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G20 goes G2.0: A social media summit?

Posted: 01/04/09 By: Laura Oliver

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As the leaders of the G20 summit gather in London and protesters gather on the city's streets, buzz about the summit, its issues and the demonstrations has been steadily growing online.

Since the last such meeting in the UK, social media and online publishing has continued to grow, seeing this week's event covered not only by the traditional news organisations, but by bloggers, bystanders, NGOs and charity groups.

But how are the UK's main news sites tapping into this social media conversation and what does reporting by the masses on so many platforms add to the coverage?

The mainstream
Liveblogging seems to be at the heart of most mainstream media's efforts. Times Online, Sky News and Channel 4 News are all using CoverItLive to host theirs, feeding in updates from correspondents' individual Twitter accounts, as well as audio and video from reporters on the streets.

Sky has three online reporters and several TV reporters using Twitter to cover the protests live, while updates to the microblogging site are being fed into an automatically updated page on Guardian.co.uk.

Blogging highlights include newly annointed digital journalist of the year in this year's British Press Awards, Dave Hill's 'from the streets' blog for the Guardian and a new network of blogs launched by the Financial Times.

Video, including livestreaming from protests and press conferences by Sky News online, and regularly update picture slideshows are also popular. The Guardian has combined images, mapping tools and a timeline to create an overview of events.

Both the Telegraph and BBC are using map features to pull together their multimedia coverage.

Having used similar features before, for example during its Olympic Games coverage, the G20 map and the BBC's live page of news updates has been boosted by a new centralised system for receiving and updating content, Steve Herrmann, editor of BBC News Online, told Journalism.co.uk.

To update the live page all journalists have been asked to text a central number, he explained.

The main site's news ticker has also be tweaked to allow direct links to video updates and ways of highlighting breaking news with one member of the team focusing on this output, he adds.

Social networks and the wider conversation online is being monitored, with tips and reports made via Twitter and other tools fed into the newsgathering process and, occasionally, directly into the live updates.

While the advent of social media has equipped more G20 followers to report the action, BBC News can still differentiate itself with its coverage by bringing the wider perspective, says Herrmann.

"People will go to whichever source best suits their interests. We're trying to maintain an overview of what's happening, a sense of proportion and a perspective on what is happening elsewhere. We're not just covering it as a protest story, but looking at wider issues of G20."

Similarly Telegraph.co.uk is bringing the external conversation onto its site with more use of Twitterfall: following its addition to the site's Barack Obama topic page, it is now being used to aggregate #g20 tweets on an in-depth page for the summit.

New tools
While the wide use of Twitter to cover the G20 perhaps shows it's no longer a new idea for many organisations, other applications are emerging as additionally effective storytelling tools.

Audioboo is being used widely by individual journalists, bloggers and interested bystanders. Using its geolocation feature, enabled by its use on the iPhone, an audio map of G20 experiences has been created.

Guardian.co.uk reporter Matthew Weaver has been uploading images to Twitter and using Audioboo in equal measure, creating a surge in traffic to Audioboo.

"Peaked at 50 requests a second for audioboo about 20 minutes ago," said CEO Mark Rock in a Twitter update.

New voices?
As blogs, Twitter, Flickr and other social media sites are rapidly updated with G20 content, 'reporting' on the summit has been opened up to a host of new voices.

Hyperlocal website TheCity.co.uk is being updated by a financial firm worker, who is putting similar tools to the mainstream media organisations to give street level perspective.

His combination of using Twitter, TwitPic and blog posts has pushed traffic to the site 'through the roof', according to publisher Rob Powell.

The G20 Voice project organised by Oxfam sees 50 bloggers being given access to the summit to be 'the eyes and ears' for ordinary citizens on and offline.

"This is the first time that any kind of blogger has been given the same accreditation as mainstream media. It's the first time that they are kind of on a level playing field," Vikki Chowney, one of the 50 bloggers selected for the project, tells Journalism.co.uk.

"While I know that lots of mainstream media are using social media, engaging unpaid social media bloggers opens up the conversation even further."

Social media has the power to open up events like this to the public and events, such as yesterday's bloggers session at Reuters with Robert B. Zoellick, president of the World bank, are new landmarks in terms of gaining access to influential figures, she says.

New challenges
Yet while coverage has been opened up beyond traditional news organisations and platforms, the independence of reports from NGOs and other interested parties must be considered, Lloyd Davis, who is involved with both the G20 Voice project and the Reuters events.

"How do people like me get to report on thinks like this without getting some help from somebody - including technically?" he tells Journalism.co.uk

"I have been lent an iPod Touch, lent a camera by Canon to do some photographs and video - this enriches what I'm going to produce but in a political environment like this, there's a question of patronage and sponsorship."

There is an opportunity however to find new things to say other than the mainstream media, who 'will already have got an idea of what the story is', says Davis.

"I think there's a gap to be filled in the middle that's not mainstream media and the people on the streets. There are people being brought in to for some kind of semi-social thing," he says.

"I have to admit we don't really know what we're doing. As usual as bloggers we're jumping in and seeing what we can do."

Got a story? Email our news team: Laura Oliver; Judith Townend or telephone +44 (0)1273 384290. You can also follow us on Twitter: @journalismnews / @LauraOliver / @JTownend.