This book reveals the core features of digital culture, examined by means of semiotic models and theories. It positions commercial and market principles in the center of the digital semiosphere, avoiding the need to force the new cultural reality into the established textualist or pragmatist paradigms. The theoretic insights and case studies presented here argue for new semiotic models of inquiry that include working with big data, user experience and nethnography, along with conventional approaches.
The book develops a new concept of identity in the digital age, analyzing the digital flows of recognition and value, which led to the tremendous success of Social Media and the Web 2.0 era. Self-expression, entertainment and consumerism are seen as the major drivers of identity formation in the post-truth era, where the self can no longer be considered independently of a given person’s communication devices, where a substantial part of it is stored and actualized. It will be of interest to semioticians and researchers working on digital culture.
Author(s): Kristian Bankov
Series: Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress, 22
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 246
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Semiotics of Digital Culture
Omnipresence of Digital Culture
The Semiotics of Digital Culture So Far
Critical Review of the Main Semiotic Approaches to Digital Culture
Interactivity and the Textualist Fallacy
Semiosphere: The Universal Modelling Machine of Digital Culture
There is No Outside Peirce (and Perhaps Eco)
Prospects for the Future of Digital Semiotics
The Contribution of This Book
References
Contents
Part I Theoretic Considerations
1 The Digital Semiosphere
1.1 Introduction and Theoretic Overview for This Chapter
1.2 Hypothesis
1.3 Method of Study
1.4 The Semiotic Model of the Semiosphere
1.5 Web 2.0 Platforms as Semiospheres
1.6 Semiosphere Versus Platfosphere
1.6.1 Boundary
1.6.2 Periphery
1.6.3 Centre
1.7 Reflections on the DNA of Digital Culture
1.8 How the Sociocultural Impact of a Platform Works
1.8.1 Tinder
1.8.2 Wikipedia
1.8.3 Facebook
1.9 Digital Identity and Digital Economy
References
2 The Fall of Textuality and the Rise of Interactivity
2.1 Semiotics and Interactivity
2.2 The Case with the Video Games Analysis
2.3 Enunciation Versus Ludoproduction
2.4 Difference Versus Scarcity
References
Part II Semiotic Explorations in Experience Economy
3 Copyright in the Digital Experience Economy
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Text, Print, Money and Copyright
3.2.1 Semiotic Evolution of Money
3.3 Language, Text, and Creativity
3.4 Copyright in the Age of Interactivity—the Semiotic Perspective
3.5 Consumption of and Self-Expression with Copyrighted Content
3.6 Culture Becomes Experience to Meet the Digital Challenges for Copyright Protection
3.7 Conclusions
References
4 Semiotics of Experience and Digital Special FX
4.1 The Future of the Screen
4.2 Between Real and Imaginary Experience
4.3 Semiotics in a Dream Society
References
5 The Market of Football Experience for the Digital Economy
5.1 The Paths of Football Experience
5.2 Football from 1990 Onwards
5.3 Mediatizing the Football Experience
5.4 Phenomenology of Football Experience
5.5 Commercialization of Football Experience After 1990
5.6 Conclusion
References
6 Cultural Transformations of Love and Sex in the Digital Age
6.1 Digital Sexuality
References
7 Semiotics of Transaction in Digital Age
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Economic Value, Money and Temporality
7.3 Trust and Scarcity
7.4 Scarcity and Finitude
7.5 Time and Economy
7.6 Conclusions
References
8 Semiotic Overview on Legal Tender and Digital Money
8.1 Legal Tender and the “Semiotization” of Money
8.2 Semiotic Models and Approaches to the Money Sign
8.3 Legal Tender
8.4 The Semiotization of Money: From Gold to Futurity
8.5 Digital Money and Legal Tender
References
Part III Collective and Individual Identities in Digital Culture
9 Identity in Digital Age: From Nationalisms to the Post-truth Uses of Collective Symbols
9.1 Introduction
9.2 The Myth of the Bulgarian Flags as a National Symbol
9.3 Barthes in Reverse
9.4 The National Identity in the Social Performance of the Self
9.5 The National Identity in the Ego Economy
9.6 Recognition as the Currency of the Ego Economy
9.7 The Nationalist Libido
9.8 The Use of the National Symbols in the Post-truth Era
9.9 Conclusions
References
10 Internet, the Encyclopedic Competence, and the Google Effect
10.1 The Observation
10.2 The Field Work
10.3 The Theoretic Frame
10.3.1 Umberto Eco’s Model of Culture as an Encyclopaedia
10.4 Search Engines
10.4.1 Critique of Digital Postmodernity
10.4.2 Knowledge, Identity, Internet, and Semiotic Search
10.5 The Encyclopedic Model of the Internet and the Innovations of the Google Search Engine
10.6 Conclusions
References
11 A Semiotic Exploration in the Web 2.0 Emoti(c)onal Discursivity in Public Debates
11.1 The Political Drama of the Istanbul Convention in Bulgaria
11.2 Lost in the Semiotic Translation
11.2.1 Sex, Violence and Gender
11.2.2 Gender Versus Джендър
11.3 The Clash of Two Ideologies
11.4 The Digitally Undomesticated Mind
11.5 The Reflective Emotionality of Emojis and Co
11.6 The Core of the Digital Semiosphere: From the Symbolic to the Imaginary
11.7 Getting Emotional with the E-crowd
11.8 Semiotic Codes of the Populist Debate Around the IC
11.9 Conclusions
References
12 From Textualism to Hypertextualism
12.1 The Eroticism of Text
12.2 Textualism as an Attitude
12.3 The Digital Turn and Hypertextualism
12.4 The Eroticism of Hypertext
12.5 The Education of Hypertext
References
13 Identity and Consumer Rituals in Facebook
13.1 New Forms of Consumption After the Rise of Social Media
13.2 The Rise of Brands
13.3 Practices and Rituals
13.4 E-consumption on Facebook
13.4.1 Names
13.4.2 Profile Pictures
13.4.3 Family and Relationships
13.4.4 Cover Photo
13.4.5 Timeline/Status/Story
13.4.6 Likes
13.4.7 Albums
13.5 Conclusions
References
Conclusions in Time of COVID-19
Name Index
Subject Index
