Youth development or media innovation? The outcomes of youth media enterprise

Is social benefit a likely outcome of youth media organisations? If so, what particular institutional circumstances and methods lead to social benefit? In this paper we will approach these questions by looking at two youth media organisations that we at the Swinburne Institute have been observing within the lifespan of CCI: SYN Media and Youthworx. In doing so, we will make three observations. The first is that a single category of 'youth media' is not particularly helpful when seeking to understand the two types of social benefit most often associated with it: youth development and innovation. The second is that the project of youth development is perhaps, by its nature, unable to be truly innovative. Youth media organisations can be innovative, but they achieve innovation outcomes through attributes that are unlikely to be related to youth development. Our third point is that when youth development is seen as the primary reason for supporting youth media organisations, we risk overlooking types of innovation that may arise from structures and process that do not conform to development objectives.