We are already more than ten years into the 21st century, but debating tournaments seem to lag behind in the media department, including ours. We do have a facebook, a twitter, a youtube, a blogger and a number of other social media accounts, but are we really using them? Debating is all about communicating and debaters do have a lot to say that should be heard as much as possible. At tournaments, however, debaters tend to talk only to each other, individually or in small groups, when they could be talking to...everyone. Do you want to tell people that you've been here? Do you want to tell people what you think about anything that goes on at the tournament? Tell us and we will make sure the world will hear you out. We can interview you, film you, post your articles on our blog - and then tell everyone to go check them out. Heck, we will even lend you a camera to film your own point of view. We are already streaming all of the debates in real time and you probably know that, but what about the people that you know who would want to be your audience or even fans? Do they know they can watch you and show their support online? Never in the history of the world was it easier to simply speak up and be heard everywhere. So, speak up.
Put simply, all of our new media venues are as much yours as they are ours. We are open to your content and we are open to your creative ideas. We have spent the last years and a considerable share of our budget collecting high-tech equipment and hiring enthusiastic professionals to do the recording, editing, graphic design and posting. It is in our power to photograph and film the main events and inform you about the most important developments, but there is a limit to how much our crew can show of you and say for you. We are also fundamentally limited by the constraints of our own point of view - we have come up with the motions to be debated, we have made the rules and we cannot experience it again for the first time. There is so much only you, the participants, can see and tell. We need your feedback, and we also wish for you to have something to remember your being at the tournament by. And ultimately, by speaking up on the record, you can leave a permanent footprint in time, your signature, a message in a bottle for the future generations of debaters.
But these are just arguments, let me tell you what we know. Every time we post a new gallery of photographs, the participants love them. Not just by liking them and commenting on them, they often use their own pictures from speeches for their personal profiles - looking awesome while doing what their good at. And just like the books in a library lead a dialogue of sorts with each other, as Umberto Eco pointed out in his famous novel The Name of the Rose, comments under those photos are a continuation of the international dialogue that starts at the tournament. And those are just images. Imagine what potential lies in videos or articles. Debaters are often said to be the future leaders of the world, or at least the young minds that will one day help the world change for the better. Yet the public at large knows very little about them and debating stays under the radar of the collective cultural awareness, in particular national societies as well as in the world as a whole. I propose that instead of abandoning popular culture, we should enter it. Saying hello to the world may only be a first baby step, but it would be a start. Just look at how far computer programs got from the same starting point.
Martin Rezny (HOEDT ORGCOM)
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