ICT Action COST 298
Participation in the Broadband Society
Descriptions are provided by the Actions directly via e-COST.
The main objective of this Action is to create new knowledge about users’ creativity and to
facilitate their empowerment in a broadband information society. This knowledge is crucial
in order to strengthen the European Research Area. Moreover, this requires an examination of
the factors that can both constrain and enhance users abilities to shape and use ICTs,
nowadays also referred to as information society technologies and services (ISTs).
The term ‘broadband’ in this Action refers to an aggregate technology comprising several
technical solutions (such as IPv6, xDSL, broadband ISDN, Bluetooth, UMTS, wireless and
satellite networks, DVB-T, IP datacast, etc.). These have been introduced with the promise of
providing users with communication that is faster, easier and offers a higher quality of
service. The extent to which such benefits have been realised remains something to be
assessed. From this Action’s perspective, the ‘broadband society’ refers to a possible, but not
inevitable, substantial transformation of the experience of telecommunications based on these
technologies allowing information and communication technologies to be used everywhere,
all the time and by everybody. Given the widespread aspirations of Governments and
companies to achieve this goal, the extent to which any such transformation has occurred
needs to be evaluated in a balanced manner.
The technologies mentioned above have resulted mainly from technological and institutional
imperatives. To what extent have potential users managed to find ways in which such
technologies can be useful, worthwhile and attractive? It is certainly known from previous
research that this can require those users to be creative in terms of fitting ICTs into their
activities or using them to find solutions to the everyday problems that they already
encounter. But how much is being demanded of those users, what considerations have a
bearing upon whether these technologies actually find a place in their lives and what new
issues, or indeed problems, can these ICTs themselves create, especially if they really are
‘disruptive technologies’? Ultimately, users may well decide that their existing solutions
suffice, in which case these new technological options may find only a modest place in their
lives. Whatever strategies users employ for assessing and dealing with such innovations,
more has to be learnt about these social processes, including how they apply to the up and
coming generation of new information and communication products and services. It is only
by gaining this knowledge that if can be hoped to empower the user further in their
relationships to technology and through this hope to increase the quality of their lives.
The Action’s specific objectives are as follows:
1) To examine the modalities in which users actually use ICTs and to discover their current
forms of creativity. This involves assessing existing studies and, on the basis of this,
informing industries and developing recommendations about ways to integrate these insights
into future products and services.
2) To look ahead to technology related-developments in the more medium term (e.g. the
planned implementation of certain national and EU regulations) in order to apply the insights
gained from existing research and indicate the implications
3) To suggest new approaches and methodologies for constructing a more user- driven model
of innovation in order to overcome the limitations of current models of ‘user-centred’
development. This entails providing an analysis of the various conceptualisations of the role
of users held by those developing new applications within different parts of the ICT industry.
4) To produce a new phase in interdisciplinary cooperation. This would provide the basis for
conceptually integrating the various methods for assessing the experience of broadband
technologies from the perspective of different disciplines (e.g. through workshops that invite
people from various disciplines to attend in order to stimulate dialogue)
Information and Communication Technologies COST Action 298
- Description
- Parties
- Management Committee
General Information*
Chair of the Action:
Dr Bartolomeo SAPIO (IT)
Vice Chair of the Action:
Dr Tomaz TURK (SI)
DC Rapporteurs:
■ Mr Graham WORSLEY
Science officer of the Action:
Administrative officer of the Action:
Downloads*
Action Fact Sheet
Memorandum of Understanding
Progress Report
Download Progress Report as PDF
Final Report
Poster
Websites*
* powered by e-COST
