The Digital Revolution: More Power, or More Powerless? - was the question posed at The Big Debate at the Birmingham ICC on the afternoon, part of the New Generation Arts Festival (organised by Birmingham City University). A panel of distinguished media experts, leading social commentators and a live audience explored the explosions in social networking, exciting virtual worlds, online gaming and the dot.com boom, and considered their combined implications for the future of the arts. The audience were able to fully interact and pose questions to the panel using Twitter and Bambuser, fully-interactive mobile text services which displayed the national and international audience’s questions on a big screen at the venue, made possible by the Birmingham Post. Photos from the event are available on request.

Chairing of the debate was Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology Correspondent for BBC News, who has covered everything from the emergence of search engine Google and the dot-com crash, to the growth of online shopping. Also joining him on the panel were Anthony Rose, Head of Digital Media Technology at the BBC and head of the BBC’s new iPlayer project, Jo Geary from The Birmingham Post, Chris Cooke, MD of UnLimited Media and Editor of its two main media platforms – the music industry’s insider update CMU Daily, and ThreeWeeks, the vibrant digital report from the Edinburgh and Brighton festivals, as well as Doug Williams, Technology Director for BT.

CMU’s Chris Cooke was largely positive about the way in which we are headed, firmly believing that the digital revolution is giving us more power, though not without associated new challenges. As far as the internet is concerned Chris believes it to be a powerful launchpad for new talent, though one which is yet to find a reliable business model to generate artist revenue. We are in a state of revolution, and are in for a chaotic few years whilst everything settles, but he sees this as to be expected and retained an optimistic outlook.

The Birmingham Post’s Jo Geary felt the digital revolution had empowered regional media, in that its voice could reach a much wider audience than ever before and be no less relevant or as important as ‘mainstream’ media. She also made the point that despite more people having the chance to create blogs and websites, they are ultimately only as powerful as their authors.

BT’s Doug Williams was excited about how the internet has provided a new platform for older media, such as TV, books and novels, connecting them with new audiences and enabling new forms of storytelling, and, from a creative and artistic point of view, was hopeful for the future.

The BBC’s Anthony Rose made the point that increased power in a digital sense stems from increased choice, though it is important that choice is exercised wisely. Despite consumers having more choice than they have ever had before, he mentioned that the majority still rely on the same trusted sources of information.

The overall look from the panel was a positive one, with each panel member generally, with a few exceptions, agreeing that the digital revolution has resulted in us having more freedom and more power.

The abiding theme and title of this year’s NGA festival is ‘Digital Utopia?’, deliberately being posed as a question and not a statement. Digital technology has completely changed the way we live, work and interact. With its inherent ease of access have come blights on our society including computer hacking, cyber crime, online addictions to gambling and fears about online privacy. We’re constantly bombarded with mixed messages about whether technology will prove to be society’s saviour, or instigate the beginning of the end for us.

What then are we to make of this confusion, and this apparent ambiguity between the positive and negative influences of new technology, and what effect will it have on creativity? This was a key topic area at The Big Debate. As the technology evolves, NGA Festival artistic director Robin Dobson believes artists will be crucial to obtaining maximum benefits:

‘Artists are essential in interpreting and understanding how we relate to each in the physical world, to our technology and to each other in cyberspace.’

The accessibility of new technology and how it is already affecting creativity is an important thread of the debate, and ties in with themes explored elsewhere at the Festival. For example, Susan McNally’s The Workmanship of Certainty jewellery exhibition looks at how new Rapid Prototyping technology allows formerly one-off jewellery pieces to now be mass-produced – a controversial area for those working in the craft industries. Whether digital technology generates connectivity at the expense of content, and tends towards sheer quantity rather than quality will be one of the questions thrown up by Birmingham City University’s hugely-ambitious event, and an important area of discussion at The Big Debate.

NGA Festival events like the One Day Comic, a comic created, designed, written, drawn and published in one day, with the public invited to continue adding to the comic online, and an interactive story-writing project titled Billboards: Online Narratives help imagine how what the future might hold for creativity, reaching out to everyday people as well as established artists and authors – digital democracy in action. The effect this might have on the established worlds of radio and TV will be explored at the Debate, as well as asking if anyone could be left behind by the ‘Digital Utopia’.

The Big Debate forms part of the New Generation Arts festival. Already renowned as the vanguard of creative content, the New Generation Arts Festival (NGA) champions the independent cause of showcasing the brightest emerging graduate talent in the arts world today. Previously supported by a host of celebrities including model Erin O’Connor, social commentator Germaine Greer, comedian Frank Skinner, artist Anthony Gormley and author Philip Pullman, this year the New Generation Arts Festival, organised by Birmingham City University, celebrates youth, diversity and the rise of digital culture.

The Big Debate is sponsored by NEC Group and Birmingham Post. Its aim is to encourage debate on key cultural topics of national significance that have regional resonance with the regions population, businesses and opinion formers.