Image-based Online Communication: Observations on the Status of Images as Linguistic Constituents in Computer-mediated Communication (original) (raw)
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More than a thousand words? A semiotic analysis of images in online communication
2011
Department: University of Gothenburg, Department of Languages and Literature Course: C-level linguistic essay Semester: Autumn 2010 Title: More than a thousand words? A semiotic analysis of images in online communication Author: Markus Danielsson Aim: To examine the possibilities of using semiotics to analyse images as an integrated part of text-based online communication. Method: Semiotic analysis Material: 17 images taken from conversation threads on the message boards IGNBoards and Off Topic Main results: Semiotic analysis can be applied fruitfully to the study of images as an integrated part of text-based online communication. Semiotics can be used to highlight cultural aspects of the discourse. However, in-depth study of particular signs or groups of signs is needed to establish how choice of source and context affect the interpretation of images. This in turn necessitates the creation of established semiotic taxonomies of the images available online.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2019
By drawing on visual data ranging from printed advertisements to digital photography, this book provides a fine-grained social semiotic analysis of a full range of visual texts in terms of specified periods, offering a complex interpretation of what different social functions these texts realise in a semiotic artefact. Situated in the semiotic landscape of the city of Hong Kong, the current study demonstrates that the social context of meaning making is an important feature of a social semiotic visual analysis. For example, it shows that the widespread use of smartphone applications has a significant impact on the personal photography of Hong Kong females, leading to socio-cultural transformations that are reflected in the representational aesthetic practices of digital photographs for self-modelling as well as an emerging gendered identity within the community. In addition, the social semiotic analysis of printed advertisements in magazines on slimming products and services also offers deep insights into the media ideologies relating to female body idealisation, gender roles and stereotypes, providing a useful sociologically relevant analysis on the basis of analytical tools from social semiotics and further pointing to the need for combining social semiotics with sociological theory and beyond. The book also discusses how social semiotic analysis might attend to the broader discursive practices, as in the case of TV commercials focussed on personal loans and luxury property. The desire of a hedonistic lifestyle has been the driving force behind these discursive practices in which social actors are idealised through semiotic resources in such a way that their semiotically shaped identities in the advertising discourse become a site of ideology on the basis of which intertextuality and the broader discourse of social stereotypes could be analysed. This book will therefore be of interest to a very wide readership in various academic fields in arts and social sciences such as semiotics, visual studies, design studies, media and cultural studies, anthropology and sociology.
Spoken and Written Discourse in Online Interactions. A Multimodal Approach.
2013
Common patterns of interactions are altered in the digital world and new patterns of communication have emerged, challenging previous notions of what communication actually is in the contemporary age. Online configurations of interaction, such as video chats, blogging, and social networking practices demand profound rethinking of the categories of linguistic analysis, given the blurring of traditional distinctions between oral and written discourse in digital texts. This volume reconsiders underlying linguistic and semiotic frameworks of analysis of spoken and written discourse in the light of the new paradigms of online communication, in keeping with a multimodal corpus linguistics theoretical framework. Typical modes of online interaction encompass speech, writing, gesture, movement, gaze, and social distance. This is nothing new, but here Sindoni asserts that all these modes are integrated in unprecedented ways, enacting new interactional patterns and new systems of interpretation among web users. These "non verbal" modes have been sidelined by mainstream linguistics, whereas accounting for the complexity of new genres and making sense of their educational impact is high on this volume’ s agenda. Sindoni analyzes other new phenomena, ranging from the intimate sphere (i.e. video chats, personal blogs or journals on social networking websites) to the public arena (i.e. global-scale transmission of information and knowledge in public blogs or media-sharing communities), shedding light on the rapidly changing global web scenario.
Reflective of both changing times and transforming communicative practices, Ciberpragmática 2.0 is a timely and profound revision of Yus' original book, Ciberpragmática (Yus, 2001). Included with revised versions of the original five chapters are three additional chapters which reflect changing discursive behaviors occurring in digitally mediated spaces. These include pragmatic analyses of blogs, social networking sites (e.g., Tuenti), and microblogging (e.g., Twitter), as well as avatar-mediated communication. The book concludes with a chapter examining the future of pragmatic analysis of digitally mediated discourse. Ciberpragmática 2.0 remains the first volume of its kind written in Spanish and, as predicted by Bonilla in his 2003 review of Ciberpragmática, is ''universally recognized. . .as a classical reference work on the language of computerized communication'' (p. 639). Overall, the volume is well written, comprehensive, global, and reflective of the type of pragmatic considerations relevant to evolving human communication in both digitally mediated and non-mediated contexts. The book reflects a strong foundation in cognitive models of pragmatic analysis, specifically Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1995), as well as innovative thinking related to the consideration of digitally mediated discourse.