A common understanding considers information design to be a clear and immediate transfer of information, in which the author disappears to make the data emerge with utmost clarity. This idea of infographics as a transparent and objective medium is questioned by several scholars and practitioners who consider visualization not just as a representation of numbers but as an interpretative device. In this essay, we will review these positions, with special regard to the use of the semiotic concept of enunciation, which is also beginning to be used in critical design theory and digital humanities. This concept allows us to detect the traces of the act of enunciation in the visual artefact. In particular, we will deal with the recognition of visualization as an act of interpretation, the visual calibration and distancing from one’s statement in journalism and scientific communication and the visual reference to the production process in graphic design.
{"title":"The traces left by the information designer. Data visualization and enunciation","authors":"V. Burgio","doi":"10.18680/hss.2022.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2022.0005","url":null,"abstract":"A common understanding considers information design to be a clear and immediate transfer of information, in which the author disappears to make the data emerge with utmost clarity. This idea of infographics as a transparent and objective medium is questioned by several scholars and practitioners who consider visualization not just as a representation of numbers but as an interpretative device. In this essay, we will review these positions, with special regard to the use of the semiotic concept of enunciation, which is also beginning to be used in critical design theory and digital humanities. This concept allows us to detect the traces of the act of enunciation in the visual artefact. In particular, we will deal with the recognition of visualization as an act of interpretation, the visual calibration and distancing from one’s statement in journalism and scientific communication and the visual reference to the production process in graphic design.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"114 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80744540","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}
Data from social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, are generated by people who produce, spread, share, or exchange multimedia content. Such content may include text, images, sounds, or videos. To derive insight into the behavior of social media users, researchers often use open-source technologies to visualize data and generate models for data analytics. One of the most popular open-source applications for managing and analyzing social media data is the open-source R programming language. Friedman and Feichtinger (2017) created an R package termed ‘Peirce’s sign theory R package’ to analyze data using Peirce’s principles of discovery. Though Peirce semiotics have been introduced in the context of computer programming languages, so far, no previous work has applied Peirce’s sign theory to data modelling of social media data. In this paper, we use Peirce’s sign theory R package as an overall framework to gain insight into data collected from Twitter. We assembled the data using Twitter’s Analytics algorithm, examined the relationships between variables, and visualized the results. Subsequently, we assessed the feasibility of analyzing those graphics using the triadic model set out by Jappy (2013) and Peirtarinen (2012) for the interpretation of visual signs. The study results showed that Peirce’s sign theory R package effectively analyzes and visualizes Big Data from social media feeds. However, due to complexities in both the social media data feeds and Peirce’s interpretation of meaning, as outlined by Jappy (2013) and Peirtarinen (2012), we were unable to develop algorithms that generate or suggest an interpretation of visual signs.
{"title":"Big data visualization through the lens of Peirce’s visual sign theory","authors":"Alon Friedman, Martin Thellefsen","doi":"10.18680/hss.2022.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2022.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Data from social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, are generated by people who produce, spread, share, or exchange multimedia content. Such content may include text, images, sounds, or videos. To derive insight into the behavior of social media users, researchers often use open-source technologies to visualize data and generate models for data analytics. One of the most popular open-source applications for managing and analyzing social media data is the open-source R programming language. Friedman and Feichtinger (2017) created an R package termed ‘Peirce’s sign theory R package’ to analyze data using Peirce’s principles of discovery. Though Peirce semiotics have been introduced in the context of computer programming languages, so far, no previous work has applied Peirce’s sign theory to data modelling of social media data. In this paper, we use Peirce’s sign theory R package as an overall framework to gain insight into data collected from Twitter. We assembled the data using Twitter’s Analytics algorithm, examined the relationships between variables, and visualized the results. Subsequently, we assessed the feasibility of analyzing those graphics using the triadic model set out by Jappy (2013) and Peirtarinen (2012) for the interpretation of visual signs. The study results showed that Peirce’s sign theory R package effectively analyzes and visualizes Big Data from social media feeds. However, due to complexities in both the social media data feeds and Peirce’s interpretation of meaning, as outlined by Jappy (2013) and Peirtarinen (2012), we were unable to develop algorithms that generate or suggest an interpretation of visual signs.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88854603","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}
Il importe de repenser, aujourd’hui, le discours du pouvoir, en se fondant sur l’articulation sémiotique de quatre instances: l’énonciation politique, l’expression de l’identité de l’acteur dans son discours, la spécificité politique de la performativité du pouvoir et l’expression d’un inconscient politique dans le discours. Trois éléments définissent la spécificité de l’énonciation politique. Le premier est la définition d’enjeux propres à l’énonciation politique. Le second est la définition de ce que l’on peut appeler une écologie énonciative. Enfin, l’énonciation politique inscrit dans la communication des représentations des enjeux du pouvoir. L’énonciation du discours du pouvoir articule l’identité de l’énonciateur et un statut d’acteur politique. La communication politique se fonde sur la manifestation d’une confrontation entre les acteurs dans l’espace de l’énonciation. La performativité politique se fonde sur l’identification de l’énonciation et de la manifestation d’un acteur politique. Cette performativité propre au politique se caractérise, dans le cas du discours du pouvoir, par deux faits: l’imposition des modalités de l’énonciation et de l’interprétation et, donc, de la communication, et l’imposition des enjeux de la communication, des références qui lui donnent sa consistance. Comme toute énonciation, l’énonciation du discours du pouvoir est l’expression d’un inconscient du pouvoir. On peut définir et analyser cet inconscient politique en se fondant sur ce que l’on peut appeler la connotation politique, qui définit une sémiotique du non-dit dans la communication politique.
{"title":"Le discours du pouvoir","authors":"B. Lamizet","doi":"10.18680/HSS.2020.0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/HSS.2020.0025","url":null,"abstract":"Il importe de repenser, aujourd’hui, le discours du pouvoir, en se fondant sur l’articulation sémiotique de quatre instances: l’énonciation politique, l’expression de l’identité de l’acteur dans son discours, la spécificité politique de la performativité du pouvoir et l’expression d’un inconscient politique dans le discours. Trois éléments définissent la spécificité de l’énonciation politique. Le premier est la définition d’enjeux propres à l’énonciation politique. Le second est la définition de ce que l’on peut appeler une écologie énonciative. Enfin, l’énonciation politique inscrit dans la communication des représentations des enjeux du pouvoir. L’énonciation du discours du pouvoir articule l’identité de l’énonciateur et un statut d’acteur politique. La communication politique se fonde sur la manifestation d’une confrontation entre les acteurs dans l’espace de l’énonciation. La performativité politique se fonde sur l’identification de l’énonciation et de la manifestation d’un acteur politique. Cette performativité propre au politique se caractérise, dans le cas du discours du pouvoir, par deux faits: l’imposition des modalités de l’énonciation et de l’interprétation et, donc, de la communication, et l’imposition des enjeux de la communication, des références qui lui donnent sa consistance. Comme toute énonciation, l’énonciation du discours du pouvoir est l’expression d’un inconscient du pouvoir. On peut définir et analyser cet inconscient politique en se fondant sur ce que l’on peut appeler la connotation politique, qui définit une sémiotique du non-dit dans la communication politique.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"306 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79841544","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}
Epidemiological models have been crucial tools throughout all stages of the 2020-21 Coronavirus pandemic: using promptly available or historical data, they have studied and tried to anticipate its progression, providing valuable guidelines for public health officials, policymakers, and other medical and non-medical audiences. While useful, models are not designed to be infallible, and for this reason, they have been frequently subject to criticism. There is a discrepancy between what models do and how they are presented and perceived. Several juxtaposing factors, including current beliefs about scientific reliability, the role of quantification, and the epistemic values grounding the field, are at the core of this discrepancy. While scientific literacy may play a role in addressing this discrepancy, analyzing and becoming better aware of these factors may suggest long-term strategies to address, acknowledge, and communicate the pandemic’s inherent complexity and stochastic qualities.
{"title":"All models are wrong, but some are useful: mathematical models at the time of Covid-19","authors":"Roberta Buiani","doi":"10.18680/hss.2021.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2021.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Epidemiological models have been crucial tools throughout all stages of the 2020-21 Coronavirus pandemic: using promptly available or historical data, they have studied and tried to anticipate its progression, providing valuable guidelines for public health officials, policymakers, and other medical and non-medical audiences. While useful, models are not designed to be infallible, and for this reason, they have been frequently subject to criticism. There is a discrepancy between what models do and how they are presented and perceived. Several juxtaposing factors, including current beliefs about scientific reliability, the role of quantification, and the epistemic values grounding the field, are at the core of this discrepancy. While scientific literacy may play a role in addressing this discrepancy, analyzing and becoming better aware of these factors may suggest long-term strategies to address, acknowledge, and communicate the pandemic’s inherent complexity and stochastic qualities.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78761920","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}
This paper compares the coverage of the H1N1 and Covid-19 pandemics in ten prominent US daily newspapers. We selected articles that reference disease-specific keywords, published in the period between the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization and the first peak in laboratory- confirmed cases in the USA (20550 articles on Covid-19 and 1705 articles on H1N1). We analyzed the dataset via topic models and semantic networks, which, in a semiotic approach, are understood as iconic models. As the Covid-19 virus produced the first global pandemic in the age of social media, this comparative analysis illustrates how the news media changed the mediasphere in general. During the H1N1 pandemic (2009-2010), newly emerging social media were not mainstream, having a limited impact compared to 2020 at the outbreak of Covid-19. By 2020, social media have definingly changed the mediasphere. Given their affordance for the virulent transmission of media products, the rise of social media stirred the relativization of knowledge and mistrust towards traditional authority and legacy media. Paradoxically, this both democratizes public debate and opens opportunities for misinformation. In this context, the Covid-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a global infodemic, with adverse impact on global health. While the two pandemics are very different, comparing media representations in their early stages, when the viral spread was unpredictable, offers an insight into how the emergence of social media impacted traditional newspapers’ approach to events of global concern. The analysis reveals that ideological commitments are expressed through the same correlation of topics in both corpora but that, overall, the discourses have different structures. We argue that the remarkable stability of ideological discourses displays what McLuhan termed Narcissus narcosis, namely the numbness experienced socially during media changes.
{"title":"A semiotic comparison of mass media representations of the swine flu and Covid-19 pandemics: Observing Narcissus Narcosis","authors":"A. Olteanu, F. Rabitz, Augustė Nalivaikė","doi":"10.18680/hss.2021.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2021.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This paper compares the coverage of the H1N1 and Covid-19 pandemics in ten prominent US daily newspapers. We selected articles that reference disease-specific keywords, published in the period between the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization and the first peak in laboratory- confirmed cases in the USA (20550 articles on Covid-19 and 1705 articles on H1N1). We analyzed the dataset via topic models and semantic networks, which, in a semiotic approach, are understood as iconic models. As the Covid-19 virus produced the first global pandemic in the age of social media, this comparative analysis illustrates how the news media changed the mediasphere in general. During the H1N1 pandemic (2009-2010), newly emerging social media were not mainstream, having a limited impact compared to 2020 at the outbreak of Covid-19. By 2020, social media have definingly changed the mediasphere. Given their affordance for the virulent transmission of media products, the rise of social media stirred the relativization of knowledge and mistrust towards traditional authority and legacy media. Paradoxically, this both democratizes public debate and opens opportunities for misinformation. In this context, the Covid-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a global infodemic, with adverse impact on global health. While the two pandemics are very different, comparing media representations in their early stages, when the viral spread was unpredictable, offers an insight into how the emergence of social media impacted traditional newspapers’ approach to events of global concern. The analysis reveals that ideological commitments are expressed through the same correlation of topics in both corpora but that, overall, the discourses have different structures. We argue that the remarkable stability of ideological discourses displays what McLuhan termed Narcissus narcosis, namely the numbness experienced socially during media changes.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"122 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87706751","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}
Critiques of the objectification of female characters in comics have often focused upon depictions within the superhero genre (cf. Avery-Natale 2013; Cocca 2014; Nelson 2015). Such arguments adopt the framework of Laura Mulvey's ‘Male Gaze’ (1975) to assess the costuming, physical physique, and narrative role given to such characters. In one comment on similar controversies, Neil Cohn (2014) has argued for a greater emphasis upon the visual language used in objectifying depictions that does not get caught up in debates over realism since, he argues, comics are unconcerned with reality. Autobiographical comics, however, now form a significant part of the comics market and scholarship (cf. Schlichting and Schmid 2019). A tension exists between the rhetorical mode of visual metaphor exploited by comics (cf. Venkatesan and Saji 2021) and the appeal to authenticity made by non-fiction (cf. El Refaie 2012). Focusing on autobiographical comics – here, some published between 1991 and 2018 – allows us to assess how sexual objectification operates within comics without the issue being clouded by irresolvable appeals to reality in the fundamentally escapist/ fantastic superhero genre. The visual language in the comics by Chester Brown, Joe Matt, and David Heatley has been criticized for reducing the ‘other’ to a series of more stagnant, occluded, and restrictive graphic patterns than afforded to their author surrogates. Ariel Schrag's work, meanwhile, points towards possible means of avoiding such tendencies in future autobiographical comics.
{"title":"Objectifying Visual Language in Autobiographical Comics","authors":"Adam Whybray","doi":"10.18680/hss.2021.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2021.0018","url":null,"abstract":"Critiques of the objectification of female characters in comics have often focused upon depictions within the superhero genre (cf. Avery-Natale 2013; Cocca 2014; Nelson 2015). Such arguments adopt the framework of Laura Mulvey's ‘Male Gaze’ (1975) to assess the costuming, physical physique, and narrative role given to such characters. In one comment on similar controversies, Neil Cohn (2014) has argued for a greater emphasis upon the visual language used in objectifying depictions that does not get caught up in debates over realism since, he argues, comics are unconcerned with reality. Autobiographical comics, however, now form a significant part of the comics market and scholarship (cf. Schlichting and Schmid 2019). A tension exists between the rhetorical mode of visual metaphor exploited by comics (cf. Venkatesan and Saji 2021) and the appeal to authenticity made by non-fiction (cf. El Refaie 2012). Focusing on autobiographical comics – here, some published between 1991 and 2018 – allows us to assess how sexual objectification operates within comics without the issue being clouded by irresolvable appeals to reality in the fundamentally escapist/ fantastic superhero genre. The visual language in the comics by Chester Brown, Joe Matt, and David Heatley has been criticized for reducing the ‘other’ to a series of more stagnant, occluded, and restrictive graphic patterns than afforded to their author surrogates. Ariel Schrag's work, meanwhile, points towards possible means of avoiding such tendencies in future autobiographical comics.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88302260","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":"Materiality, Data Epistemology and Enunciation","authors":"Mary Dondero","doi":"10.18680/hss.2021.0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2021.0023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83088537","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":"Reading visual narratives across cultures","authors":"F. Zanettin","doi":"10.18680/hss.2021.0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2021.0025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73198263","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":"Can enactivism and semiotics be together?","authors":"A. Iliopoulos","doi":"10.18680/hss.2021.0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2021.0024","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"194 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77577120","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 article deals with comics' (re)presentation of conceptual – political and ideological – content and how the semiotic potentials of non-representational ideas associated with social upheaval and political crises are expressed. After considering comics' potential to express abstract (non-depictive) concepts, we examine three Czech graphic novels, which concern crucial moments in Czech political history: the Austrian- Hungarian Empire's collapse and the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918; the disintegration of Czechoslovakia after the Nazi occupation in 1938; and the reformists' defeat by the invading Warsaw pact armies in the Prague Spring of 1968. In each case, we investigate the semiotic resources chosen by the individual artists to present these events. Finally, we describe how the selected historiographical graphic novels reflect the ideology of a transforming nation and express a sense of non-self-evidentness for the nation as an independent state.
{"title":"Signs of Disintegration: Subversive Visual Expressions of Processes of Social Transformation and Ideological Clashes in a Czech Graphic Novel Series about Political History","authors":"Martin Forêt","doi":"10.18680/hss.2021.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2021.0020","url":null,"abstract":"The article deals with comics' (re)presentation of conceptual – political and ideological – content and how the semiotic potentials of non-representational ideas associated with social upheaval and political crises are expressed. After considering comics' potential to express abstract (non-depictive) concepts, we examine three Czech graphic novels, which concern crucial moments in Czech political history: the Austrian- Hungarian Empire's collapse and the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918; the disintegration of Czechoslovakia after the Nazi occupation in 1938; and the reformists' defeat by the invading Warsaw pact armies in the Prague Spring of 1968. In each case, we investigate the semiotic resources chosen by the individual artists to present these events. Finally, we describe how the selected historiographical graphic novels reflect the ideology of a transforming nation and express a sense of non-self-evidentness for the nation as an independent state.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90571274","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}
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