observation 2012 is the 75th Anniversary of the Mass Observation Movement. FutureEverything has been working with the current custodians of the Mass Observation archive to explore the relevance of the movement in today’s new participatory culture.
I was late to this panel as the previous session I was in overran. And live blogging @rohan_21awake’s keynote was intense – so rather than a full liveblog this is a few notes, pictures and tweets from a really interesting discussion session.
The Mass Observation panel at #futr with @fionacourage, @billt et al instagr.am/p/KuU7ZnStk7/Martin Bryant
Hearing about story-telling and how it can be incorporated into local archives.
Interesting start on theme of mass observation at #futr
Bill Thompson says hat cameras in domestic use were unusual in the 1930s and we now need new metaphors.
Need to ask ourselves "what is worth keeping" but we can’t know and lots of BBC’s archive is ‘incidental’ #futr @billt twitpic.com/9lz8y6
Love it! @billt calling for death of spreadsheet to make it as easy as possible to mange, use & play with metadata #futr #massobservation
Social media is really just cave painting in the 21c! This is the world of an archivest #futr
Bloody hell. The bbc lady on mass observation panel is a social network hater and wants to edit online histories. #handbagsatdawn #futr
at #futr – @daveaddey listening to @brian_condonundefined
What are the implications for access if corporations own most of our online data? #futr
#futr Not mentioned so far: Video Nation was a BBC project that was based on Mass Observation and pioneered video blogging.
Pauline keeps coming back to the central importance of the function of the Editor and selector of content. I disagreed with her especially on her attitude to social media. Paulne kicked up a bit of a stir – which was good fun. Bill Thompson displayed perhaps another face of the BBC. This Storify is, of course, one aspect of social media which does not involve “Tweeting about having a latte” as Pauline described it…