The creative potential of new media technologies: Youth Internet Radio Network

New media technologies are thought to be significant tools for enabling creativity and innovation. We examine this through a project where young people create content for distribution on the internet and consume content created by other young people. How does this challenge the traditionally understood separation of the producer : consumer? How can we encourage creativity through the use of new media technologies? This paper describes the early development of the Youth Internet Radio Network (YIRN) - a research project funded by an ARC Linkage grant. YIRN is designed as an 'open architecture' platform for experimentation, dissemination and exploration of the potential of streaming technologies to network young people across Queensland - focussing on content creation. Previous research and project development experience in Australia and South Asia has suggested the strong potential for combining old and new technologies, and clearly indicates the importance of creating a project development approach and project ‘ethos’ and space that encourages innovative and flexible applications. This paper draws on some of these experiences, which have contributed to the conceptual development of YIRN. YIRN aims to encourage participants to explore the full potential of its online network and encourage interactivity and communication across the network. To achieve this we have designed a network architecture that is essentially ‘open’ using the idea of the ‘end to end network’, so that the network and the website are responsive to the ‘intelligence’ that users add at the ‘ends’.