Studying social media as semiotic technology: a social semiotic multimodal framework

ABSTRACT

How do we study social media technology? While social semiotics provides an extensive toolkit for analysing multimodal texts and semiotic practices, the study of social media as semiotic technology poses a significant challenge to existing research methodologies. In this article, we present a social semiotic framework that allows us to describe in analytical details the multimodal meaning potentials offered by digital social media technology and connect these to multimodal text-making and semiotic practices while underscoring the role of technology. Our framework is organized around seven interrelated and inherently informed dimensions: (1) multimodality, (2) practice, (3) the social, (4) medium, (5) the material, (6) the historical, and (7) the critical. This framework could pertain to most types of semiotic technologies, but will here be developed for accounting for social media technologies, and its viability will be illustrated with examples from Instagram. By developing this framework, we aim at elaborating the theoretical basis and analytical tools of social semiotics, and thereby contributing to bringing forward increased understanding of how social media technology enables making, enacting and managing meaning.     

Courtroom proverbial murals in Lebanon: a semiotic reconstruction of justice

Inspired by the “rituality” and “symbolism” of the courtroom as a discourse of space, this paper sheds light on the semiotic weight of the tiled-mosaic murals of Arabic proverbs displayed in the courtrooms of the Palace of Justice in Beirut, Lebanon. This paper attempts to draw attention to the discursive importance of these courtroom proverbial murals in the conceptualization of justice in the Lebanese legal and judicial system by unfolding the semiotic code of the proverbial murals. This work categorizes the murals under investigation (20 murals) into three “functional” or semiotic categories: social (six proverbs), quasi-judicial (nine proverbs; three of which are religious, two ethical, and four political) and judicial (five proverbs). On a positive note, this investigation highlights the functionality of the linguistic (i.e. proverbiality) and artistic (calligraphy and design) components of the proverbial murals as a semiotic tool to inter-faith national unity in Lebanon. Nonetheless, the same semiotic features signal a spatially “mutating” justice, from one courtroom to another and thus a socioethical, religious and political relativism in perceiving justice.     

Analysing characters' interactions in filmic text: a functional semiotic approach

This paper presents an analytical tool for constructing characters' action patterns in film. Understanding characters in moving images has been regarded as one of the most significant elements of narrative comprehension and interpretation because spectators' inferences of narrative structures are substantially mediated by characters. The social semiotic method presented in this paper shows how characters' actions and interactions can be systematically constructed based on the co-patterning of textual elements in film and how the patterns provide an analytical foundation for understanding and interpreting characters. In addition, this paper also reviews the previous explorations of the more fine-grained approaches to character analysis and then demonstrates how the method the paper suggests can support and strengthen the accounts provided to date. Most importantly, by comparing scenes within and across two war films, The Thin Red Line (1998) and Black Hawk Down (2001), the article will show the potential of this method for effectively constraining hypotheses for empirical investigations of filmic meaning.     

The observer actant in the contemporary legal discourse: a semiotic meditation*

ABSTRACT

The sensorial access to the law that a society grants to its members is underpinned by a logic of exhibition and disclosure that, in turn, results from a more abstract cultural propensity to either transparency or opacity. Through investigating the systems of signs by which the functioning of the law is either concealed to external audiences or manifested to them in a more or less spectacular way, one can gain a firmer grasp on the juridical aesthetics of a society. This semiotic approach entails two advantages: on the one hand, the possibility to compare and contrast different regimes of disclosure and secrecy in the synchronic dimension, connecting the discourse of the law with other – apparently distant – types of discourse, adopting the same aesthetics of transparency or opaqueness in other domains of social life and discursive production; on the other hand, the opportunity for a more insightful intelligence of the diachronic development of such aesthetics, so that it may be interpreted as the long-term byproduct of historical watersheds in the history of culture. The article, in particular, proposes to link the socio-pathology of anorexia with several other practices and texts of present-day culture that adopt the same rhetoric of transparency in other discursive arena, including that of law. In all these sign productions, indeed, the trend that predominates is one that, adhering to an ideology of immediacy and transparency, pretends to eliminate all filters, all hindrances, but also all material signifiers that would mar the purity of the content. Although this utopia cannot correspond to any actual semiotic state – for any content needs a material expression to be conveyed – it nevertheless exerts a powerful influence on the present time, until it manifests itself in extreme forms of ‘transparentist’ radicalism.     

Repositioning urban bias: Non-state providers' use of spatialised networks in Bangladesh

Urban bias theory predicts urban areas of developing countries receive disproportionately more resources than rural areas due to their concentration of numerically large, politically important “vote banks.” This has not been the case in Bangladesh. This study finds that this variation occurs due to non-state providers (NSPs) changing the landscape of resource allocation. Operating on the premise that state control leads to more services in urban areas, urban bias fails to account for NSPs as critical service providers. Employing a grounded theory strategy to explore urban-rural dynamics in service provision and to build on urban bias theory, this research highlights interactions between state and non-state actors. It argues that spatialized political networks, networks of formal and informal leadership more difficult to access in urban areas, influence the locality of service provision. Though NSPs recognize increased need in urban areas of Bangladesh, their interventions in those areas remain peripheral due to differing structures of government accountability and differing levels of community acceptance facilitating these networks. The need for NSPs to adapt their activities to restrictive governance mechanisms reflects the changing space for NSPs in the context of semi-democratic regimes.     

Semiotics and urban culture: architectural projections of structuralism in a socialist context

The paper studies the relations between architecture, urbanism and structural anthropology, and makes a contribution to the interpretation of how the architects of former Yugoslavia translated structuralism into architectural theory and practice as a means of reading and shaping Yugoslav culture in the context of radical socio-political change. In striving for freedom of opinion, expression, communication and action, and autonomy of scientific and cultural practices, the Yugoslav society through its avant-garde cultural role initiated a shift of focus in urban culture towards semiotics, historicity, dialectics, creativity, criticism and a revival of the humanistic values of traditional culture. From this viewpoint, the paper examines the interests in theory and practice of the most influential Yugoslav architects in the context of structuralism: Mutnjakovi?, Neidhardt, Grabrijan, Bogdanovi? and Delalle. Their theoretical approaches effected a change of functionalist principles and values and advocated the return of values of the old city centre and vernacular architecture, specifically its vitality, symbolism, historical continuity, environmental values and diverse urban forms.     

Analysing multimodality in an interactive digital environment: software as a meta-semiotic tool

The present paper discusses issues arising from the use of an interactive digital software tool to analyse multimodal communication. The focus is on the ways in which such technical resources and associated techniques enable the analyst of social semiosis to apply different types of analysis, and provide the site for critical reflection upon the results of such analyses. The aim is to present an argument for the use of an interactive digital software application as a meta-semiotic tool. Three major challenges for scholars engaged in multimodal social semiotics are addressed in pursuing this aim, specifically with reference to the development of digital interactive analytical resources. Firstly, scholars are faced with the task of not only accounting for an increasing range of semiotic resources, but also for the way different semiotic phenomena interact to produce meaning. Secondly, the multimodal semiotician has a broad range of analytical approaches potentially relevant to any task to draw upon. Thirdly, the nature of contemporary media forms offer challenges themselves in terms of access, analysis and presentation of analysis.     

Civil Society Organizations in a Post‐Aid World: New Trends and Observations from the Andean Region

The objective of this article is to outline approaches taken by civil society organizations (CSOs) in order to advance their work in social development given the changes in the aid architecture. It focuses on the Latin American region, particularly Andean countries, but many of the challenges and opportunities in a “post‐aid world” are insights that might prove helpful to other regions as well. The article provides a comprehensive outline of approaches that CSOs are taking given the changes in aid grouped into three categories: aid models, organizational considerations and revenue sources and modes of fundraising. Many of these have been in practice for sometime but might need to be more strategically used as CSOs manage the changing contexts. CSOs in Latin America and the Andes are considering a multitude of options, and while the approaches considered in the article are not an exhaustive list, they provide an overview of viable directions, which might positively influence CSOs' sustainability and continued provision and promotion of a myriad of public goods and services. The article ends with observations about aid shifts and its implications for CSOs and social development more broadly. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Integration of Environmental Concerns in a Trans‐Atlantic Perspective: The Case of Renewable Electricity

The issue of integrating environmental concerns into energy policy decision making is increasingly addressed, not least related to climate change. Although the United States, unlike the EU, did not sign the Kyoto Protocol, several U.S. states promote renewable electricity (RES‐E), and some of these initiatives are linked to climate‐change mitigation efforts. The present article assesses in this connection the six New England states of the United States, comparing their efforts of integrating RES‐E with climate change to the Nordic countries in Europe. In order to explain different approaches, the article focuses on the importance of different EU and U.S. multilevel governing structures. The analysis indicates that the New England states' RES‐E promotion thus far has not been substantially integrated with climate‐change concerns, whereas in the EU's more top‐down approach, climate change figures more prominently vis‐à‐vis RES‐E. EU policies represent an increasingly important driver for the Nordic countries. In the United States, on the other hand, it remains an open question as to how future federal policy efforts will relate to existing policies at the state level.     

Age,period and cohort analysis in a comparative context: Political generations and political participation repertoires in Western Europe

This paper presents a method for studying age-period-cohort effects in a comparative context where repeated cross-sectional data are available covering a suitably long period of time. The method consists in the application of multi-level models with country as the higher level of analysis and random coefficients to model variables which vary at the country-level. Additionally, the application of generalized additive models (GAMs) and generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) provides robust empirical tests of cohort categorizations applied in this and previous studies to estimate otherwise collinear effects. To illustrate the method, I derive and test the theory that generations will be differentiated in their patterns of participation based on the ascendancy of certain repertoires in the era of their political socialization.     

Community‐based environmental management in Vietnam: the challenge of sharing power in a politically guided society

The article presents the challenges of introducing a ‘shared‐power’ community‐based management approach in the socialist society of Vietnam. The Portland State University (PSU)'s Oregon Environmental Management Alliance partnered with Vietnamese organisations in a shared‐power pilot project aimed at strengthening stakeholder participation in environmental improvements in two communities along the Tan Hoa‐Lo Gom (THLG) canal in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). The Oregon Solutions model, a community‐based environmental management (CBEM) approach, was adapted for the shared‐power project. This article analyses three core ingredients of the shared‐power CBEM approach: multiple stakeholder structure, dispersed authority arrangements and diverse policy instruments. Critical reflections are offered on the meaning and appropriateness of these shared‐power ingredients when they are reinvented in Vietnam's politically guided governance system. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Confidence in an election authority and satisfaction with democracy: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of a failed election in Sweden

Contemporary research on electoral integrity has focused on the functioning, evaluation, and legitimacy of electoral processes in emerging democracies. By contrast, this study investigates whether a failed election in a well-established democracy can affect individuals' evaluations of the electoral management body, the Election Authority, and whether those evaluations affect satisfaction with democracy. Using the case of a Swedish regional election in 2010 that had to be rerun due to procedural mistakes in the vote handling, we found that, in the short term, individuals’ confidence in the Election Authority was reduced after it was announced that the election had to be rerun because of the mistakes. Subsequently, this decreased confidence was strongly associated with less satisfaction with democracy at the regional and national level. As good news for the authority, after a successful rerun election, confidence rebounded to the levels prior to the failed election.