This document provides an overview of the Asian Creative Transformations (ACT) research proposal, which aims to consolidate cross-disciplinary research on creative industries and digital transformations in Asia. The proposal focuses on three main areas: 1) policy and megatrends, 2) devices and networks, and 3) everyday applications. It will investigate how content transforms as it moves between these levels. The research questions center around how Asia is leading creative innovations, how policy responds to new creative opportunities, and how technologies impact people's lives. The proposal seeks synergies across CCI researchers working in these three levels of study in China, India, and Southeast Asia.

1. ACT

2. Background
• Asian Creative Transformations (ACT) proposal
consolidates CCI fieldwork and research in Asia
Researcher Discipline Regional focus
Michael Keane Creative industries policy China / E Asia
Jo Ann Tacchi Social anthropology India / S Asia
Jerry Watkins Human-computer interaction India / SE Asia

3. Cross-disciplinarity
The areas of Planning
• Policy
POLICY & MEGATRENDS
• Technology
• Use Use Top-down
are often studied in isolation
EVERYDAY
APPLICATIONS
ACT redefines these areas Implementation
Bottom-up
to achieve genuine
cross-disciplinarity: DEVICES & NETWORKS
• Policy & Megatrends
• Devices & Networks Intermediate
• Everyday Applications

4. Focus on content
• ACT investigates transformations to content, as it
traverses the program’s three levels
• Innovative content and knowledge systems will be
important to readjustment of Asian economic systems
– cf. success of the creative industries-led Korean Wave
• Digital content is a key ingredient in the development
of key Asian markets
– critical examination of content, infrastructure, and users is
essential to the creative industries agenda

5. 1) Policy & Megatrends
• Regional innovation strategies + diversities of
approaches to policy, measurement and IP
• Changes in the relationship between centres and
peripheries:
– the new geography of innovation effects: how Asian countries
are moving up the creative value chain
– creative economy business models post-crisis: how
competitiveness, process innovations, adaptation, and
entrepreneurship have implications for industry success
• The remaking of post-industrial space

6. 2) Devices & Networks
Implementation of both policy and everyday use
• Devices: consumer hardware, user applications
• Networks: local, broadband, wireless
• Systems: human intermediaries of technology
• Creative transformations via technology innovation
and personal digital production / consumption
• Potential external links to telecoms, media and
technology players

7. 3) Everyday Applications
• Rich understandings of uses across a range of different
contexts, at the ground level (incl. small creative
industries and local communities)
• Implications and impacts of policies and trends
on the ground
• Understanding exclusion and inclusion across social,
technological, and economic arenas
• Voice and participation – in development, workplace,
media, economy, and governance

8. Key research questions
• In what ways will Asia lead future creative
transformations in business, culture & social relations?
• How is policy responding to the fact that technology is
providing more creative opportunities across a variety
of media and platforms?
• How do creative applications of technologies impact
on people’s lives in different parts of Asia?
• How can the design and implementation of ICT
systems support creative transformations at the user
and community levels?

9. CCI internal links, synergies
Planning
We invite active
contributions from POLICY & MEGATRENDS
Centre Investigators Use Top-down
and/or Fellows across
EVERYDAY
the 3 levels of study: APPLICATIONS
• Policy & Megatrends
Bottom-up Implementation
• Devices & Networks
• Everyday Applications DEVICES & NETWORKS
Intermediate

10. End

11. Project ideas
• Innovation: how can Australia find ways to take advantage of Asian
innovation and creativity rather than seeing Asia as the capital of
outsourcing and cheap labour? Where is the new innovation ‘sweet spot’?
• Voice: the opportunity to influence decisions that affect one’s life is central
to institutional legitimacy in Australia and core to a rights-based approach
to development. How do people in Australia understand and exercise
voice across political, cultural and economic domains compared to China
and India?
• Content, mobility, and infrastructure: as technologists invest heavily in
mobile content and devices, Australia has committed to a broadband
network (instead of 3G). What can be learned from the experiences of
users in India, South Korea and Hong Kong?