The Semiotics of Cultural Practices in the Digital Realm
This paper reflects on the fuzzy relation between representational
practices in the digital realm, the meaning which emerges out of them and their
role in digital discourses. The media practices acquired by the media users impact
significantly on interpersonal online discourses. The users are, however,
only vaguely aware of the semiotic systems and the culture(s) they (re)create.
Various forms of approximate knowledge can be identified when analysing the
recurring patterns od practices in different contexts. They show how content
related meaning making processes intertwine with both the media format and its
distributional infrastructures.
The theoretical concept of approximate knowledge (das Ungefähre) will be
exemplified with three formats of online multimodal discourses. The digital
fuzzy practices encompass the relation between the distributed media content
and user generated content (UGC) which share the same means of production,
similar dissemination infrastructure and aesthetic standards. This relation represents
the basic thread of the discursive mass production of sense in the online
realm, which is based on approximate knowledge and fuzzy discursive production
by the users. This content in its flow represents series of actions within the
discourse, and it cannot be analysed outside of the technical infrastructure which
it needs in order to exist.
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The Semiotics of Cultural Practices in the Digital Realm // Критика и семиотика. 2018. № 2. Pp. 250–270. DOI: 10.25205/2307-1737-2018-2-250-270.