Media visualization based on big cultural data, as “visualization without reduction” (Manovich 2010) is supposed to make data immediately and completely available, in contrast to classic data visualization, which visually translates information by means of “graphical primitives.” On the other hand, from a pure functionalist point of view, also the visual form of diagrams, charts, and graphs, being fully proportional to the data values it conveys, is transparent with respect to its object (cf. Tufte 1990, 1997, 2001, and Card, Mackinlay, Shneiderman 1999). In this paper, we will try to consider both media visualization and data visualization (across several examples, including some of Manovich’s and Accurat’s projects and New York Times graphics) as complex visual communication artifacts, not only from a purely informational point of view but from a semiotic point of view, by introducing a semiotic reflection on what we have proposed to call “discourse of data” (Manchia 2020a). From our perspective, situated in the methodological framework of visual semiotics and of the semiotics of scientific discourse, it might be interesting to pay attention to the whole process of constructing knowledge (and visual information) from data, understood as a chain of “devices of visualization” (Bastide 1985a, 1990 [1985b], 2001), investigating data as a channeled result, and also visualization strategies of specific–and oriented–discourses across data.
{"title":"Beyond immediacy and transparency. A semiotic approach to discursive and rhetorical strategies in media visualization and data visualization","authors":"Valentina Manchia","doi":"10.18680/hss.2022.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2022.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Media visualization based on big cultural data, as “visualization without reduction” (Manovich 2010) is supposed to make data immediately and completely available, in contrast to classic data visualization, which visually translates information by means of “graphical primitives.” On the other hand, from a pure functionalist point of view, also the visual form of diagrams, charts, and graphs, being fully proportional to the data values it conveys, is transparent with respect to its object (cf. Tufte 1990, 1997, 2001, and Card, Mackinlay, Shneiderman 1999). In this paper, we will try to consider both media visualization and data visualization (across several examples, including some of Manovich’s and Accurat’s projects and New York Times graphics) as complex visual communication artifacts, not only from a purely informational point of view but from a semiotic point of view, by introducing a semiotic reflection on what we have proposed to call “discourse of data” (Manchia 2020a). From our perspective, situated in the methodological framework of visual semiotics and of the semiotics of scientific discourse, it might be interesting to pay attention to the whole process of constructing knowledge (and visual information) from data, understood as a chain of “devices of visualization” (Bastide 1985a, 1990 [1985b], 2001), investigating data as a channeled result, and also visualization strategies of specific–and oriented–discourses across data.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72939744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jacques Bertin’s groundbreaking work, Sémiologie Graphique, has remained definitive for the more than half a century since its initial publication (1967). His formal description of graphic variables is fundamental for information design because it offers a way to understand how visual entities can be used to create a semiotic system with clear and distinct categories. According to Bertin, color, texture, value, pattern, shape, position, and orientation can each be assigned a specific role within a signifying system in accord with logical rules of representation. However, given the technology of the time in which Bertin was writing, features of dynamic display were not included in his discussion. These include elements of animation (such as direction, speed, acceleration, transformation, and rate of change) as well as some features of perspectival and spatial systems (including point of view, scale, projection, folding) that did exist but were not much used. The critical question is whether these graphical features can be formalized to the same degree as Bertin’s seven graphic variables, andincluded within the operation of semiotic systems. While these variables are not associated with fixed values any more than Bertin’s original ones, their use in information display suggests that they would benefit from the same kind of descriptive analysis he applied to static ones. This paper describes dynamic and spatial variables, offers some preliminary thoughts about their specific contribution to visualization of big data, and addresses the way they produce meaning within a graphical semiotic system.
Jacques Bertin的开创性著作《ssammiologie Graphique》自1967年首次出版以来，在半个多世纪里一直是权威的。他对图形变量的形式化描述是信息设计的基础，因为它提供了一种方法来理解如何使用视觉实体来创建具有清晰和不同类别的符号系统。根据Bertin的观点，颜色、纹理、价值、图案、形状、位置和方向都可以按照表征的逻辑规则在一个符号系统中被赋予一个特定的角色。然而，考虑到Bertin写作时代的技术，动态显示的特征并没有包括在他的讨论中。这些元素包括动画元素(如方向、速度、加速、转换和变化率)，以及透视和空间系统的一些特征(包括视角、比例、投影、折叠)，这些都是存在的，但没有被大量使用。关键的问题是，这些图形特征是否可以形式化到与Bertin的七个图形变量相同的程度，并包括在符号系统的操作中。虽然这些变量与固定值的关联并不比Bertin的原始变量多，但它们在信息显示中的使用表明，它们将受益于他应用于静态变量的相同类型的描述性分析。本文描述了动态变量和空间变量，提供了一些关于它们对大数据可视化的具体贡献的初步想法，并解决了它们在图形符号系统中产生意义的方式。
{"title":"Dynamic and spatial variables in data visualization systems","authors":"J. Drucker","doi":"10.18680/hss.2022.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2022.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Jacques Bertin’s groundbreaking work, Sémiologie Graphique, has remained definitive for the more than half a century since its initial publication (1967). His formal description of graphic variables is fundamental for information design because it offers a way to understand how visual entities can be used to create a semiotic system with clear and distinct categories. According to Bertin, color, texture, value, pattern, shape, position, and orientation can each be assigned a specific role within a signifying system in accord with logical rules of representation. However, given the technology of the time in which Bertin was writing, features of dynamic display were not included in his discussion. These include elements of animation (such as direction, speed, acceleration, transformation, and rate of change) as well as some features of perspectival and spatial systems (including point of view, scale, projection, folding) that did exist but were not much used. The critical question is whether these graphical features can be formalized to the same degree as Bertin’s seven graphic variables, andincluded within the operation of semiotic systems. While these variables are not associated with fixed values any more than Bertin’s original ones, their use in information display suggests that they would benefit from the same kind of descriptive analysis he applied to static ones. This paper describes dynamic and spatial variables, offers some preliminary thoughts about their specific contribution to visualization of big data, and addresses the way they produce meaning within a graphical semiotic system.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76832061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The growth of contemporary positivistic trust in computational tools inspired semiotics to contribute to the debate on the strategies of communication of truth. In order to study these strategies in data images, the article features a framework modeled on the theory of impersonal enunciation. The computational utterer is believed to assure a super-personal enunciation understood as impartial and true. Furthermore, it will be observed how subjectivities are in any case modulated in the data images: this operation constitutes as much a visual rhetoric to achieve the effect of truthfulness as it is a discursive practice featuring the computational enunciation of the data image.
{"title":"The “modulation mania”. Impersonal enunciation and visual rhetoric of the data image","authors":"Federico Biggio","doi":"10.18680/hss.2022.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2022.0003","url":null,"abstract":"The growth of contemporary positivistic trust in computational tools inspired semiotics to contribute to the debate on the strategies of communication of truth. In order to study these strategies in data images, the article features a framework modeled on the theory of impersonal enunciation. The computational utterer is believed to assure a super-personal enunciation understood as impartial and true. Furthermore, it will be observed how subjectivities are in any case modulated in the data images: this operation constitutes as much a visual rhetoric to achieve the effect of truthfulness as it is a discursive practice featuring the computational enunciation of the data image.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75294622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
With a few exceptions – focusing on journalism (Compagno 2017), on works of art (Chartier, Pulizzotto, Chartrand & Meunier 2019, Dondero 2020), on deep fake videos (Leone 2021, Dondero 2021), and on data epistemology (Bachimont 2018) – semiotics has been late to approach big data. In contrast to information and communication studies, which have been quick to recognize the big data revolution in medical, biological, political, urbanistic, and journalistic practices, and while digital humanities and digital art history continue to offer crucial insight with their analysis of large collections of artworks and heritage objects, semiotics has yet to live up to the big data challenge. In this Punctum issue we have attempted to (1) contribute to the global discussion of possible semiotic approaches to big data theory and methodology; (2) explore specifically an epistemological approach to visualizations of big data, i.e., to their manipulation, design, display, and interpretation; (3) study, from a critical vantage point, the ideologies and epistemic perspectives that underlie the acts of collecting and visualizing big data, prior to their analysis. Our overall objective has been to trace the path that leads from visualization, regarded as a unifying representation of disparate data, to its full elevation to an interpretative device.
{"title":"Semiotic approaches to big data visualization","authors":"Pierluigi Basso Fossali, Mary Dondero, L. Yoka","doi":"10.18680/hss.2022.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2022.0001","url":null,"abstract":"With a few exceptions – focusing on journalism (Compagno 2017), on works of art (Chartier, Pulizzotto, Chartrand & Meunier 2019, Dondero 2020), on deep fake videos (Leone 2021, Dondero 2021), and on data epistemology (Bachimont 2018) – semiotics has been late to approach big data. In contrast to information and communication studies, which have been quick to recognize the big data revolution in medical, biological, political, urbanistic, and journalistic practices, and while digital humanities and digital art history continue to offer crucial insight with their analysis of large collections of artworks and heritage objects, semiotics has yet to live up to the big data challenge. In this Punctum issue we have attempted to (1) contribute to the global discussion of possible semiotic approaches to big data theory and methodology; (2) explore specifically an epistemological approach to visualizations of big data, i.e., to their manipulation, design, display, and interpretation; (3) study, from a critical vantage point, the ideologies and epistemic perspectives that underlie the acts of collecting and visualizing big data, prior to their analysis. Our overall objective has been to trace the path that leads from visualization, regarded as a unifying representation of disparate data, to its full elevation to an interpretative device.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77603347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spaces hiding within spaces","authors":"Alexander Dobrohotov","doi":"10.18680/hss.2022.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2022.0011","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91231869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From the body to the body, through the body: toward an embodied semiotics of culture","authors":"Valeria De Luca","doi":"10.18680/hss.2022.0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2022.0022","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90089030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
he recent publication of Theory and Methodology of Semiotics: The Tradition of Ferdinand de Saussure (which we will refer to here as TMS) by Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos and Karin Boklund-Lagopoulou is a veritable event in global Semiotikland. The initial aim of the two authors, Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos (semiotician, architect-engineer, urban planner, and social anthropologist) and Karin Boklund-Lagopoulou (semiotician, specialist in medieval and comparative literature), was to provide a much-needed manual of Saussurean semiotics, drawing from their ongoing research and teaching at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. This aim is fully attained in the first half of their book and greatly surpassed in the second.
{"title":"An event in global Semiotikland","authors":"A. Hénault","doi":"10.18680/hss/2022.0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss/2022.0023","url":null,"abstract":"he recent publication of Theory and Methodology of Semiotics: The Tradition of Ferdinand de Saussure (which we will refer to here as TMS) by Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos and Karin Boklund-Lagopoulou is a veritable event in global Semiotikland. The initial aim of the two authors, Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos (semiotician, architect-engineer, urban planner, and social anthropologist) and Karin Boklund-Lagopoulou (semiotician, specialist in medieval and comparative literature), was to provide a much-needed manual of Saussurean semiotics, drawing from their ongoing research and teaching at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. This aim is fully attained in the first half of their book and greatly surpassed in the second.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"62 2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90104803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Semiotics of imagination in religion","authors":"Thomas-Andreas Pöder","doi":"10.18680/hss.2022.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2022.0009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81866866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
According to enaction theory, information perception results from a coupling between the individual and data in the perceptual space. Consequently, the minimal condition of achieving perception is that there be something to act upon, i.e., a salience or a hook. Data emerge in the background and become preponderant. But, being at first only a sensation, these data can only be constituted as information if they persist in the perceptive field. One should be able to leave them and return to them in the logic of topological continuity, for example, association, similarity/dissimilarity, divergence, etc. Our hypothesis is that there are logics that transform these data into information. We posit that, in addition to being spatializing, they embody above all the perceptual gestures that make these data legible. Such is, for example, the status of the various supports that serve as structures of data inscription available on the digital applications: lists, tables, diagrams, and cartographies. Starting from sensorimotor theories, in connection with the enactive approach, we intend to establish the semiotic conditions of these supports as a perceptive basis of information.
{"title":"Spatialization as a perceptual basis for information: How perception becomes a narrative","authors":"Didier Tsala Effa","doi":"10.18680/hss.2022.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2022.0020","url":null,"abstract":"According to enaction theory, information perception results from a coupling between the individual and data in the perceptual space. Consequently, the minimal condition of achieving perception is that there be something to act upon, i.e., a salience or a hook. Data emerge in the background and become preponderant. But, being at first only a sensation, these data can only be constituted as information if they persist in the perceptive field. One should be able to leave them and return to them in the logic of topological continuity, for example, association, similarity/dissimilarity, divergence, etc. Our hypothesis is that there are logics that transform these data into information. We posit that, in addition to being spatializing, they embody above all the perceptual gestures that make these data legible. Such is, for example, the status of the various supports that serve as structures of data inscription available on the digital applications: lists, tables, diagrams, and cartographies. Starting from sensorimotor theories, in connection with the enactive approach, we intend to establish the semiotic conditions of these supports as a perceptive basis of information.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78016518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vaccination continues to be one of the most debated topics worldwide, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and in countries like Romania, where the COVID-19 vaccination rate is very low. Studies showed that in public pro-vaccination campaigns, despite the tendencies towards using evidence-based content strategies focusing on factual information delivered by experts, emotional content through personal stories also triggers a positive engagement in fostering vaccine confidence. In April 2021, the Romanian Government launched a new Facebook campaign entitled #storiesfromvaccination/ #povestidelavaccinare. Drawing from two concepts (point of view and multimodality) relevant to narrative online health messages, the study has a threefold aim: (1) to investigate the online engagement of the narrative perspectives in the #storiesfromvaccination campaign; (2) to provide a comparative analysis of the multimodal cohesion in the Facebook #storiesfromvaccination multimodal texts posted by various message sources; (3) to identify the various representations of agency and action in the interplay of the three metafunctions (experiential, interpersonal and textual) in the personal stories from vaccination.
{"title":"Representing agency and action in the #storiesfromvaccination governmental campaign in Romania. A multimodal approach","authors":"C. Cmeciu","doi":"10.18680/hss.2022.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2022.0016","url":null,"abstract":"Vaccination continues to be one of the most debated topics worldwide, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and in countries like Romania, where the COVID-19 vaccination rate is very low. Studies showed that in public pro-vaccination campaigns, despite the tendencies towards using evidence-based content strategies focusing on factual information delivered by experts, emotional content through personal stories also triggers a positive engagement in fostering vaccine confidence. In April 2021, the Romanian Government launched a new Facebook campaign entitled #storiesfromvaccination/ #povestidelavaccinare. Drawing from two concepts (point of view and multimodality) relevant to narrative online health messages, the study has a threefold aim: (1) to investigate the online engagement of the narrative perspectives in the #storiesfromvaccination campaign; (2) to provide a comparative analysis of the multimodal cohesion in the Facebook #storiesfromvaccination multimodal texts posted by various message sources; (3) to identify the various representations of agency and action in the interplay of the three metafunctions (experiential, interpersonal and textual) in the personal stories from vaccination.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81918785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：