Profile

The European Centre for Digital Communication (EC/DC) is a contract research unit, based at Zuyd University, Maastricht, the Netherlands and part of the Infonomics and New Media Research Group. Its project portfolio focuses at the innovative application of emerging information society technologies. The specific contribution of EC/DC to the study of digitisation processes lies in the area of the changing communication paradigm, the rise of online communication structures, the changing positions in the (new) media landscape, the move from product-oriented to demand-oriented communication patterns and ultimately the redefinition of the whole of societal information production- and consumption.

The scientific angle is not so much technological but emphasises the socio-dynamic aspect, in particular the way people and organisations deal with the newly available ICTs and integrate these in radically transformed communication patterns.

This focus ties in with the present research approach European-wide, based on a growing consensus that future systems will have to take user behaviour into account, based on awareness of how people communicate and interact, what they want to do and achieve, in order to design truly usable digital systems that provide effortless and efficient interaction and use.