{"title":"Michel Pastoureau and the history of visual communication","authors":"G. Aiello, Theo van Leeuwen","doi":"10.1177/14703572221126517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221126517","url":null,"abstract":"Despite early and ongoing calls for a systematic engagement with history, social semiotics has largely emphasized research on the synchronic rather than diachronic dimensions of meaning-making. And while the ‘instability’ of semiotic practices (see Kress’s Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication, 2010) and the importance of semiotic change (see Van Leeuwen’s Introducing Social Semiotics, 2005) have become key themes in semiotics, there is still a need for a dynamic approach to the study of visual and multimodal communication, focusing not only on describing how meaning-making resources and their uses are changing, but also on why they are changing. In this article, the authors focus on the importance of the work of medieval historian Michel Pastoureau for the social semiotic study of visual communication, highlighting that this work can help us further refine and even rethink key social semiotic concepts such as modes and media, provenance, and context. Pastoureau’s work shows how we can make theoretical statements about instability, change and innovation more concrete and, ultimately, empirically based. His approach can also help us understand semiotic change and its relation to social and cultural (and also economic and technological) change more broadly, often with the aid of the (crucial) normative discourses that shape semiotic practices over time.","PeriodicalId":51671,"journal":{"name":"Visual Communication","volume":"24 1","pages":"27 - 45"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80921958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Design and repair: from object conservation to material transformation","authors":"Kate Scardifield, Megan W. Hall","doi":"10.1177/14703572221082114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221082114","url":null,"abstract":"This visual essay utilizes a series of images from Make Do and Mend, a participatory workshop that brought together designers, a museum conservator and the general public to explore design for repair as part of Sydney Craft Week in 2019. The photographs capture objects and materials in various states of transformation, bringing to light the aesthetic politics at play that often underpin acts of repair. The essay is a visual re-framing of repair as a form of design practice, revealing objects in various states of transformation and our changing attitudes towards them over time. As a visual narrative, the essay demonstrates the value of material knowledge exchange in shaping new aesthetic registers for object conservation and approaches to repair.","PeriodicalId":51671,"journal":{"name":"Visual Communication","volume":"286 1","pages":"406 - 417"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74950324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ricardo Moutinho, Andrew P. Carlin, Joana BV Marques
{"title":"Visually informed accounts: instructed achievements during planetarium visits and sky observations","authors":"Ricardo Moutinho, Andrew P. Carlin, Joana BV Marques","doi":"10.1177/14703572221130441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221130441","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, the authors explore participants’ accounts of visual scenes produced during the instructed work of observing celestial bodies at planetarium sessions and star-parties. They use as examples some interactions in which participants (i.e. guides and visitors) are giving/following instructions and exchanging descriptions about the observed object based on their (in)direct access to the matter at hand and also on their orientation to the world shared in common. According to the materials analyzed, the authors found that the descriptions of participants’ observations produced and complemented each other’s accounts of the object under scrutiny. This phenomenon helps us understand how instructed observation work is locally and collaboratively managed, which in turn opens the possibility for us to explore how visual accounts are produced through the sequential and categorial aspects of talk. Such enterprise gives guides and trainers a better picture of how visitors make sense of the contents delivered.","PeriodicalId":51671,"journal":{"name":"Visual Communication","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85421791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Foodstagramming’ in early 20th-century postcards: a transhistorical perspective","authors":"L. O’Hagan","doi":"10.1177/14703572221096715","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221096715","url":null,"abstract":"Introduced in 1907, the ‘real photo’ postcard destabilized the boundaries between private and public life, enabling people to perform identity in ways that anticipate contemporary social media practices. In this visual essay, the author explores one particular phenomenon – the sharing of food – drawing comparisons with ‘foodstagramming’ in terms of its compositional structure, social objectives and communicative functions. In doing so, she challenges the supposed novelty of modes of self-presentation on social media, embedding them in a broader historical trajectory.","PeriodicalId":51671,"journal":{"name":"Visual Communication","volume":"67 1","pages":"731 - 744"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73573834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Imaging cancer: image-based diagnostic communication in radiologists’ embodied cognition","authors":"Mindaugas Briedis","doi":"10.1177/14703572221101205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221101205","url":null,"abstract":"This article thematizes the specific process of cancer detection in radiology, which presupposes a delicate synthesis of the specifics of oncoradiology images and the skilful actions performed by the radiologist. The enactment of cancer via meaningful action rather than recognizing static depiction puts the structures of image consciousness into the wider context along with memory, free imagination and amodal completion, among others. Hence, by way of reinterpreting phenomenological projects via enactivism and incorporating them into the radiologist’s work (cases, radiograms), medical diagnostics in general and oncoradiology in particular presuppose a multimodal categorial structuring (of meaning) that goes far beyond direct sensory givens. In most branches of radiology, we cannot tell what the cancer is without attending to the multitude of its appearance and the perceptual and imaginative strategies of those who make it appear. As such, this article also considers the wider problem of how knowledge is related to the (embodied) subjectivity in a particular social setting.","PeriodicalId":51671,"journal":{"name":"Visual Communication","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86204287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
María del Mar Rubio-Hernández, Ángeles Martínez-García
{"title":"Female archetypes in car advertising: the case of Audi","authors":"María del Mar Rubio-Hernández, Ángeles Martínez-García","doi":"10.1177/14703572221116126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221116126","url":null,"abstract":"The representation of women in advertising is based on constructs that have become consolidated in Western culture, giving rise to different archetypes that express the values and ways of thinking of each age. As in other media discourses, advertising resorts to elements, such as archetypes and myths, which shape the collective imaginary and are very effective devices, for they are recognizable to viewers and help to engage them. Specifically, this article focuses on car advertising, whose significance lies in the fact that it has traditionally been a sphere of male domination. In recent years, there has been a positive evolution towards more independent and autonomous female characters. Accordingly, this article analyses two of Audi’s most recent campaigns from 2016 and 2017 in order to observe how women are represented in car ads according to three fundamental aspects: visual semiotics (Arnheim’s Arte y percepción visual. Psicología del ojo creador, 2008; Casetti and Di Chio’s Cómo analizar un film, 1994; Van Leeuwen’s ‘Semiotics and iconography’, 2001), iconography (Cassirer’s Filosofía de las formas simbólicas, 1998); Panofsky’s ‘Iconografía e iconología: introducción al estudio del arte del Renacimiento, 1987) and symbolism grounded in a myth analysis of advertising (León’s Mitoanálisis de la publicidad, 2001).","PeriodicalId":51671,"journal":{"name":"Visual Communication","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84985912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Visual communication and the management of passenger conduct: A visual analysis of transit etiquette posters by Japanese railway companies","authors":"Christoph Schimkowsky","doi":"10.1177/14703572221109889","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221109889","url":null,"abstract":"The visual communication of behavioural expectations plays an important role in the management of contemporary urban spaces. This is evident in mass transit settings where posters and signage promoting good mobility practices are a common sight. Despite the prevalence of such semiotic interventions in passenger conduct in public transport environments globally (see Bissell’s Transit Life: How Commuting Is Transforming Our Cities, 2018; Moore’s ‘Preventing anti-social behaviour on public transport: An alternative route?’, 2010; and Ureta’s ‘Waiting for the barbarians: Disciplinary devices on Metro de Santiago, 2012), their visual structure has only received limited scholarly attention. This article seeks to address this oversight through a visual analysis of ‘manner posters’ issued by Japanese railway providers. Using a two-pronged content analysis approach, the author examines the design strategies employed to problematise passenger misconduct and solicit desirable mobility practices while simultaneously protecting customer sensibilities. Focusing on character figuration, image–viewer relations and the portrayal of misconduct, the article argues that manner posters inscribe behavioural expectations into the physical transport environment by modelling their narrative visual content after actual commuter experiences and using salience-increasing design techniques to highlight etiquette transgressions. As an in-depth visual analysis of transit manner posters, the article thus advances our understanding of the strategic use of visual communication for the management of everyday behaviour and the production and maintenance of public order in contemporary cities.","PeriodicalId":51671,"journal":{"name":"Visual Communication","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78395648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Drawn into the future: The epistemic work of visual scenarios in the configuration of human–robot encounters","authors":"C. Pentzold, Ingmar Rothe","doi":"10.1177/14703572221112676","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221112676","url":null,"abstract":"This article looks at artistic impressions of future robotics and considers how they inspire research into human–machine interaction. Our analysis of visual scientific practices and the epistemic ramifications of these speculative drawings emerges from a long-term participant observation study in a multi-disciplinary project on smart and autonomous technologies in public spaces. We discuss the design, appropriation and modulation of visual scenarios, and scrutinize how these diegetic futurescapes are imaginatively engaging and suggestive of scientific progress and experimentation. The article argues that the future-oriented scenes defy common notions of post hoc scientific representations. Instead, they are ex ante presentations of the ambition to imagine human–machine relations in the future and to draw the large-scale research venture together. The register of evaluation thereby shifts from aesthetic criteria to scientific parameters. More than just visual tokens, the scenarios became a catalyst for collaboration.","PeriodicalId":51671,"journal":{"name":"Visual Communication","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80498548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Kinesemiotics: Modelling How Choreographed Movement Means in Space","authors":"Joshua Han","doi":"10.1177/14703572221112679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221112679","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51671,"journal":{"name":"Visual Communication","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86152640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Visual CommunicationPub Date : 2022-08-01Epub Date: 2022-07-13DOI: 10.1177/14703572221092410
Ian Robson
{"title":"Learning through mess: Sensemaking visual communication practices in a UK multidisciplinary applied health study.","authors":"Ian Robson","doi":"10.1177/14703572221092410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221092410","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article addresses the challenges and opportunities associated with the development of new visual communication practices and outputs, using an example of such work conducted in a UK interdisciplinary applied health project. Reflecting on his role as co-researcher and practice as a visual ethnographer in the study, the author argues that new visual communication practices may emerge from 'mess' and even ugliness. In the case discussed, the author comes to terms with mess and elements of failure as potential phenomena of learning through a process of Sensemaking (see Weick's <i>Sensemaking in Organizations</i>, 1995), by applying innovative visual methods to the approach. Through his version of visual Sensemaking, the author identifies a set of principles to inform innovation in collaborative, interdisciplinary visual communication.</p>","PeriodicalId":51671,"journal":{"name":"Visual Communication","volume":"21 3","pages":"451-471"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9373063/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"40617145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}