Also in association with Swinburne University,
the University of Wollongong, Australian National University,
Charles Darwin University, Edith Cowan University, ACID and AFTRS
This research area is forging new international networks with a focus on ‘creative engagement’ with old and new media technologies. It seeks to have a direct impact on the development agenda, and to inform the creative industries and innovation agenda.
Given the role of the creative industries in ‘innovation’ societies, and the focus of much of our work on examining examples and measures of this, it is appropriate to investigate spaces at the margins of these activities, which are struggling to be brought into what UNESCO calls a ‘knowledge society’. Often it is at these margins that innovative solutions, with wider appeal and application, are to be found. We hypothesise that both digital inclusion and creative engagement with information and communication technology are critical elements in the construction of knowledge societies.
We approach this area through an interdisciplinary combination of ethnography and participatory design. We support the observation that ‘While the ethnographer is interested in understanding human behavior as it is reflected in the lifeways of diverse communities of people, the designer is interested in designing artifacts that will support the activities of these communities. The current challenge is to develop ways of linking these two undertakings’ (Blomberg, J., et al., ‘Ethnographic Field Methods and Their Relation to Design’, in Participatory Design: Principles and Practices, ed. D. Schuler and A. Namioka (1993, Hillsdale, N.J: L. Erlbaum Assoc, p. 123.)