Digital devices: production, uses and communication modeling (DiNuPUMoC)

The Digital Devices axis focuses on the interrelation between the cognitive, instrumental, communicational, semiotic and technological dimensions that digital devices establish in communication. Through approaches that combine theoretical research and research and creation/development, this axis takes a triple look at digital objects: the role played by digital technologies in the organization of knowledge and the transformation of forms of expression, new uses and societal impact of these objects. It aims to develop conceptual and practical tools for designing, producing and analyzing information and communication within digital communication devices.

This axis is based on a long tradition of research – it began with the creation of the Paragraphe laboratory – on hypertexts, hypermedia and digital devices. This research requires taking into account the cognitive, instrumental, communicational, semiotic and technological dimensions. These dimensions are analyzed in their global deployment processes and their critical, creative and innovative changes.

This axis is dedicated to the use and development of digital tools and devices as well as to the creative and societal conceptions and aims that underlie them. It proposes to take a threefold look: at the industrial reality of digital objects, while preserving the place of technology, which is constantly relaunching new uses; on the role played by digital technologies in the organization of knowledge and the transformation of forms of expression; on digital creation in all its forms. It is no longer possible to ignore creative experiences, recent advances in adaptive interfaces, hyper-objects, connected objects, web design, virtual reality, construction of knowledge among users /users and issues related to the evaluation of digital devices.

The relationship between “societal evolution”, “routine attitude modification” and “impact of technologies”, combined with inclusive multidisciplinary efforts, which make it possible to produce research results which will be used to produce fundamental knowledge on the modes of appropriation and transformation on the one hand and the adoption of digital technologies on the other. This approach aims for both theoretical and practical purposes, in particular through the question of reflexivity and those relating to the needs of the local socio-economic environment.

This axis explores these experiences by approaching them from the point of view of uses, device design theories, digital semiotics and sociotechnology. The objective of this axis is to provide the conceptual and practical tools to design, produce and analyze information and communication, in situations where multiple actors maintain complex relationships through digital devices. To the questions of supporting humans in their understanding of contemporary worlds through digital technologies, are added those of mastering the non-biological existences that populate our ecosystems, particularly in the context of connected objects. Faced with this proliferation of dynamic, interactive and autonomous objects, we need models and methodologies that help us understand and create these informational existences right down to their uses. All the more so when these objects are used in innovative pedagogies, in the digital humanities which trace the slightest activity of learning, communication, controversy. How can we assess the power to act of a digital object in an ecosystem? How can we control the information that these digital existences trace from our uses? How do new writings, images and graphical interfaces change the way we think about and perceive the world around us?