Research Cluster on Innovative Media for a Digital Economy

Recent developments in Social Technology Systems (STS) such as, YouTube, Second Life, Wikipedia, Facebook, Flickr, Freecycle and eBay have shown the potential for users to develop and maintain networks of contacts and information resources. They also allow users to generate and transform multimedia content that they have produced themselves, and even to participate in collaborative ventures including commercial activities. Through what are technologically quite simple systems, people have shown a capacity and willingness to engage, participate and collaborate with others to create extensive and innovative resources. They are developing living and digital economies, although it is unclear how these relate to our conventional understandings of markets, and models of production and consumption. The emergence of further capabilities made available through mobile and pervasive devices, offer the potential of further extending the Digital Economy, not only for the general user to engage in social activities but also to extend and transform the ways people interact with and within organisations.In this research cluster, we wish to investigate these emergent practices, the capabilities of STS technologies, and explore how we can develop understandings of services, exchange and interaction that benefit the whole of the UK economy. We will survey existing research, and develop a novel research agenda that aims to change how we understand the role of new media and how we can shape innovative service and technology development. In order to ground the discussion in concrete examples, we will focus on the three key identified in the Digital Economy programme: healthcare, transportation and the creative industries. The cluster will be organised around a series nine open events where we will utilise a number of innovative techniques to develop a novel programme of research. These meetings will be of different kinds and duration: Context Setting Workshops will seek to identify opportunities, challenges, barriers and possibilities for innovative media in the three key sectors, then discussing the research issues that these raise. Expert Modelling Workshops are where those in the cluster concerned with current concepts, theories and methods will come together to begin to shape the agenda, clarifying the shortcomings of current research, and identifying ways in which disciplines can collaborate to address these. The Working Group Meeting will also suggest two or three exploratory exercises that can be undertaken within collaborating stakeholder organisations to clarify problematic topics. These exercises will serve as shared motivating examples to develop scenarios and to draw upon when developing research proposals. Scenario Workshops will develop scenarios for all three sectors. The project will conclude with a Final Showcase event where the research agenda will be presented to the wider academic community. Digital economies are complex systems with interdependencies between technology, social practice, policy, material infrastructures and more. To develop a programme of research and scenarios to inform innovation we require a unique combination of diverse research backgrounds, We combine experience in software engineering, the design and use of novel technologies, service design, the understanding of workplace and organisational activities, and the operation of markets. The cluster participants have been at the forefront of developing concepts, methods and theories for understanding the development, use and deployment of new technologies and media from a variety of different perspectives. We have participation from: the Universities of Oxford, Kings College London, Lancaster, Edinburgh, Goldsmith's College London, Nottingham, University College London, Sussex; and commercial and public organisations including BT, Orange, tangerine, AIG, KorteQ, NHS Direct, Dept of Transport.