{"title":"Production of multimodal texts in Secondary Education: A case-study","authors":"Marina Rodosthenous-Balafa, Agni Stylianou-Georgiou, Elisavet Pitri","doi":"10.18680/hss.2019.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2019.0013","url":null,"abstract":"This paper describes the theoretical framework and the methodology followed by three researchers from different disciplines (Literature, Art Education and Educational Psychology) in order to present the challenges 12-15-year-old students faced in the production of a multimodal text in a school context. It examines the way students address specific dimensions of meaning (representational, social and organizational) within and across linguistic and visual-spatial modes, when producing a multimodal text. Specifically, it demonstrates students’ challenges in addressing the different dimensions of meaning and achieving synergy among different semiotic systems in creating multimodal artefacts. Qualitative methods were utilized to analyze how groups addressed linguistically and visually the representational, social and organizational dimensions of meaning for the production of their multimodal texts and how they reflected on the production of their multimodal meaning making. The results of this study shed light on the difficulties the students have faced in the production of multimodal meaning making. Moreover, the study stresses the need to support students through systematic approaches on how to address the different dimensions of meaning in multimodal text production. Finally, several suggestions are provided regarding further research on studying in depth the process of producing multimodal texts in school context.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81465023","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":"Color signification in digital multimodal compositions: A descriptive analysis of undergraduates’ digital videos","authors":"I. Karasavvidis","doi":"10.18680/hss.2019.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2019.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Modern digital technology allows users to compose multimodal ensembles that combine aural and visual modes. Video editors allow users to manipulate the color of visual imagery through effects. While effects unlock an extra layer of semiotic potential, empirical research has not examined how novice users utilize color-related effects to communicate meanings when creating digital artifacts. The present study analyzed 46 digital videos created by a cohort of undergraduates who attended a digital media course. The examination of the digital videos showed that only one in three video projects involved the use of effects for changing the color of the original image and video resources. A closer analysis of these video projects indicated three main patterns of color-related effects: defective, inconsistent, and consistent. Two video projects from each category are analyzed in detail, examining how the students utilized the semiotic potential of effects for manipulating color. The study is concluded with a discussion of the main findings and directions of future research.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"19 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72417591","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":"Producing and disseminating marginalized knowledge through students’ drawings, videos and crafts","authors":"E. Katsarou, Konstantinos Sipitanos","doi":"10.18680/hss.2019.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2019.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Can multimodality contribute to the social inclusion of all students and to fostering of a democratic culture in educational settings characterized by major population movements and relevant social changes that usually promote racism and exclusion? In this paper, we argue that multimodality, especially its social semiotic approach (Kress, 1995, 2009; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001; van Leeuwen, 2005), is not just another necessary addendum to the curriculum for “new learning” (adjusted to the needs of contemporary societies and new technologies). More importantly, it can offer democratic ways to produce, distribute and disseminate knowledge. Having worked with the Knowledge Democracy initiative (Sousa Santos, 2018) in an Erasmus+ Project called Backpack-ID, developed as a bottom-up innovation in participating schools, we demonstrate, through specific examples, that the students’ drawings and digital storytelling can create prospects for social inclusion for all students in the classroom. More specifically, we try to show, in detail and through instances of practice, how a classroom, as a multi-semiotic space, can become a democratic space founded on the inclusion of diverse histories, memories, languages, identities and epistemologies.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89764893","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":"Selfie-taking: a key semiotic practice within the ‘show of the self’","authors":"Sebastián Moreno","doi":"10.18680/hss.2018.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2018.0019","url":null,"abstract":"During the last couple of years, the action of taking selfies has emerged as a common everyday life practice, mainly among young people, but not limited to them. Selfie-taking is a meaningful practice that requires a semiotic analysis. In this paper I reflect on the semiotic character of selfie-taking, particularly by discussing its nature and a possible segmentation in smaller units. Moreover, I argue that in the current scenario of extended online exhibition that anthropologist Paula Sibilia calls ‘show of the self’, selfie-taking plays a key role as a way of making evident the presence of the ‘real’ offline author in the identity narrative that is being constructed online. Within the dynamics of online self-representation and in line with the idea that online identities are actively constructed, I discuss why selfies should be regarded as heterogeneous and semiotically complex devices, and particularly how they contribute to the creation of the online identity of its authors.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82239141","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":"Fitness Selfie and Anorexia: A study of ‘fitness’ selfies of women on Instagram and its contribution to anorexia nervosa","authors":"B. Rajan","doi":"10.18680/hss.2018.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2018.0020","url":null,"abstract":"The stares of others driving and encouraging the deliberate transformation of one’s body into a fit body has become a common narrative of fitness selfies. Research findings show that women who share self images on social media have higher levels of dietary restraint and overvaluation of shape and weight than those who do not (Mclean 2005). Similarly, women who post fitspiration images on social media have a higher drive for thinness and compulsive exercise (Holland 2017). This paper attempts to study the process behind fitness influencers’ production and sensory-motor performance of ‘fit’ visuals as factors contributing to anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders. The theoretical framework of the study draws from semiotic photography theory, which explores the gestural aspects of a visual. Participant recruitment used a purposive (a type of non-probability sampling) approach, coupled with snowball sampling. In-depth interviews were conducted with the participants who are female fitness influencers from India. The semiotic analysis of the selfies shared by the participants substantiated the interviews. The selfies analysed were chosen on the basis of their curation choices, as well as on the number of likes and comments they receive.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80603745","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 the Selfie: The Glorification of the Present","authors":"M. Leone","doi":"10.18680/HSS.2018.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/HSS.2018.0018","url":null,"abstract":"After anecdotic evidence providing biographic background for the author’s interest in selfies, the semiotic question of their meaning is tackled, distinguishing between the signification of taking selfies and the meaning of selfies thus taken. Both entail authorial, reception, and structural meaning, to be studied in the long period of the cultural history of self-representa-tion and in the context of a specific semiosphere. Selfies can, hence, be interpreted as symptoms of an emerging and increasingly hegemonic temporal ideology in which escape from both traumatic past and anguishing future gives rise to a valorization of the present express-ing itself also in the new visual format of the selfies: they attempt at bestowing an ontological aura to the insignificance of the postmodern present.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88381678","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":"Introduction- Semiotics of Selfies","authors":"Gregory Paschalidis","doi":"10.18680/hss.2018.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2018.0016","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"114 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88110622","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":"Review Article: Multimodality, film, and cinematic metaphor: an evaluation of Müller and Kappelhoff (2018)","authors":"C. Forceville","doi":"10.18680/hss.2018.0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2018.0021","url":null,"abstract":"Muller and Kappelhoff’s Cinematic Metaphor: Experience – Affectivity – Temporality (2018) is the fruit of a collaboration in the Languages and Emotion project, further developed in the Cinepoetics Center for Advanced Film Studies, both based at Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany. It proposes a new framework for analyzing metaphor in film that is based on dissatisfaction with (1) Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory; (2) cognitivist-oriented applications and adaptations of this theory in the field of multimodality, specifically as operating in film (e.g., Forceville and Urios-Aparisi 2009; Forceville 2006, 2016, 2017; Rohdin 2009; Fahlenbrach 2010, 2016; Coegnarts and Kravanja 2012, 2015; Ortiz 2011, 2015); and (3) cognitive film scholarship (e.g., Bordwell 1985, 2013; Smith 1995; Plantinga 2009, 2013; Grodal 2009). Given the status of the authors of this monograph, its serious criticism of the aforementioned theories and approaches deserves an equally serious response. This paper can be considered as an extended review of Cinematic Metaphor.","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85102033","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":"Book reviews: Identity: Towards a synthesis of perspectives","authors":"Marianthi Makri-Tsilipakou","doi":"10.18680/hss.2018.0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2018.0023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84867307","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":"Book reviews: Approaching Education through Edusemiotics","authors":"M. Zafiri","doi":"10.18680/hss.2018.0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18680/hss.2018.0024","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36248,"journal":{"name":"Punctum International Journal of Semiotics","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76971113","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}