Presentation

In the post-covid world, understanding communication processes and the impact of new digital media is taking on an even more central role than in the past.

In this sense, the pandemic represented a historic opportunity to highlight the vital importance (i) of communication processes and the role of traditional and social media in the management of the pandemic emergency by health authorities and institutions; (ii) the potentially disastrous consequences of a lack of communicative culture; (iii) the need to recognize that in order to communicate well it is necessary to take into account the multiple constitutive aspects of the communication process, first and foremost those of a psychosocial nature.

For example, the evolution of smart-working and e-learning offer useful insights into understanding the need to overcome a 'one-dimensional' idea of communication as the transmission of information by entering the 'multidimensional' universe of this phenomenon, in its many facets. In fact, our living environment is transforming faster and faster, evolving towards a digital ecology, a transformation that concerns the individual, interpersonal and social dimensions.

This is why in order to understand the world we live in we must on the one hand reconsider our vision of communication, without being able to disregard, on the other hand, the digital transformation to think and rethink communication itself.

Being immersed in a digital ecosystem means that people are not simply using technology, but are literally immersed in it. Mobile devices, the Internet of Things, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, are technologies that are rapidly converging towards progressive integration, for which a new term has also been coined, the concept of phygital, from the crasis of physical and digital – physical & digital – which derives precisely from the need to give a name to this progressive hybridization between physical and virtual space, between 'atoms' and 'bits'.

Understanding the transformative impact of digital ecosystems on communication processes and user experience is a crucial need for organizations in order to compete more effectively and be able to successfully adapt to the complexity of ongoing technological change.

To win this challenge, it is essential to put the person, his values and his experience at the center of attention. Including these variables in the innovation equation requires a constant conversation between humanities and technological expertise and the creation and sharing of a common language.

In particular, in the transition from an economy of services to an economy of experiences, the role of emotions becomes increasingly central.  Emotional experiences are at the heart of building optimal experiences and have the potential to make the difference between a successful product and a failure. Emotions shape our experience and represent a real inner "compass": they fundamentally influence processes such as cognition, perception and daily activities such as learning, communication and decision-making.

Despite their centrality in psychological life and in the promotion of well-being, the role of emotions in the design of technologies, products and services is still marginal: in particular, it is not yet clear how scientific knowledge related to psychology and neuroscience can contribute to this purpose, also due to the lack of consensus on the definition of the construct of emotion and of models / methodologies of measurement completely reliable. On the other hand, there is a growing conviction that the rapid development of the digital transition and the emergence of experiential technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, will require a greater awareness of the role of emotions and the importance of promoting increasing levels of "digital well-being", trying to stem worrying and rapidly rising phenomena such as depersonalization, hyperconnection, fragmentation of experience, etc.

The Centre intends to address the complexity of these changes by strengthening its interdisciplinary expertise to understand, from a psycho-social perspective, the ways in which individuals, groups and organisations constitute themselves as subjects in communication processes and in interaction with new digital technologies.