engleski

Visual by Design: Towards a Socio-Semiotic Reading of People-Related Visual Data

This paper proposes a combined application of sociology, semiotics and design theory in the analysis of people-related visual data. It is argued that the statement according to which “people are a rich source of visual data” simply calls for further elaboration from a sociological perspective, although it is perhaps quite unproblematic from a point of view of a discipline such as anthropology or loosely conceived interdisciplinary fields of “visual studies” or “visual culture”. It is argued that, in the social context of advanced (second) modernity, people-related visual data can be most precisely read by means of an initial “back-translation” of the industrial process by which they were produced. From a methodological perspective, it is argued that a combination of sociology, semiotics & design theory can yield best results in this particular form of analysis. The sociological aspect, however, does not stop at the level of market segmentation considerations, but also includes a brief discussion of ethnomethodology, the micro-macro link, structuration theory, and the reflexive leanings of socalled second modernity (Beck, Giddens). In the field of design theory, links are established with Baudrillard’s sociological interpretations of object semanticization & elements of semiotic theory required to interpret their individual manifestations.

visual sociology; semiotics; design theory; second modernity

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