Semiotic Analysis of Power relations in Online

Communication: Online Sphere as Semiosphere

Andreas Ventsel (Tartu University, Estonia)

Tartu 15.05.2015

Problem situationHow it is possible to conceptualize a node (or a centre) in a society that is getting more and more mediated by information and communication technology and how can we analyze those hegemonical node points from the perspective of cultural semiotics?

OntologyPower-relations are articulation of meanings, a particular logic of the signification process.

The aim of presentation

Following presentation tries to explicate that kind of signification-processes by relying on concepts of cultural semiotics (semiosphere and continuous/discrete coding) and synthesizing them with frameworks of counter-publics digital democracy elaborated by Lincoln Dahlberg

Public communication in web

Peter Dahlgren (1994) is making an explicit analytic distinction between the common domain of the public sphere and the advocacy domain. • The common domain is the arena that strives for

universalism by appealing to a general public. It is here that we find, for the most part, the dominant media, which ideally provide information, debate and opinion for all members of society.

• The advocacy domain consists a) partly of time and space made available by the dominant media and b) partly of a plurality of smaller civic media from political parties, interest-groups, movements, organizations and networks.

Deliberative digital democracy

• Accessibility is connected with idea that hypermedia allows users to transcend the material and geographical barriers of time and space “that have traditionally restricted most peoples’ access to information as presented through mainstream broadcast media” (Mosco 2004: 31).

• Interactivity is predominately interpreted as condition that allows the formation of communities based on the interests of people who could not otherwise meet because of the above-mentioned barriers. (Ballinger 2011, p. 125–126).

Deliberative digital democracy

The rise of that kind of deliberative public in turn implies: 1) The acknowledgement of the principal egalitarity

of mutual communication (Habermas 2001: 88);2) The principally opened nature of the public – a

citizen can always connect him/herself with a segment of wider public (Habermas 2001: 89) and

3) The transparency of communicational space i.e. public accessibility of information which is connected with the activities of the state (Ballinger 2011: 146).

Deliberative digital democracy

The quality of participation is characterized by

1) informed and fact-based nature,

2) rationality and acceptance of dialog partners, i.e. applying the principle of “the power of best argument” and

3) taking into account the future (Claus Offe ja Ulrich Preuss).

Critique of the model of deliberative digital democracy

• In explaining the structure of online communities and information creation, deliberative digital democracy applies characteristics which are commonly used to describe the abstract qualities of hypermedia-texts, e.g.: non- hierarchical or web-like structure; intrinsic multiplicity; the lack of centre or the main axis of organization; fluid or temporary nature, rhizomatic structure of communication etc.

• The political discourse (also democratic) as a whole is usually not built on only rational meaning-making (Mouffe 2005).

Counter-publics digital democracy

The counter-publics position that is elaborated by Lincoln Dahlberg emphasizes the role of digital media in political group formation, activism, and contestation, rather than rational individual action or rational consensus-oriented deliberation. Democracy here is based on two major assumptions: • First, any social formation neces sarily involves

inclusion/exclusion relations and associated discursive contestation, where discourse is understood as a contingent and partial fixation of meaning that con stitutes and organizes social relations (including identities, objects, and practices) (Dahlberg 2011:861).

• Second, that this antagonistic situation is the basis for the formation of vibrant ‘counter-publics’.

Counter-publics digital democracy

Digital counter-publics are seen as forming through the practices of alternative online media sites, social movement digital initiatives and subaltern online spaces, by means of e-mail lists, websites, and digital audio and video. In relation to inter-discursive contestation, digital media – from mobile phones and digital cameras to the internet – are seen as helping excluded voices to be heard through online and offline activism.

Critique of the model of digital counter-discourse democracy

Dahlberg’s model of counter-publics digital democracy (as Laclau theory of hegemony) suffers from shortage of analytical tools, which

1) reduces power-relations purely to hegemonic articulations, and

2) does not take into account that the types of meaning-making which shape the power-relations depend on the context of communication.

Online sphere as semiosphere

Semiosphere is a conditional heterogeneous space of meaning-making (Lotman 2001, 2005). In the case of the meaning-making in online communication, we can treat particular online communities, blogs, web-pages, postings etc. as individual semiotic units. “As soon as two monads [semiotic units] make contact, forming a common semiotic mechanism, they proceed from the state of mutual neutrality to the condition of mutual complementarity, structural antonymy, and they start to cultivate their own specific character and mutual contrast” (Lotman 1997: 11)

Online sphere as semiosphereThe online communication has a heterogeneous inner structure. The same semiotic unity can enter into different unities at higher structural levels as a sub-structure; thus it can maintain its wholeness while being a part of higher semiotic wholes, and in that sense by not being identical with itself, “it inevitably presumes a complex polyglotism of its internal structure” (Lotman 1997: 12).

Online sphere as semiosphereFrom the point a view of this methodology, every semiosphere can be studied as a separate totality, but every totality in culture that can be analysed is simultaneously part of a larger totality (Torop 2003: 335-336). There is an endless dialog between a part and a whole. This is connected with the fact that at the level of the general online (semio)sphere – but also at the level of a particular semiotic unit – communication is constituted by establishing relations between the core and periphery

Translation as meaning-making

According to Lotman the elementary condition for meaning-making is coding via at least two different: discrete and non-discrete (or continuous) coding systems. In a discrete system, “the basic bearer of meaning is the segment (=sign), while the text or the chain of segments (=text) is secondary, its meaning being derived from the meanings of the signs” (Lotman 2001: 36). In the continual (or non-discrete) systems, the primary bearer of meaning is the text “that does not dissolve into signs, but is itself a sign or isomorphic to a sign. Here, not the rules of linking signs are active, but the rhythm and symmetry (or arhythmia and asymmetry, respectively)” (Lotman 2004: 577).

Translation as strategy of creating power relation

Translation between those fundamentally different coding systems is culture-specific: between different systems certain rules of equivalence and compliance are imposed (Lotman 2010: 117).

My aim is to investigate how translation functions in online sphere between different semiotic languages, modalities and modes; and how it creates a dominant which ensures the consistency of the structure and guides meaning-making (Jakobson 1971)

Translation as strategy of creating power relation

Methodologically, it is important to emphasize the relational and functional character of power-relations (Elias 1978, Foucault 1980). The dominant function and the democratic potential of a particular communication type can be studied only by taking into account the specific function which it has in its socio-cultural context and is thus greatly influenced by the position one speaks from, the reason they are speaking for, who they are speaking to, who they are speaking with.

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AppendixNon-participatory observation and participatory observation. The problem-driven approach to research object (Howard, Glynos 2007), e.g. we study what types of meaning-making are used by most visited online communities to raise and articulate issues of public importance. Data sources will be utilized to measure the sites’ reach. For analysis we use site statistics providedby http://Alexa.com, a Web information and traffic ranking service. The data report include straffic rankings, the percentage change in traffic to the site over the period studied, and the number of links a site receives.

AppendixHyperlink network analysis will be conducted using two publicly available social network analysis software applications (Issue Crawler, Node XL).

These tools allow analysis of the structure and content of online networks occupied by explored blogs and web-pages.

Web-sphere analysis allows to explicate communicative actions and relations between the creators and addressees of particular web pages, but also to study structural elements of those web pages, e.g.: hypertexts, hyperlinks etc (Schneider, Foot 2004)