The Dcom group is engaged in theoretical and design research into communication systems that place the paradigm of communicative access to content and information at the centre, together with the social and cultural responsibility that the communication project must assume in the broader context of the contemporary media system. On the basis of these founding principles, and thanks to the specific skills of its members, the group has developed its experience in basic and applied research, orienting them along three lines:

• Cultures, processes, methods which focuses on the cultures involved in the communicative act and its historical dimension, translation processes, identity and stereotypical models.
• Interfaces and digital media that puts the technological dimension of the digital at the service of communication, enabling new forms of access, use and interaction with information and content.
• Communicative accessibility that pays attention to the requirements necessary to enable everyone to read texts and images, to use them and to synaesthetically relate content to different sensory registers.

In particular, the work developed in the field of applied research concerns the different scales of design action and is divided into the following areas, which constitute privileged fields of action:

• communication design for access;
• communication design for gender cultures;
• communication design for translation, identity and publishing systems;
• communication design for territory;
• communication design for the valorisation of historical and cultural heritage;
• communication design for welfare.

The research group uses an instrumental DCOM AI Lab to support the conduct of experiments using machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies: from the design of systems for generating visual, textual and multimodal content, to the computational analysis of text and images, to the design of new ways of interacting with content, environments and people.

The lab provides the tools to explore the role of AI in the various relevant contexts and work areas mentioned, not only as a tool for automating processes, but also as a resource in design practices and as a means of reflecting on image cultures.