Social semiotics

 To be honest, Social Semiotics is a bit confusing to me. This methodology of explaining why people do the things they do in online communication or visual communication is also used in the context of many other subjects so narrowing down the list of peer-reviewed articles was a bit daunting. 

According to Aiello and Van Leeuwan (2023), De Saussure discovered Social Semiotics and defined it as "a science that studies the life of signs within society." Furthermore, Social Semiotics provides two key dimensions: (1) the study of semiotic resources used in a cultural context - the values attached to those resources and the meaning they have within that context, and (2) the study of the contextually specific semiotic practices in which the resources are used (Aiello & Van Leeuwan, 2023). This sounds convoluted, right? Well, what I gather is that Social Semiotics studies the reason WHY a group or business will use resources and HOW those resources are used within the context of that group or business. 

Essentially, in online communication/visual communication, Social Semiotics is a methodology used to understand how people communicate in social situations - how images are used in purposeful ways to create intended or implied meanings. Social Semiotics assumes that an image is socially shaped to become meaning-making based on the requirements of specific communities. Therefore, when you analyze an image through a Social Semiotic lens, you must take into account how that image would be defined by a community. I am unable to define the specific rules for what photos at the top mean (at the bottom, to the left, to the right, etc.). If any of you know, please comment. I would like to understand.

Since I am still lost as to how to use this methodology, I will provide some images that I found on the internet that were analyzed through the Social Semiotics method.

Image credit: https://dxb402groupssjr.wordpress.com/tag/social-semiotics/

Image credit: https://theoriesofviscomm2015.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/week-4-visual-social-semiotics/

Works cited:

Aiello, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2023). Michel Pastoureau and the history of visual communication. Visual Communication (London, England), 22(1), 27–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221126517