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There was a time when we had to depend on the mass media for coverage of events we couldn’t attend. Today the coverage is interactive and collaborative: participants comment live on the internet (Olivia Mitchell has published an interesting ebook about the use of backchannels like Twitter).

Some events, like Intercon, offer platforms to map, encourage and add value to content that the public shares, even calling on the public to write articles for an official collaborative book about the event. Others, like TEDxSP also have real-time coverage via Twitter.

The International Seminar of the Digital Culture Forum has published a good part of its official content via users of its social network. The W3C Brazil conference had real-time web video transmissions.

What can we take away from these approaches - that are not necessarily so new or innovative, but certainly fresh?

Maybe the simplest and most certain observation is that citizens in general feel like they are an active part of these events. Also that now people do not simply absorb information passively from the perspective of the organizers or the press, but get involved and share their own visions, and recommend the perspectives of their favorite opinion-makers. What do you think? Check out what’s been going on in the agendas of these events, and in the backchannels relating to them.

Read the Manifesto of Digital Culture in Brazil, presented at the International Seminar.

Check out the presentation of Guti Fraga, from Nós do Morro, at TEDxSP: art, transformation and possibility:

There are photos from TEDxSP on Flickr.

The discussion about TEDxSP on Twitter.

Luli Radfahrer’s presentation at InterCon 2009:

Parts 2 and 3 of Luli’s presentation.