Citizen journalism and digital networking in extreme circumstances

The Climate Camp at Heathrow was a surprisingly good example of citizen journalism, as well as media savvyness and "off-grid" networking.
As well as the largest number of press cameras I have ever seen (kept outside the entrance except by invitation from the camp volunteer media team) there were a lot of Sony V1s, Sony Z1s and Sony PD170s, the V1 and Z1 being fairly new HDVi camcorders; the V1 being new this year. At under £3000 these camcorders are more than suitable for TV: in fact being HDV they surpass current British broadcasting resolution, and everything else about the camera makes it suitable for broadcast, including professional audio inputs/processing.

The amount of cameras on site was increased from last year, although there were fewer cameras away from the entrance. Last year cameras were technically not allowed on site, and I only saw 3. I am glad to see the activists collectively decided to relax this restriction.

Clearly some kind of leadership, preparation, investment of time and money, and media savvyness was in effect as well as activists lined themselves up at the entrance for the waiting cameras with four key elements: lots of people; a single, clear humourous but cutting banner; sheets of paper to brandish that gave the people at the back something to hold and thereby demonstrate their numbers; and some fantastic huge portraits of the faces of people who are affected by climate change. This superb solution allowed the press to photograph at once the weight of numbers but yet get clear photos of faces. It also gave the activist a symbolic edge as they could claim to represent even more people than were on the march. Superb media management.

The Indymedia tent was unchanged from last year, but worth commenting on. Apart from mobile phone charging facilities (and the mobloggingi potential that they bring...), the tent ran Toshiba 220 CS thin clients - computers from 1996 - that were networked to the internet via satellite broadbandi, and powered by batteries via solar panels and two wind turbines.

The terminals of course were FREE to use (with priority given to people reporting the event) and there was even a specialist multimedia tent with more advanced facilities. As seen in the photo above, activities included capturing DVi camcorder footage to computer.

Suffice to say the terminals ran Linuxi and included Iceweasel as a web browseri, OpenOffice and VLC as a media player.

Matt Wootton, folly Communications Manager