Digital Age in Semiotics and Communication

Volume I, Issue 1, Spring 2018
Digital Age in Semiotics & Communication

a biannual (Spring and Autumn) double-blind peer-reviewed journal
Editor-in-chief: Kristian Bankov
Registered Office:
New Bulgarian University
Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies;
Office 707, Building 2; 21 Montevideo St, Sofia 1618, Bulgaria
Phone: +359 2/8110 111
Email: [email protected]
ISSN (Print) 2603-3585

ISSN (Online) 2603-3593
© New Bulgarian University, 2018
Design by Tanya Yordanova

Logo design by Samuil Vladimirov
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, me-
chanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of
the publishers.
Editor-in-chief:
Kristian Bankov
International advisory board:

Fernando Andacht – Universidad de la República, Uruguay
Simone Arcagni – University of Palermo, Italy
Luis Emilio Bruni – Aalborg University, Denmark
Paul Cobley – Middlesex University, United Kingdom
Seema Khanwalkar – CEPT University, India
Evangelos Kourdis – Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Massimo Leone – University of Turin, Italy
Dario Martinelli – Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
Jamin Pelkey – Ryerson University, Canada
Jia Peng – Sichuan University, China
Evripides Zantides – Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus
Jordan Zlatev – Lund University, Sweden
Editorial board:
Mihail Vuzharov
Reni Iankova
Silvana Milenova
Language editor:
Miranda Alksnis
Collaborator:
Viktorija Lankauskaitė
Volume I, Issue 1, Spring 2018 has been published in April, 2018.

Digital Age in Semiotics & Communication, a journal from the South-
east European Center for Semiotic Studies at the New Bulgarian University
and founded by Prof. Kristian Bankov, explores the new forms of knowl-
edge, social and linguistic interaction, and cultural phenomena generated
by the advent of the Internet.
A topic is chosen for each issue by the editorial board, but the topics will
be always related to the issues of the digital environment. The topic is an-
nounced with a call for papers and will also be available on our Facebook
page (facebook.com/DigitASCjournal).
The working language of the journal is English. It uses double-blind review,
meaning that both the reviewer’s and the author’s identities are concealed
from each other throughout the review process.
Periodicity
The journal will be published biannually by the Southeast European Center
for Semiotic Studies and the New Bulgarian University Publishing House.
Purpose
The purpose of the journal is to provide a collaborative work field for schol-
ars interested in researching new phenomena in the dynamic digital world.
Our main purpose is to build a scientific bridge between the fields of semi-
otics, communications, social sciences and the problems of the digital era.
We believe that our collaborations can raise the level of understanding for
modern digital phenomena, providing both a solid theoretical framework
and profound applied research.
The pilot issue summarizes the whole research program of the Center and
the journal in particular. It is open to various problems concerning devel-
opments in digital culture and phenomena. We are interested in working
with scholars from different research and applied fields, such as semiotics
(both applied and theoretical), communication studies, marketing and ad-
vertising, linguistics and literary studies, anthropology and ethnography,
cognitive science and psychology, and computer science.
More specifically, our interest is directed to:
• New forms of knowledge;
• New media and the immersive e-consumption of experience;
• New forms of social relations in the age of social media;
• New habits of communication and self-expression/representation;
• Online corporate communications;
• Digital narratology and e-fiction;
• Digital grammatology;
• Digital audio-visualisation;
• Internet linguistics.
The magazine is supported and reviewed by our International advisory

board as well as by chosen external reviewers.
For more information and submission of papers: [email protected]

CONTENTS
FROM TEXT TO INTERACTION (INTRO)

Kristian Bankov......................................................................................7
PART I Knowledge and Identity in Digital Age
PERSONALIZATION ALGORITHMS – LIMITING THE SCOPE OF

DISCOVERY? HOW ALGORITHMS FORCE OUT SERENDIPITY
Michail Vuzharov.................................................................................19
THE IMAGINED COMMUNITY REVISITED THROUGH A

MOCK-NATIONALISTIC YOUTUBE WEB SERIES
Fernando Andacht...............................................................................35
A SHIFT FROM “ME” TO “WE” IN SOCIAL MEDIA

Viktorija Lankauskaitė, Vilmantė Liubinienė...................................51
PART II Aesthetic and Interactive Practices in Digital Culture
POSTCARD FROM ISTANBUL: DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION OF

THE CITY AS MEMORY IN TASOS BOULMETIS’S POLÍTIKI
KOUZÍNA / A TOUCH OF SPICE / BAHARATIN TADI
Giorgos Dimitriadis.............................................................................65
’IT’S OVER 9000.’ APEIRON NARRATIVE CONFIGURATIONS IN

CONTEMPORARY MEDIASCAPE
Vincenzo Idone Cassone.....................................................................79
CONSTRUCTING THE CORPORATE INSTAGRAM DISCOURSE – A

CRITICAL VISUAL DISCOURSE APPROACH
Søren Vigild Poulsen............................................................................95
FORMALISM AND DIGITAL RESEARCH OF LITERATURE
Marek Debnár.....................................................................................113
ENCHANTED OBJECT: INDIAN SARI, NEGOTIATING THE

ONLINE AND THE OFFLINE SPACE
Seema Khanwalkar.............................................................................121
PART III Digital Age in Corporate Communication
ENGAGING BRAND COMMUNICATION IN FACEBOOK – A

TYPOLOGY OF THE BRAND PAGE USERS
Yagodina Kartunova..........................................................................143
DIGITAL CULTURE OF THE REGULATED INDUSTRIES. FOCUS:

TOBACCO SECTOR
Sevim Asimova...................................................................................167
PART IV Digital Age form Philosophical Perspective
THE EFFETENESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Reni Yankova......................................................................................187
Notes For Contributors................................................................................197

7
FROM TEXT TO INTERACTION (INTRO)

Kristian Bankov, Editor-in-chief
New Bulgarian University
[email protected]
Before being the title of our new journal, Digital age in semiotics and
communication was a short definition of the research program of the South-
east European Center for Semiotic Studies at the New Bulgarian University.
Or rather, it was a project for such a research program, following the pub-
lication of some successful articles on new media, the big demand for such
topics in our university courses, and the convergence of four PhD can-
didates in semiotics with topics on digital culture. Furthermore, we have
organized two round tables with the same title, one in 2016 at the 3rd ICON
conference in Kaunas and one in 2017 at the 13th World Congress of the
International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS), and finally we have
dedicated an entire Early Fall School of Semiotics to it this past September.
From the participants in these events come the papers of the first issue of
the journal, as well as the consolidated impression that such a research per-
Digital Age in Semiotics & Communication, Vol. I, No. 1, Spring 2018, Pp. 7–15
8 Kristian Bankov
spective could canalize a lot of contributions that were frequent but outside
a unified program – until now.
Of course, today speaking of a “unified program” in the humanities is a
utopian act, given the nature of our communities, the hyper-productivity
of our colleagues, the orientation towards projects, a shortage of funding,
and predatory open-access publishing. Digital age in semiotics and commu-
nication is the first specialized semiotic journal dedicated to the deep cul-
tural transformations after the advent of the internet, and thus provides a
platform for a long term collaboration with those fellow semioticians who
intend to dedicate their research predominantly to such a topic. It is con-
ceived as a platform for a kind of intellectual crowd sourcing for new semi-
otic ideas, adequate to new cultural realities, thus opening our discipline to
the cultural agenda of the XXI century.
But what are the new ideas we seek? This is an important question because
it touches not only theoretical issues, but a vision for the future role of our
discipline as well. The new ideas we are looking for are obviously related to
the application of semiotic theory to the problems of digital culture. Our
statistical observation is that the big figures of present day semiotics are
not very eager to deal with internet, social media, mobile communication,
etc. It is enough to see the topics of the series “Semiotics and its Masters”
during the last two world congresses of the IASS (2014 and 2017) where
among about 40 titles we see one or two exceptions. Definitely such lecture
series represent the highest quality of scholarly research and present many
new ideas. The identity of our discipline relies on the work of these scholars
and what we invite here for is not in opposition with them. It’s just that the
new ideas of the “semiotic masters” are about “old” subjects, like the value
of past masters, or a theoretic clarification of the ideas of Peirce or Grei-
mas, the language of science and mathematics, the statute of biosemiotics,
reflections on the notions of text and sign, etc. Here we invite new ideas
on new cultural realities. On the one hand this might be application of the
existing semiotic models to the cultural consequence of the advent of the
internet. Such are all papers in the present issue, in addition to those that
do not apply any semiotic model. This is why we included “and communi-
cation” in the title: with the incredible proliferation of the new communica-
tive forms we may even postpone the semiotic synthesis. It is important to
involve “internet natives” in semiotic research, scholars with digital habitus
who will not be inclined to distort the new cultural reality in order to fit the
old schemes, but rather question the old schemes in order to improve them
with regard to new cultural realities. And this is the long term strategy of
FROM TEXT TO INTERACTION... 9
our project – may we think of a new semiotic paradigm, different from the
major existing paradigms and more adequate to the digital age?
One possible direction for such an inquiry is to have a closer look at the
“semiotic ontologies” which ground the major currents in semiotics. Eco,
for instance, attempts this in the first chapter of Kant and the Platypus (Eco
2000) called “On being”. There he interprets very freely Aristotle, taking
two key phrases from his work: “being can be said in many ways” (21) and
“Being is everything that can be spoken of ” (9). From there Eco constructs
a strong pragmatic framework, which puts the speaking and language as
the major theoretic “gate” where Being is semiotically captured. After this
it is not difficult for him to demonstrate that the major philosophic ideas of
the Western tradition are nothing else but part of the infinite endeavors to
put Being into words, being this the only possible way to approach it.
Another important foundation of semiotic theory comes from A. J. Gre-
imas. If Eco puts the pragmatic dimension of the verbal language at the
center of his foundation (as well as Lotman in the center of the Semio-
sphere), Greimas focuses his entire paradigm on the abstract immanent
side of the linguistic phenomena, from where he expands semiotic inquiry
towards a universal grammar of signification. Here again a strong theoretic
“gate” is constructed, everything relevant for the semiotic interest is cap-
tured by the unavoidability of meaning. Greimas often quotes the famous
aphorism by Merleau-Ponty that “we are doomed to meaning (condamnés
au sens)”, which means that whatever phenomena comes to being in the
human world necessarily assumes a meaningful form, for which verbal lan-
guage prepares our cognition.
But the great step in this paradigm shift is achieved when a basic unit of
signification is taken not as the word and its semantic implications, nor the
statement and its ontological claims of truthfulness, but the text. The text is
the methodological “gate” of this approach, the occurrence of signification
when we have to study it scientifically (see Marrone 2010: 3-80), i.e. as lin-
guists and not as bad philosophers (Greimas 1970: 10). “Outside the text,
there is no salvation”, says one of Greimas’ most famous slogans, but that is
exactly where we are going to look for it.
During the golden years of structuralism and semiotics the textualist
perspective was so powerful that some philosophers, not bad at all, worked
on it in dialog with semiotics, often being critical but still strengthening
the semiotic ontology of the text. Among many I would mention Derrida
and Ricoeur, both important “gatekeepers” within unique and influential
paradigms. Derrida invented the writing/differance “gate” in order to be
able to deconstruct any kind of discourse the others made, as well as his
10 Kristian Bankov
own sometimes. He put in circulation another mythical textualist slogan:

“there is no outside the text!”
More important for our review of semiotic ontologies is that of Ricoeur.
He was the first to try to systematically define what a text is (Ricoeur 1970),
but he was also the first to develop the textually inspired narrative ontolo-
gy. In his initial attempts he exports textualist “knowhow” to the general
notion of human action (see Ricoeur 1991 From text to action”), where
instead of considering the natural interactivity of the way people exist so-
cially within a new paradigm, he relies on the analogy with the textuality
and on the linguistically inspired speech act theory. Then he develops his
theoretic masterpiece–Time and narrative (1983 – 1985), where Being is
postulated to occur only in a narrative form. Such a move, in a similar vein
to Eco, is taken from a very “passionate” interpretation of some of Aristot-
le’s notions from his theory on drama (in Poetics), resulting in the recon-
ceptualized notion of emplotment. Thus in Ricoeur, emplotment becomes
the theoretical “gate” for the occurrence of Being.
Before I move to the proposal that interactivity should be the ontologi-
cal principle of the digital semiotics paradigm, I would like to comment on
the status of a phenomenologically-oriented semiotics. If we have to put it
in the same figurative interpretation, phenomenology puts the theoretical
“gate” of its method on perception and its backstage, intentionality. As a
philosophic orientation it gave a huge impetus of the XX century thought
and its hybridization with the linguistic turn is the best we had for decades.
But a phenomenologically-oriented semiotics does not represent a unified
paradigm with well-defined theoretic “gate”, perhaps because there are too
many competing candidates, or maybe because the overwhelming figure of
Peirce monopolizes the scene and in his genius insights there is anything
but unity. As Eco notes, “it’s well known that you can make Peirce say any-
thing you want, according to how you approach him” (Eco 2000: 399.), so
the temptation (to which almost no semiotician resists) is to find a theory
of everything you need in his writings. In our case we can look for a theory
of interactivity which we can then apply to internet culture, thus proving
for the nth time that Peirce was right. However, this is not our intention
here, although as a method the digital semiotics approach could have many
things in common with cognitive semiotics, inspired by Peircean phenom-
enology, as postulated by Sonesson in his recent publications (Sonesson
2017).
It is not an exaggeration to say that many of the famous semiotic par-
adigms are conditioned if not entirely inspired by the great cultural inno-
vations of the XX century like the artistic avant-gardes, mass culture, mass
media, and psychoanalysis. Think of the Moscow and the Prague linguistic
circles, Barthes, Eco, Lotman (in part), Kristeva, etc. In this sense, semi-
otics as a research discipline is in debt to the great cultural innovation of
the last decades – the advent of the internet. Obviously when we live in a
different time, doing theory has a different meaning, after the managerial
turn of the academic system, obsessed with scientific metrics, pushes us
to write articles rather than monographs, humanities are more and more
marginalized, we are paid to be teachers rather than researchers. Still, here
we are, founding the first journal entirely dedicated to a semiotic innova-
tion, adequate to the theoretic challenges of present-day culture.
The proposal for reflection here came after a discussion with Simone
Arcagni in Sozopol, where interactivity was placed in the center of what he
called “the post cinema galaxy” (together with immersion, technology, web
and software; Arcagni 2016: 36 ff). Contemporary analysts provide various
models for the culture of the digital age, all of them considering interactiv-
ity as its central distinctive feature. Thus for example Manovich compares
one time’s notion of document or a text with what goes on today:
In software culture, we no longer have “documents,” “works,”
“messages” or “recordings” in twentieth-century terms. Instead
of fixed documents that could be analyzed by examining their
structure and content (a typical move of the twentieth-century
cultural analysis and theory, from Russian Formalism to Liter-
ary Darwinism), we now interact with dynamic “software per-
formances.” (2013: 33)
The penetration of such a “software mediation” into our experience of
the world has deep cultural consequences: the cultural content “behaves”
in an interactive manner, our cognitive habits are changing, and those of
the internet native generations are incompatible with traditional notions of
education, knowledge and society. Both de Kerckhove and Carr examine
the psychosocial consequences of the age of interactivity, seen as an out-
sourcing of the mind’s effort of thinking into external processing devices.
De Kerckhove’s (2011) strong statement in opposition to Carr, is that today
“interactivity is a condition, not an option”, that the connective mind is bet-
ter than the previous ones. Carr sees in this cultural interactive condition
a degradation in attention and depth of thought. Interactivity requires a
permanent taking of decisions, which are interruptions of attention com-
pared to the inferential walks of the mind of the linear text’s interpreter
(2010: 115 ff).
12 Kristian Bankov
Further examples proliferate. Our proposal is to place interactivity as

the ontological principle of a paradigm for digital semiotics, not because
of the psychological consequences, but because of the deep shift in the log-
ic of meaning it brings. In digital culture, language is no longer the lord
of semiotic phenomena, but the communicative disposition of the culture
holders. The language is there, together with an incredible variety of visual,
audio, kinetic and other expressive forms. But it is a different kind of tem-
porality that determines the syntagmatic chain of meaning making. In the
textualist perspective, the theoretic gate is based on the immanent relations
inside fixed texts, which are later exported to grasp a cultural reality that
is supposed to have a sedimented pattern of occurrence. In digital culture
there are no cultural sediments, there is no time for the habits to take place
before the new ones are necessary. The cultural logic is that of the partic-
ipation in a mediated flow, where the battle for meaning and recognition
of our digital existence meets the scarcity of time and attention of those
we are addressing. At the time of Shakespeare and, later, of the textualists,
the whole world was a scene where what was taking place was previously
written as text; today the whole world is a videogame where each player’s
participation depends on the availability of resources like lives, time, power
etc. The cultural logic of the digital age is economic and not linguistic as it
was before, in the same way one story may work as a linear narrative and
be experienced (rather than interpreted) as a videogame in a completely
different way. One thing is to produce sense, playing with the dead body
of the text; another is to be inside the narrative and qualification, perfor-
mance and sanction to depend on your decisions, skills and management
of scarce resources.
Interactivity transforms information into experience, and this is our
last consideration. Jeremy Rifkin’s point that the new economy transforms
markets from the logic of the exchange to that of the access to a paid-for
experience (2000) is quite similar to Manovich’s observation on the XX
century documents and the XXI century software performances. Digital
culture is deeply commercial in its foundation, as far as the new economy
is much more efficient at absorbing every aspect of our lives into the logic
of economic value. Big data mining is the process that transforms our dai-
ly online activity into a precious good, purchased by companies and cor-
porations. We receive amazing services for free such as Google, Facebook
and many others, in order to spend the most precious and scarce resource
there – our time. And this process is not “innocent” at all. Our lives take
the shape of those services, anonymous software algorithms select the con-
tent which forms our worldviews, determine the range of our online social
life, and suggest us what to do in future in order to be more predictable as

consumers.
This is more or less what the paper of Vuzharov “Personalization Algo-
rithms – Limiting the Scope of Discovery? How algorithms force out ser-
endipity” is about. The text is very informative and rich with explanations
for the major backstage processes behind the seductive services of Google
and Facebook. The author keeps a strong ethical stance concerning the ne-
cessity for more awareness in this regard, and to make the point more clear
uses the textual pragmatic model of Eco from The Limits of Interpretation
(1992).
The next two papers analyze new identity mechanisms emerged in digi-
tal culture. Andacht’s paper “The Imagined Community Revisited through
a Mock-Nationalistic YouTube Web Series” is dedicated to a new and orig-
inal form of video narrative, addressing the Uruguayan national identity
in a totally different way compared to the nation formation described by
Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities (1983). The main theoretical
concept of the British scholar is semiotically revised with the help of some
Peircean terms.
The paper of Lankauskaitė and Liubinienė “A Shift from ‘Me’ to ‘We’
in Social Media” examines the impact of the Web 3.0. on the mentality of
internet users. The shift from ‘me’ to ‘we’ is seen as a consequence of tech-
nological innovations which allow crowdsourcing, participatory culture,
collective intelligence, etc. The thesis is illustrated with three case studies
of an online TV, an offline social action, initiated in social media and an
online project for artistic collaboration.
The next five papers are dedicated to various aesthetic and interactive
practices in digital culture. In his paper “Postcard from Istanbul: Digital Re-
construction of the City as Memory in Tasos Boulmetis’s Polítiki Kouzína
/ A Touch of Spice / Baharatin Tadi”, Dimitriadis explicates the narrative
mechanisms for representing the past with the help of digital effects. Con-
trary to the mainstream use of the digital special FX, in this case a strong
poetic effect is achieved in visualizing the space of memory.
Cassone dedicates his paper “’It’s over 9000.’ Apeiron Narrative Config-
urations in Contemporary Mediascape” to an interesting videogame phe-
nomenon, started as a pen and paper role-playing game in Japan prior to
the digital age. The particular narrative device of individual growth of pow-
er in the fictional discourse, after the transfer of the plot as a videogame,
is analyzed with the tools of generative semiotics and is spread as a meme
and viral phenomenon.
14 Kristian Bankov
Another paper is about “Constructing the Corporate Instagram Dis-

course – a critical visual discourse approach”. There Poulsen takes a critical
stance towards an important incoherence in the way Instagram represents
its mission, and at the same time how the app is trying to regulate the use
of the platform and its visual tools.
In his text “Formalism and Digital Research of Literature,” Debnar ex-
amines another phenomenon typical of the digital age–the mass digitali-
zation of literary texts and the challenges for the reader in front of huge
archives available for everybody. The key notion of his text, borrowed from
Moretti, is distant reading, and the author’s contribution is to demonstrate
the validity of the formalist approach to that theory.
In “Enchanted Object: Indian Sari, Negotiating the Online and the Of-
fline Space”, Khanwalkar makes a sociosemiotic analysis of a garment with
huge symbolic value – the Sari. The main object of the research is how
online discourse on the Sari upgrades and transforms its significance, how
local and global interact in the identity formation process.
In the next section there are two papers on the digital age in corporate
communication. In “Engaging Brand Communication in Facebook – a Ty-
pology of the Brand Page Users”, Kartunova identifies four types of Face-
book users of corporate pages using the classical approach of Jean-Marie
Floch. The study is supported by empirical data, collected among the target
groups and puts the main emphasis on brand culture adoption and brand
narrative engagement.
Asimova has chosen a semiotic content analysis approach in order to
investigate “Digital Culture of the Regulated Industries. Focus: Tobacco
Sector”. The conclusions state that although the efficacy of the legal regula-
tions in such industries, social media, blogs and forums open possibilities
for marketers in innovative ways of promotion.
Contrary to all other papers the last text in the journal, written by Yank-
ova and entitled “The Effeteness of Social Media” holds a conservative
stance and argues that similarities to past social relations are more relevant
than the differences. The author shows how an abstract metaphysical vision
of Peirce about the universe can be extended to the cultural reality of social
media.
The second issue of the journal will invite contributions on the world of
digital eroticism. The title is “Love and Sex in the Digital Age: a Semiotic
Perspective”. Please visit: [email protected].
References
Arcagni, S. 2016. Visioni digitali. Video, web e tecnologie. Torino: Einau-
di.
Carr, N. 2010. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Eco, U. 2000[1997]. Kant and the Platypus. Essays on Language and Cog-
nition (transl. by A. McEwen). New York NY: Harcourt.
de Kerckhove, D. 2011. The Augmented Mind Milano: 40KBooks (Kin-
dle book).
Greimas, A. J. 1970. Du Sens. Paris: Le Seuil
Manovich, L. 2013. Software Takes Command. New York and London:
Bloomsbury.
Marrone, G. 2010. L’invenzione del testo, Bari: Laterza.
Ricoeur, P. 1970. What Is a Text?. in From Text to Action: Essays in Her-
meneutics, II , trans. K. Blamey and J. B. Thompson, 105–124. Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press.
Ricoeur, P. 1984. Time and Narrative, Vol. 1. Trans. Kathleen McLaugh-
lin and David Pellauer. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Ricoeur, Paul. 1991. From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics, II ,
trans. K. Blamey and J. B. Thompson. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Univer-
sity Press.
Rifkin, J. 2000. The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism,
Where all of Life is a Paid–For Experience. New York: Penguin/Putnam.
Sonesson, G. 2017. “Mastering phenomenological semiotics with Hus-
serl and Peirce” in Cobley, P. and Bankov, K. (eds). Semiotics and its Masters
Vol. 1. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
17
PART I Knowledge and

Identity in Digital Age
19
PERSONALIZATION ALGORITHMS –
LIMITING THE SCOPE OF DISCOVERY?
HOW ALGORITHMS FORCE OUT SERENDIPITY
Mihail Vuzharov
New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria
[email protected]
Abstract
The Digital has become ubiquitous and inevitable. Each day, fewer
non-digitals remain, as others become digital immigrants, and finally be-
ing succeeded by digital natives. Billions of devices are now connected, as
remote access and IoT-added-value have become commonplace. Cloud
services have supplanted old-school digital products, personal data has be-
come more valuable than most other resources, while our attention span
has been shrinking, constantly besieged by millions of signals.
It is now virtually impossible for anyone to exist outside of the Digital;
it is virtually impossible not to rely on online services, not to have our data
collected, not to have information tailored especially for our personal con-
sumption, based on our unique digital footprints. UX Design paradigms
have been shifting, moving us further from simple interaction, departing
from on-screen interfaces, and simultaneously eliminating the need for a
20 Mihail Vuzharov
user’s encyclopedic competence (as per Eco) and even going past naviga-
tional competence (as per Bankov).
Communication structures define communication outcomes. Commu-
nication structures literally shape our world, as Benedict Anderson would
argue. While his analysis turns to the printing press as a causal mecha-
nism for the formation of the nation states, one could argue that the al-
gorithm-based structure of information delivery means a departure from
the potential for serendipitous discovery, changing our systems of expecta-
tions, the way we think, and the way we perceive the world.
If the entire system is based on our past, a mirror image of ourselves,
this would mean that we are more likely to receive answers pertaining to a
world that is entirely within our scope. The farther we depart from ency-
clopedic competence, and then from navigational competence (where we
were at least able to browse into areas unknown), the farther we are moving
from the unfamiliar. There is an event horizon, the information beyond
which is completely outside our reach, and this event horizon is more and
more tightly enclosing us.
Essentially, our entire information inflow is based on a user model, de-
rived by various algorithms, deep learning mechanisms and AI systems – a
veritable black box, which, in turn, weaves a personalized and unique Dy-
namic Text for a very special Echian “model reader” – the “model user”. We
will try to demonstrate how this relationship may lead to a limited outlook.
Keywords: Social media, algorithms, suggestion, discovery, encyclopedia
While Internet users may agree that their online experiences vary, as
they generally tend to, the truth is somewhat more complex – and far less
transparent. The Internet is different for each of us; in fact, since between
2006 and 2010, the Internet has become almost fully personalized. This
paper looks at the structure of today’s Internet – more precisely, User Ex-
perience Design, personalization and recommendation, algorithms and
artificial intelligence – and at the way its information delivery design in-
fluences users. Far from claiming the discovery of a novel phenomenon,
our text will attempt to apply semiotic methods to existing hypotheses and
analyses, in order to help clarify how certain subtle (at first glance) changes
in structure and infrastructure may have led to rather profound changes in
individual perception, and thus in the very fabric of society.
Mundane Internet use can be described as serving a few main purposes:
connecting with others (including email, chat, social media); getting infor-
PERSONALIZATION ALGORITHMS... 21
mation (including news, research, finances); shopping (for products and

services); and entertainment (video, music, gaming). (Meyen 2010) .These
activities tend to take place on a surprisingly limited number of platforms,
many of them owned by Google (including local versions of the search en-
gine, YouTube, Gmail and other Google services)1 and Facebook (includ-
ing Messenger, Instagram, Whatsapp)2.
Therefore our analysis will concentrate on prominent players, mostly
Google and Facebook, seeing as they command (at least as of today) the
largest piece of the Internet pie, also due to the fact that they either tend to
set the trends, or purchase other trend-setters in the market and absorb or
adapt their models. We may also mention some other large players such as
Apple and Amazon, or trending developments, such as IoT, autonomous
cars, etc., but only as much as they fit within the scope of our current anal-
ysis.
Personalization
Personalization is typically presented in terms of relevance and user sat-
isfaction, i.e. showing only search results (in Google’s case), social media
posts (Facebook), product recommendations (Amazon), etc., which are
relevant (i.e. useful, appropriate) to the specific user. This is a leading fea-
ture of most online services, since relevance is one of the most important
keywords in what we now call the Attention Economy.
This need for relevance is born out of the sheer amount of data available
online; the Internet has come to contain a veritable – and unfathomable –
universe of information, feeding the need for contextual reduction of avail-
able information down to applicable micro-universes and, effectively, their
rendition into legible discourse universes (such as, for example, the list of
search results for a certain search term by a specific Google user).
In order to fulfill their stated purpose (a topic we will revisit later) and
to deliver a better user experience, online services, such as Facebook and
Google, utilize proprietary algorithms, meant to provide an improved and
customized information flow to their users.
Google launched its personalized search in 2005, first in beta, then only
to subscribed and logged-in users. This new search would take into account
all of the information available about the logged-in user and would attempt
to provide the most relevant search results to any search query. Then, in
1
Similarweb – 100 Top Websites (last accessed September 2017 from https://www.simi-
larweb.com/top-websites)
2
Comscore Mobile Metrix (last accessed September 2017 from https://www.comscore.
com/Products/Audience-Analytics/Mobile-Metrix)
22 Mihail Vuzharov
2009, Google launched the personalized search to all users, logged-in or

not. Respectively, this would mean that, while there is more personal infor-
mation about logged-in users, the algorithm still has plenty of data avail-
able in order to narrow down the search results for anyone – data such as
date and time, location, browser, device, pages visited, scrolling patterns, as
well as any other data Google’s cookies manage to collect.3 In fact, Google’s
Chrome is now the most widely used browser across almost all platforms,
which allows its parent company to collect even more information about
its users.
Similarly, Facebook introduced its NewsFeed in 2006 – the familiar
stream of “stories” coming from friends and pages that every Facebook user
knows so well. While initially a purely chronological mass of consequent
items, Facebook changed the logic behind the Newsfeed in 2011, due to
the ever-increasing number of “stories” avalanching the users – reportedly,
over 2000 items per user per day; the NewsFeed was to become a highly
personalized affair, delivering only those stories the algorithm deems wor-
thy of the user’s attention, based on her past interactions (with her Face-
book friends, pages, topics, etc.) and on her similarity to other users.4
While these developments have indeed managed to improve the end-us-
er’s experience, they have also defined a certain structure, a pre-set mode
of information retrieval and communication: both services have achieved
their current level of personalization by creating a complex model of the
user and serving data (be it status updates and links, or search query re-
sults) based on that model.
The way this user model is created generally relies on three (and–judg-
ing by patents filed by some of the companies–soon to be four) main par-
adigms: user behavior, collaborative filtering, inference/extrapolation (and
soon – disposition/emotion analysis).
Behavior analytics is a historical, statistical analysis based on past ac-
tions and preferences by the specific user. It requires the capture and aggre-
gation of large quantities of raw data (signals) across all of the user’s con-
nected applications and devices. While a logged-in user is easier to track
across multiple devices, it is still possible to collect plenty of information
even for users who are not logged into the platform. Marketing and an-
alytics services, such as Acxiom, have devised methods that allow them
3
Personalized Search for Everyone. 2009. (last accessed September 2017 from https://
googleblog.blogspot.it/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html)
4
The Evolution of Facebook News Feed. (last accessed January 2018 from http://mashable.
com/2013/03/12/facebook-news-feed-evolution/#d7dXN2ZeQPqf)
to match figures from different user sessions and, subsequently, aggregate

immense volumes of data. (Pariser 2011).
Collaborative filtering, on the other hand, relies on grouping users into
clusters based on their similarities. It is based on overt social characteristics
and processes, such as rating certain songs (on Spotify) or purchasing cer-
tain products (on Amazon). These user signals can then be interpreted as
an approximation of the user’s perception of the respective realm and her
association (by similarity) to an abstract cluster of users who exhibit sim-
ilar attitudes. Such filtering mechanisms largely power recommendation
services, such as Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlists; they look at a cluster
of similar users and recommend highly rated items to those users who have
not yet encountered them (or, at least, for whom there is no data regarding
such encounters in their user profiles).
In contrast to collaborative filtering, inferential methods are based on
covert social characteristics and processes, and often rely on psychograph-
ics and statistical data drawn from large populations. They are based on
the analysis of hundreds of thousands of records in order to extrapolate
additional details about users. For example, using explicit Facebook page
likes in order to reach certain conclusions (e.g. if the user likes Nutella, she
is classified as a sweet-tooth, chocolate lover). However, this method also
relies on implicit traits in order to classify users (e.g. if the user is male and
his Facebook page-likes include “Wicked the Musical”, the “No H8” cam-
paign, and other human rights campaigns, he may be classified as gay).5
Finally, we should mention the newest trend in user profiling, namely
dispositional analysis. While this technology is still being tested and fine-
tuned, it does show great promise (for marketing purposes). What this
method aims to achieve is to recognize the user’s current mood, in order
to surface adequate information (or to render an applicable discourse uni-
verse). It is yet another layer of the user model, which would allow an app
or service to use the built-in webcam (or other available instrument) of a
user’s device, analyze her face (or why not pulse, bodily temperature, etc.),
and eventually display information, which would harmonize with the us-
er’s emotional state (or would, in more unethical circumstances, take ad-
vantage of her momentary emotional state).
Essentially, the entire premise of personalization is an approach built
upon the user’s observed behavior, her user model constantly being updat-
5
Halliday, Josh. 2013. Facebook users unwittingly revealing intimate secrets, study finds
(last accessed January 2018 from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/11/
facebook-users-reveal-intimate-secrets)
24 Mihail Vuzharov
ed with regard to the persistent flow of new behavioral data. In other words,
the user model is an attempt at a digitally reconstructed approximation of
the user’s individual encyclopedic competence and system of expectations.
Algorithms and Data

Collecting all of the abovementioned data is a gargantuan task. So much
so that collecting, analyzing, and utilizing this data has become one of the
most lucrative fields. Little wonder this phenomenon is dubbed Big Data.
Actually, data has been called the most valuable resource, effectively dis-
placing even oil.6
In fact, although Google is generally regarded as a search company
while Facebook is thought of as a social network, they both depend almost
entirely on data, all of it collected from the Internet users who peruse their
free services. What they do with this data is straightforward: they sell it.
This statement may sound rather blunt, so we will peek into the process.
Both companies’ revenues are generated mostly by advertising. In fact,
this is how – and especially why – they offer such high-quality services
for free: their model, albeit not sound from a classical free-market point
of view, depends on subsidizing the free side (social, search, chat, enter-
tainment, office suite, etc.) of their business via revenues from the paid
side (advertising), while, on the other hand, the free side accumulates the
data needed for the smooth (and profitable) functioning of the paid side.
(Srnicek 2017).
This internal structure, therefore, requires that the services these com-
panies provide for free are of high quality. Even more importantly, they
need to make sure that the users are not only satisfied, but drawn to the
services, addicted if possible, and even dependent on them. In some cases,
the companies practice customer lock-in – making it prohibitively expen-
sive (not necessarily in financial terms) for a user to switch to a different
service. Far from malevolence, this actually demonstrates strong business
acumen. Which brings us back to the topic of relevance: a well-function-
ing, lightning-fast and relevant web service – one able to avoid the notori-
ous attention crash – is a good service.
Google managed to replace Yahoo and AltaVista as the most used
search engine by replacing their tree-based, dictionary-style search process
with a rhizome-based (as Eco would regard it), encyclopedia-style search
algorithm, while Facebook enjoys the benefits of the network effect to the
6
The World’s Most Valuable Resource is No Longer Oil but Data. 2017. (last accessed Jan-
uary 2017 from https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21721656-data-economy-de-
mands-new-approach-antitrust-rules-worlds-most-valuable-resource)
extent that not using Facebook services bears a relatively high social price.
With the added value of high quality personalization across the board, the
two services have achieved supremacy over most other end-user services,
while their unsurpassed ability to collect, analyze, package and sell user
data has made them into powerful one-stop-shops for advertisers.
While this development bodes well for the companies, it has a frustrat-
ing side effect: it turns the algorithms, which work behind the scenes to
provide the personalized information flow to users, into double agents.
Their loyalty has no alternative but to shift from the (freeloading) user to
the (paying) client, at least to some extent, seeing as these high-quality free
online services are, after all, only a part of actual commercial entities (and
quite gainful ones, at that), rather than not-for-profit organizations (as a
counterpoint, we should mention Wikipedia, which has managed to re-
main free and independent from advertisers and the corresponding market
forces). Since the objective of these companies (both companies are listed)
is first and foremost profit, business interests come first.
An additional deficiency of algorithms tends to remain unnoticed, al-
though recently there has been an upsurge in research on the topic: al-
gorithms are not neutral, are imperfect, and are subject to their creators’
fallibilities. (O’Neil 2017). This can be related to the point above: when an
algorithm is created to serve a certain primary purpose (while also satisfy-
ing a certain other secondary requirement), it will tend to lead to skewed
outcomes, as opposed to a neutral algorithm (which is, most likely, un-
conceivable, since this would require a programmer without competing
allegiances).
What this implies is that, if the ideal (neutral) algorithms were applied
to the semantic micro-universe of a specific user’s web experience, in order
to reduce the available information down to an applicable discourse uni-
verse, they would produce a snapshot that would correspond only to the
user’s properties and desires. However, since algorithms are imperfect, they
would tend to render a more limited version of this potential discourse
universe, since it would have to meet the conditions for two separate agents
– the user and the algorithm’s distortion (due to its primary purpose, its
creator’s fallibilities, etc.).
Structure and Control

What we have depicted in the previous section is, essentially, a form of
control. However, it must be re-stated that this is not a malicious design;
rather, what we are observing is a healthy (from an economical point of
26 Mihail Vuzharov
view) pursuit of optimization and market domination, which, however,

cannot be realized without the shaping of the information delivery mecha-
nisms – i.e. the design of the algorithms. On the one hand, the algorithms
must be designed in a way that will increase the (perceived) value for the
users, in order to attract them to and retain them within the service. And
on the other hand they concentrate on those traits which can be most use-
ful to the highest bidder for the advertising space offered on the services’
real estate.
Additionally, but not independently
from the previous points, the services do
shape the rules for their users. A simple
illustration would be Facebook’s “Like”
button – one of the UX (user experi-
ence) affordances that Facebook’s algo-
rithms rely on, when modeling a user’s
NewsFeed and her entire potential se-
mantic universe. This button is utilized
when a user wants to interact positively
with a certain piece of information on
Facebook, be it a status update, photo of
a cat, a shared link, etc. This creates an
instant semiotic contradiction – “things
she likes” vs. “things she doesn’t like” (re- Figure 1: Semiotic Square
spectively S1 and ~S1 in Fig. 1)7. However,
even with the recent introduction of Facebook “reactions” (the new ones
being “Love”, “Haha”, “Wow”, “Sad”, “Angry”) one will be unable to com-
plete the semiotic square with the obviously missing “things she dislikes”
(S2) and “things she doesn’t dislike” (~S2). Indeed, it would be hard to have
the latter without the former, however “dislikes” are impossible to monetize
in the existing ad-based profit model. Essentially, what we have here is an
incomplete structure serving as the user model’s foundation, which is then
used as the filter through which the user perceives the universe.
Additionally, Facebook and Google both prioritize items with which the
user seems more likely to interact, based on her user model. As stated earli-
er, this is a matter of relevance. This approach, however, has been criticized
profusely. One criticism in particular uses a facetious illustration: if roads
functioned the way Facebook does, and if we were to take into account the
7
EmmaSofia515–Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.
php?curid=10232752
way people react to accidents (rubbernecking), then roads would have to

provide us with more car crashes. Essentially, this model tends to conflate
popularity with legitimacy.
The substantive design of this infrastructure results in a lopsided rep-
resentation of reality. As has been stated time and again, the medium
shapes our perceptions. Communication structure defines communication
outcomes; as Benedict Anderson would argue, it literally shapes our world.
Just as he analyzed the influence of the printing press and capitalist printing
on the formation of nation states, here we are looking at the algorithm- and
recommendation-based structure of information delivery and the possibly
resulting changes in our systems of expectations, in the way we think, and
the way we perceive the world. “The medium is the message.”
User Experience Design and the Text

As we alluded to earlier, the abovementioned algorithm design and the
fight for relevance are all facets of User Experience (UX) design. While the
notion of UX has only recently become familiar to the public (although
it was introduced by Donald Norman of the “Nielsen Norman Group” in
the 90s), the field has actually been around for a long time, variants of it
appearing under different names – including Interaction Design, User In-
terface Design, Usability, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and even
Clarisse de Souza’s Semiotic Engineering. (de Souza 2004). UX has been
evolving parallel to technology, as its main stated purpose is to improve the
experience of the user’s interaction with products or services – so its roots
can be traced back to the industrial age.
What we have been experiencing recently is the migration of UX away
from the screen (or monitor) and closer to direct experience – or, as de
Souza would put it, a decrease in articulatory and semantic distance. (de
Souza 2004, 100). The goal is, essentially, to make it easy, intuitive and has-
sle-free for users to achieve their goals through the design language of the
user interface of a product or service.
Until recently, during the Internet age’s initial stages (when search en-
gines were still modelled after the Porphyrian tree), navigating through
the vast and constantly growing universe of information depended on the
user’s (Echian) personal encyclopedic competence: she had to understand
what to look for and use her memory (recall Eco’s letter to his grandson –
“Learn to memorize”)8. Eventually, with advances in UX design, retrieving
8
Eco. Umberto. 2014. Caro nipote, studia a memoria. (last accessed January 2017, from
http://espresso.repubblica.it/visioni/2014/01/03/news/umberto-eco-caro-nipote-studia-
a-memoria-1.147715?refresh_ce)
28 Mihail Vuzharov
information from the Internet became rather a matter of navigational com-

petence: the user only had to know where to look. (Bankov 2010). Now, with
advances in AI decreasing the distance between request and result, such as
with Google Now, Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, etc. –
services, which are, arguably, still in their infancy – users need to rely on
what could only be called an inquisitorial-processual competence: the user
must only figure out how to frame the query in order to achieve the desired
result. However, as these services mature, as Natural Language Processing
moves forward, and as the Internet of Things (IoT) and more autonomous
technologies such as self-driving vehicles are developed, we may move to
a post-competence stage, where the interface has become invisible (and
indistinguishable) and the articulatory and semantic distance has virtually
been obliterated.
As can easily be observed, the predominant model of Internet use has
changed immensely: from a single version for all users, through several
steps of increasing personalization, to a fully personal Internet tailored for
every user based on his or her user model, and delivered by a connected in-
teractive agent with a minimalistic user interface, such as Amazon’s Alexa.
Essentially, our personal Internet is a complex Dynamic Text, dynamically
woven for us (through with nary a sign of awareness on our side) – and only
meant for our eyes (or ears) – and exclusively based on our very selves, on
an immense set of parameters, opaquely aggregated by an ever-developing
and constantly progressing multitude of algorithms, in order to re-create
our sets of expectations: our user model.
A Semiotic Model
Our personal Internet’s Dynamic Text, then, would be authored by way
of the user model and intended to be read by the ideal actuation of the user
model, namely the model user (recall Eco’s Model Reader).
In order to arrange the process more legibly, let us turn to Eco’s three
intentions, as analyzed by Valentina Pisanti: the intentio auctoris (what the
empirical author intends to say), the intentio operis (what the text wants to
say with reference to its underlying signification system and by virtue of
its textual coherence) and the intentio lectoris (what readers make the text
say with reference to their own system of expectations, their wishes, drives,
beliefs, and so on). (Pisanty 2015, 54). Additionally, to clarify the essence
of the intentio operis, Pisanti maps the three intentions onto Perice’s triadic
model:
[We] could try the experiment of projecting the three inten-

tions onto the vertices of Perice’s triangle. The intentio auctoris
would correspond to the Dynamic Object (“really efficient but
not effectively present,” and therefore knowable only through
the signs that represent it), the intentio lectoris to the Interpre-
tant (the effect the text has on the interpreter’s mind and en-
suing behavior), the intentio operis with the Immediate Object
(“the Object as represented in the sign,” i.e., the communicative
intention as it is represented by the text), while the expressive
manifestation of the text would coincide with Peirce’s Repre-
sentamen.
The intentio auctoris and the intentio lectoris are psychologi-
cal events, unknowable in themselves unless they are displayed
as signs, and yet quite easy to conceive of as ‘the cognitive ac-
tivity that goes on in the author’s and in the reader’s minds.’
The intentio operis acts as an interface between the two: on the
one hand it is determined by the intentio auctoris (which, like
the Dynamic Object, is the first mover of semiosis) and carries
traces of it, and on the other it kindles an indefinite number of
effects in empirical readers.
Figure 2: The above image represents a “normal” text, with a

“normal” author and a “normal” reader.
It is very difficult to define the precise semiotic nature of
this linking element (as it is difficult to define Peirce’s Imme-
diate Object). On the author’s side, the intentio operis is a nec-
essarily selective representation of an indefinite continuum of
mental events that are channeled within the author’s intention
to produce certain cognitive effects on somebody through a
communicative strategy (the Model Author, in fact). On the
reader’s side, the intentio operis is the matrix that generates all
the possible interpretations of the textual Representamen (the
Model Reader, possibly?)(.) (Pisanty 2015, 55).
30 Mihail Vuzharov
Our primary interest is the triadic relationship of the three Echian in-
tentions, represented in the diagram above, as opposed to the Peircean fun-
damental, which Pisanti has utilized as a stepping stone.
Based on our reflections earlier in this text, it can be suggested that there
would exist a feedback loop, where the intentio auctoris would ideally di-
rectly feed into the intentio lectoris (since the reader’s own model is the
basis of the Dynamic Text – authoring it, in a way). However, as we have
already argued, the user model is skewed: the intentio auctoris has been
intercepted and adulterated by an external agent – the algorithm (with its
inherent biases and imperfections) which acts as a sieve, effectively render-
ing the intentio auctoris a debasement of the model of the intentio lectoris
(Fig. 2). Thus, the empirical reader is presented with a localization, a spe-
cific (probably unique) frame of the encyclopedia that is otherwise avail-
able, the frame having been fashioned to suit the model user created (and
compromised) by the algorithms (due to the nature of information that is
important to the Services that collect it and feed it into the model itself). In
fact, the External Agent appears to have violated the relationship between
the three intentions, as it has positioned itself in such a way as to influence
each of them: as it collects data from an initial state of the intentio lectoris, it
creates a contaminated version of the potential intentio auctoris, essential-
ly rendering a Dynamic Text whose intentio operis reflects the distortions
brought into the cycle. Effectively, the model user, based on a reductionist
user model is but a facsimile of the empirical user.
In most day-to-day communication, “the interpreter’s main objective is
to identify the Intentio auctoris starting from the perceptible clues which
are present in the form of Intentio operis”. (Pisanty 2015, 58). However, in
day-to-day use of the Internet, the interpreter is unaware that she is, in fact,
being presented with a Dynamic Text, that there is an author (of sorts), and
that she is only looking at a modified subset of the available information.
Figure 3: Illustrating the external agent (algorithm) and its effect on the model
Naturally, one could argue that the better the algorithm, the better the
model, and the more perfect the representation of the user. Essentially, the
most perfect algorithm would be able to provide information which corre-
sponds ideally to the user’s own encyclopedic competence – no more, no
less. Effectively, this is a self-perpetuating and self-limiting system. Such a
structure would minimize serendipity, or chance discovery and productive
error. The farther we depart from encyclopedic competence, and then from
navigational competence (where we were at least able to browse into areas
unknown), the farther we are moving from the unknown.
Only information from the known universe will be available to the user,
while all else sits, unattainable, behind an event horizon which, counter-
intuitively and almost paradoxically, shrinks around the user as the algo-
rithms become ever better at knowing her.
A Short Afterword
This text is, admittedly, looking at a greatly refined depiction of the way
we consume media and the way our environment promotes the construc-
tion of our worldview. Such distillation is a prerequisite when trying to
construct a valid model. Still, it would be sensible to note the fact that,
while the self-perpetuating and self-limiting model we have described may
indeed result in departure from serendipitous discovery, human beings, as
a rule, do exist in societies and would hardly be as restricted in their sourc-
es of information as our analysis may illustrate.
Additionally, some of the companies mentioned in the text have been
attempting to correct for certain aberrations their services have been
shown to exhibit – for example, Google already allows users to review and
edit some of the building blocks of their user profile at myactivity.google.
com (although, as many UX designers know well, an option only exists as
much as users are aware of it and willing to use it). Additionally, some ser-
vices rely on human-curated content parallel to algorithm-created content
– namely some Spotify playlists created by experts, or Yahoo! News articles
which are manually selected to appear, due to their overall importance, as
judged by actual human news editors.
It is our hope that grim forecasts, claiming humanity has surely headed
towards a dystopian future fully controlled by a handful of extremely pow-
erful supranational corporations, will prove false, as will visions of civiliza-
tion depicted in fictitious discourses such as Netflix’s “Black Mirror” series.
However, we do believe that simply considering these issues is far from
useless, as it can serve as our collective “things we dislike,” in order for us
to know what we should strive for instead.
32 Mihail Vuzharov
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35
THE IMAGINED COMMUNITY REVISITED

THROUGH A MOCK-NATIONALISTIC
YOUTUBE WEB SERIES
Fernando Andacht
Universidad de la República, Uruguay
[email protected]
Abstract
This paper is based on the question: can we revisit the notion of ‘im-
agined community’ (Anderson, 1983) to use it as a reliable analytical tool
for media studies in the digital age? The concept is widely used in social
sciences and media studies, but is used more often than not with total dis-
regard for its epistemological purport, thus jeopardizing its heuristic value.
I consider a concept initially proposed as a valuable approach to study the
emergence of nations in the 19th century, adapting it to analyze a popular
parodic take on the 21st century nation which takes YouTube as its me-
dium. I argue that Anderson’s ‘imagined community’ benefits from being
redefined in terms of Peircean semiotics. My approach is based on Peirce’s
phaneroscopic categories, and on the iconic working of the human imag-
ination. As a case study for this revisited concept, I use a YouTube weekly
series called Tiranos Temblad, which consists of an odd medley of amateur
36 Fernando Andacht
videos drawn from that social media website. The topic of all these videos
is a discussion of or reflection on the small Latin American nation of Uru-
guay. Some of the edited videos are local but many come from abroad. The
latter enthusiastically praise Uruguay but lack even the most elementary
knowledge about it, as the voice-over narrative never fails to remark and
celebrate in a deadpan style that makes the series curiously funny. I claim
that this web series is a parodical revisiting of nationalism and of the re-
branding of a nation.
Keywords: imagined community; YouTube; Tiranos Temblad; post-na-

tionalism; Peircean phaneroscopy
1. The bountiful archive of YouTube as a digital Wunderkammer

So much is talked about memory, because it
does not exist any longer. (...) There are sites
of memory, because there are no more en-
vironments of memory. (P. Nora, 1984, xvii)
Just like in the disrespectful window display
Of any pawnshop, life is all mixed up,
And wounded by a sword without rivets
You can see the Bible crying next to a boiler
(Cambalache, tango by Enrique Discépolo,
1934)
The notion of “imagined community” that Anderson (1983) posits to
account for the emergence of modern nations in the 19th century makes
use of ritually shared materials for reading and listening, such as newspa-
pers and patriotic anthems. Nowadays, it includes audiovisual artifacts con-
stantly created by anonymous individuals to be shared by an indeterminate
number of viewers scattered throughout the planet, namely, homemade
videos that their non-professional makers upload on the social network
YouTube as soon as they film them. This bountiful audiovisual archive was
called “a kind of digital Wunderkammer” (Gehl 2009: 45) which functions
as a frame only, since “YouTube does not produce any content of its own,
only the frame in which content appears; all of the content is provided by
third parties” (Ibid.).
That kind of variegated audiovisual material is the raw material of Ti-
ranos Temblad. Resumen de Acontecimientos Uruguayos (‘Tyrants tremble!
THE IMAGINED COMMUNITY... 37
An overview of Uruguayan Events’ – henceforth TT), a weekly YouTube

series that was launched in December 2012 and distributed until October
2016. Besides being amateur productions, the feature all the video frag-
ments share that make up each program is their having as an explicit theme
or implied scenario everyday life in Uruguay, and an attitude about this
country which oscillates between utter satisfaction and unrestrained eu-
phoria. The sheer banality or the ridiculous nature of what is represented
every week in the images of the collage edited in TT would seem a priori
incompatible with the kind of emotion that was compared with “a secu-
larized religion whose fully worked-out liturgy, symbols and mass actions
(...) became integrated into the daily life of the people” (Elgenius 2005: 26).
Besides the non-serious nature of the materials of TT, there is the odd tone
used by the narrator, whose voice-over glosses every single clip, from the
beginning to the end of each episode, which contributes to its comic effect,
which I analyze below.
1.1 YouTube as the launching site for a post-nationalist & postdocu-

mentary culture
The hypothesis of the article is that the parodic style of TT is an expres-
sion of post-nationalism in the internet age, an ironic though not scornful
revisiting of patriotism. In a similar sense to Corner’s (2002) claim of our
having entered a “post-documentary culture” on television, one which fea-
tures prominently the reality show as a popular variation on the respected
film genre that John Grierson (1933) baptized as “the creative treatment of
actuality”, I claim that we have entered a post-nationalistic and post-doc-
umentary culture whereof the YouTube series TT is emblematic. My claim
does not amount to asserting the death of that powerful, widespread col-
lective emotion; it is a reflection on the endless redefinition of politics as
the distinctive discourse of citizens: “The logos politikos is not a single code
or original text, but a creative process through which many speakers and
audiences collaborate to invent ever more eloquent statements of who they
are and what they should do” (Hariman 2008: 260).
But why should we study non-serious, „parodical“ signs, or the
Uruguayan imagined community in the second decade of the 21st century?
To answer this query and verify my hypothesis, I propose a semiotic anal-
ysis of an alternative way to imagine the social realm, an identity ideology
that is the upshot of new technological affordances. I use ‘ideology’ here
not as that which, say, social constructionism aims to unmask (Hacking
1999), but rather as Mannheim’s (1960/1936:52) definition, “the totality
of the structure of the intellectual world belonging to a social group in a
38 Fernando Andacht
given historical situation”. Taking a qualitative approach to the meaning

of certain TT episodes, I study the signification process of what became
a very popular phenomenon with many followers inside and outside the
country.1 Concerning the artificiality of the technological devices with
which the nation is imagined, I agree with Anderson (1983: 6): nations
“are invented where they do not exist”. Still, that does not make them in-
authentic; a nation “is imagined because the members of even the smallest
nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even
hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their commun-
ion” (Anderson 1983:6). For the invention of the national community to
take place, there must be the cultivation of a style, the careful selection of
material signs with which to imagine the limits and the collective identity
of the people who dwell in it. Something akin to this process happens to
people who do not belong to it, but who imagine a certain nation as an
appealing place. That is precisely the main plot of every TT episode, the
recurrent theme of that bizarre mishmash of mundane events. Its name is
deceitful, since these are not media ‘events’, not in the sense discussed by
Dayan and Katz (1994), in their study of “The live broadcasting of histo-
ry”. In this study the authors analyze memorable occurrences such as royal
weddings, a Pope’s historic visit or the funeral of a powerful politician. The
media representation of such moments creates worldwide interest for its
high position in the news agenda; due to their impact on public opinion,
they become historical landmarks. Those features are glaringly absent from
the (mostly) domestic or amateurish art videos that the TT editor selects to
construct this YouTube series. Nevertheless, the adjective ‘Uruguayan’ cor-
rectly describes the distinctive feature of the heterogeneous videos com-
posing this audiovisual collage. Whether made by Uruguayans who live in
the country or outside of it – a centripetal vision–or by foreigners who visit
Uruguay or make a cognitive/imaginative journey through this small Latin
American country – a centrifugal vision –, all the videos found on You-
Tube and organized for each episode’s montage have as their single, explicit
topic Uruguayan matters, be they geographical, cultural, political, musical,
meteorological, sports, etc. A way to describe this uncanny creation is to
picture an encounter or cross between a wickedly faulty Wikipedia, Ferdi-
nand Cheval (1836 -1924), the creative, improvised builder of the Palais
Idéal, and the reclusive artist of the eclectic shadow boxes Joseph Cornell
(1903-1972). The two obscure creators became honorary members of the
1
The average number of visitors of each episode of TT on YouTube is 100.000. At the time
of writing this article, the creator has not uploaded a new program for a year. The last one
covers many months (17.03.16-25.10.16), and it is the 75th.
surrealist canon, after their demise. Such is the exotic and bewildering na-
ture of the audiovisual concoction for each episode of the YouTube series
TT.
The series is a labor of love for a “new-fangled” curator to an imaginary,
virtual museum of disposable artifacts from individual memory that, had
it not been for their inclusion in the montage of TT, would have never
been watched by the channel’s very large audience, and would have had an
altogether different meaning. The domestic videos undergo a noticeable
change in their signification from being edited, glossed and classified in
one of the regular sections of TT.
An important theoretical contribution to make sense of this non-com-
mercial social media project is Nora’s (1989) “sites of memory”: “we have
seen the tremendous dilation of our very mode of historical perception,
which, with the help of the media, has substituted for a memory entwined
in the intimacy of a collective heritage the ephemeral film of current event.”
Three decades later, the prescient verdict of this French historian has been
confirmed through the endless proliferation of domestic personal videos
distributed on websites such as YouTube. These signs work as a substitute
for oral memory; they seek to create an iconic inventory of the social im-
aginary of our time.
2. Towards a “new fangled” representation of one’s cherished (?) na-

tionhood
To study these new “sites of memory” (Nora 1989), I analyze a new kind
of Latin American media representation of sociocultural events that, due
to their banal and frivolous nature, seem to be doomed to oblivion. Such is
the fate of the constant filming of everyday life, the pervasive cultural prac-
tice aiming to obsessively preserve individual memories, and to share and
socialize them on social media. This habit endows trivial video material
with a potential for becoming a collective memory, which modifies its overt
mundane, ephemeral character. The act of recording the everyday in all its
shapes involves an operation of “metacommunicational” framing (Bateson
1972: 179; Goffman 1986, passim), namely, the act of transforming videos
of almost all moments of everyday life into the kind of occurrence that no
longer coincides with a ceremony, such as a wedding or a holiday trip. Nor-
mally, their life cycle is short and it addresses a small audience, for instance
when a video is shared with family and friends through WhatsApp or on
someone’s Facebook page.
But it is becoming increasingly common to take a further representa-
tional step: to share the domestic video on social media, notably YouTube,
40 Fernando Andacht
not before giving it a title. This current avatar of the home movie2 changes its
tiny family audience to a wide, global spectatorship. The cultural practice
of sharing what is private or intimate with a massive audience without clear
limits entails a second framing act. The choice of TT as an object of study
is due to its interesting narrative strategy of scavenging through hundreds
of YouTube videos and then re-signifying that framing operation of every-
day experience. The videos then undergo a third keying (Goffman 1986:
44-45), namely, “the set of conventions by which (…) an already meaning-
ful primary framework is transformed (and) seen by its participants to be
quite something else”. The variegated episodes (of lengths varying from 10
to 12 minutes) compose an odd virtual artifact of memory that is neither
individual nor social; through its unconventional montage TT has become
part of the virtual heritage of a Latin American nation. This is not only
due to the selection of videos about Uruguay, but also the painstaking cu-
ratorial effort of organizing the material that goes into the making of each
episode. To use the terms of Kermode (1967: 46), what takes place through
this elaborate montage may be described as the radical transformation of
clear instances of chronos – the kind of unremarkable temporality that is
soon forgotten – into a modest instance of kairos –the kind of time that is
most significant, those special moments we redeem from oblivion, so they
remain in our memory. Through their special status, such memorable oc-
casions shape our lives.
In what follows, I will approach the transformation of overtly banal vid-
eos, which deserve to be forgotten almost as soon as they were made, (the
caught filming of a relative, silly chance observations) into a „new-fangled“
form of neo- or post-nationalism. This effect is attained through the use of
parody and irony, which are found not only in the comments of the narra-
tor-cum-curator of TT, but most remarkably in the monotonous, deadpan
tone he uses during the entire length of each program. Thus TT may be
construed as an imaginary museum of the short-lived but revealing mem-
ory of the cultural practices of an imagined community of Latin America,
in the second decade of the 21st century. For my take of this media phe-
nomenon, I will use both Benedict Anderson’s account of the genesis of19th
century nationalism and C. S. Peirce’s semiotic model.
2.1 When the social imaginary is built in the shape of a chaotic pawn-
shop
Elsewhere (Andacht 2001), I have studied the tiny verbal and visual rec-
tangle of the postage stamp as a privileged semiotic window to the ideol-
2
We could consider Le repas de bébé (1895) by the Lumière Brothers as the oldest an-
tecedent of this domestic film genre.
ogy underlying the nation whose name that sign proudly exhibits, to its
social imaginary. Although Anderson (1983) does not mention the stamp
as one of the artifacts used for the invention of the modern nation, it is
also part of “this extraordinary mass ceremony” (Anderson 1983: 35) of
contemplating a shared identity sign. Writing about the effect of the collec-
tive consumption of newspapers (“one-day bestsellers”), Anderson (1983:
42) claims that “The idea of a sociological organism moving calendrically
through homogeneous, empty time is a precise analogue of the idea of the
nation”, a similar temporality functions in the viewing of each episode of
TT construed as a one-week viral video. The relevance of this kind of mate-
rial representation is justified by Anderson’s claim that “communities are to
be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which
they are imagined” (Anderson 1983: 6).
If someone with no knowledge of Uruguayan culture watched a typical
TT episode, what that neophyte viewer would find most remarkable would
be the promiscuous mixture of video fragments. Although there is an un-
derlying order in the apparent audiovisual turbulence, the deadpan style of
the voice-over narration is bound to perplex the newcomer: “two brothers
read a book on dinosaurs; an aunt recited (a poem by Uruguayan poet)
Juana de Ibarbourou; a dog which is seen barking had a dream; a group
of masked Quinceañeras danced; a group of men carried bricks” (TT #70).
The eccentric prologue is followed by euphoric images of young female
tourists seen wandering the Uruguayan countryside; of a young woman
doing an appreciative “little dance” as an homage to the country, also in the
heartland; then a Japanese and a German advertisement selling soft drinks
made with or using the name ‘mate’ – the traditional Uruguayan herbal
beverage – in their label; a group of wildly ill-matched inventions that jux-
taposes funny-looking home-made devices with the engineering design of
an eccentric inventor. Without any transition there ensues a parade of “a
dog who remains perfectly still on a dock (which we are told has already
been featured on TT); a man who taught how to make a home repellent”.
The incongruous group of edited video fragments creates the impression
that the average TT episode – between 7 and 14 minutes – is much longer
than what it actually is. The closure of this episode is brought about but one
last deadpan styled comment: “And we leave you with the what-the-fuck3
moments of the week: “the armadillo cat, this hand that was swallowing the
clouds along the highway.”
3
In English, in the original; it uses a video of a Uruguayan adolescent who cheerfully uses
that expletive.
42 Fernando Andacht
It is fitting to describe the disorderly collage of TT with the rhetorical

figure of the “chaotic enumeration”. Spitzer (1945) uses this trope in his
study of the poetry of Walt Whitman, which “violently brings close to-
gether the most disparate things, the most exotic and the most familiar,
the gigantic and the minuscule, nature and the products of human civili-
zation as a child who were leafing through the catalogue of a large store”
(p. 26). To borrow a musical landmark of this region’s popular culture, I
compare the anarchic audiovisual catalogue portrayed by TT with the tan-
go Cambalache by Enrique Discépolo,4 first performed in 1934 (Andacht,
1996). Its lyrics describe the staggering chaos of modernity epitomized by
the “trouble-ridden and feverish 20th century”. Besides violating the rel-
evance principle of any imaginable TV news both in its composition and
its very name – the parodic use of ‘events’ – the list of dull mundane oc-
currences selected each week overtly disregards the ‘tellability’ of Labov &
Waletzky’ (1967) narrative model, the criterion which makes a story worth
being narrated in conversation: “what happened and why it is worth tell-
ing” (Bruner 1991:12). The odd, counter-narrative of TT celebrates the 21st
century iconic cambalache, namely, the hectic deluge of images and sounds
constantly uploaded to that boundless archive YouTube.
Directly after the avalanche of trivial Uruguayan occurrences placed at
the beginning of the episode, comes a ritual phrase uttered with resigned
boredom – “Another week in Uruguay” – and the regular sections of TT en-
sue. The voice-over keeps using indefinite articles and pronouns (a young
woman, a couple, a singer, some men), as an entomologist who watched
a garden from afar. However, gradually there is more specificity as some
proper nouns drawn from the original title of each video–visible in the
lower right corner – are used in the montage. A key ingredient of a verbal
parody is the textual repetition of what somebody else said (Rossen-Knill
& Henry 1997:723); this juxtaposes the parodied style together with the
parodying style. Another is the transposition of the fragment in a collage,
which furnishes a wholly different context from the one that was designed
for the mocked video. The hybrid resulting from the combination of the
quoted video, the verbal gloss, and the new context provided by TT creates
the comical effect of the series.
These are the categories or regular sections of each episode which bear
a visible title: ENIGMA; UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENT; OHHHH MO-
MENT, and CRACK5. They are all followed by the English phrase: “OF
4
A‘cambalache’is a pawnshop, a place which typically exhibits a chaotic accumulation of
things in its windows.
5
‘Crack’is used as a noun; it refers to an outstanding athlete, or by extension to anyone
who does something remarkable.
THE WEEK”, but when he says it, the narrator always talks in Spanish (“de
la semana”). The choice of the English printed sign alludes ironically to the
globalized world which tiny Uruguay entered timidly from its peripheral
position. The song that celebrates the apotheosis of the weekly CRACK,
which is joined in an ungainly and solemn manner by the commentator, is
also performed in Spanish. There is also a sui generis section that does not
classify a single type of videos or have a descriptive title; the “what the fuck
moments of the week” section comes at the end of every episode. If one
searched for the distinctive feature of all that is shown and narrated in TT,
for its core ideology, ‘banal’ would fit the bill.
I will now look more closely at the category that sets the dull climax of
the program, its purpose being to commemorate a prowess or its very op-
posite. A ritual phrase introduces viewers to CRACK of the Week: “And the
nominees for the Crack de la semana are...” The list of those deserving such
a prize is one further instance of chaotic enumeration to comedic effect,
as it includes animate beings – humans and animals – as well as inanimate
ones. These are some of the candidates: “an excavator which served water
in a mate”; “these jumping worms which came out of a red bell pepper”
(TT #70); “the chair (called) Jessie” manufactured in Uruguay, whose video
shows that this piece of furniture resists any kind of assault without break-
ing down (TT #21). It is not unusual for the narrator to violate without any
explanation the apparent criterion that defines a category, for instance the
alleged virtue or exceptionality of him, her or the thing that deserves to be
celebrated as the CRACK of the week. Thus we watch the big effort that a
group of young women make in order to move a large sofa through a win-
dow, and once the deed is accomplished, the narrator determines that the
person who is to be awarded the prize, which is both visual (two Golden
cups resembling those of the soccer World Cup, Fig. 1) and musical, is the
only one who had not joined the hard-working group, but who ran as fast
as she could to be the first one to sit on the sofa (TT #35).
Figure 1. Two Golden cups resembling those of the soccer World Cup
44 Fernando Andacht
On other occasions, several nominees are crowned simultaneously for

their efforts, whether successful or not, instead of honoring, as expected,
a solitary champion. This paradox works particularly well in this nation:
Uruguay still cherishes the memory of its irretrievable sporting glory,
namely the legendary victory of their national soccer team against Brazil
in the 1950 World Cup final. The decision to crown several people instead
of just one, or the gesture of celebrating an anti-prowess, is a parody of the
always yearned for but unreachable world victory in that sport, a part of
their national identity. Although the improbable sport victory of the tiny
David versus the regional Goliath is not likely not happen again (Andacht
2002), the cherished memory is deeply rooted in the Uruguayan imagined
community.
3. Peircean phaneroscopic categories to analyze the categories of TT

To analyze the realm of nationalism that is an imagined community, I
will use Peirce’s theoretical model, and the phenomenological categories
that form the basis of the many-hued, multi-functional sign process or se-
miosis. The simplest valency found in his analysis of experience is Firstness,
an absolute, possibilist qualitative element; Secondness pertains to all that
exists, reacts, resists and thus affects our perception; Thirdness character-
izes the process of representation, which involves a purpose, whether we
are aware of it or not (CP 1.532)6. And the categories apply recursively to
themselves. I propose to analyze the collective imagination that engenders
the modern nation as “the Firstness of Thirdness, the peculiar flavor or
color of mediation” (CP 1.533). To analyze the ideology that is staged in
each and every parodic episode of TT, I will use the term ‘Mentality’ (CP
1.533.), which Peirce proposes to describe the qualitative dimension of any
law or regularity, such as nationalism, the ideology that in an ironical key
tinges the entire chaotic collage of this YouTube series.
The first part of the program’s name is sure to puzzle a foreigner, but not
a Uruguayan, even less one that lived in the country during the hard, lead-
en years of the military dictatorship (1973-1985), as the writer of this text
did. The phrase “Tyrants tremble!” belongs to the refrain of the national
anthem, one of the semiotic artifacts to which Anderson (1983) attributes
the power of creating the imagined community, and, I would like to add,
the nationalistic ideology or ‘Mentality’. During the dictatorial regime, on
holidays, when the anthem was performed in public places such as a cin-
6
I use the conventional way of quoting the work of Peirce: x.xxx is a reference to the vol-
ume and paragraph of The Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce (1931-1958).
ema, only that portion of its lyrics was shouted vehemently, rather than
sung, with the unequivocal aim of repudiating the dictatorship, which bru-
tally suppressed any form of explicit opposition.
With its deadpan tone, TT parodically revisits that sentiment of stifled
rebellion, and transforms it in an ironic smile that resignifies the very no-
tion of nationalism and political involvement in peaceful times, in the age
of social media. The program has a Mentality or flavor of mediation that is
utterly different from that which prevailed during the time of State terror-
ism. It is not by chance that besides having borrowed that eloquent frag-
ment of the nation’s liturgical song, the opening image of TT is a playful
icon of the flag, wherein the heraldic image of the sun, with its geometrical,
flaming figure, is set upon the name of the series (Fig. 2), as if the national
emblem sponsored it.
Figure 2. The logo of the series
Although most of the edited videos that make up TT show anonymous

people doing banal things, every once in a while, a celebrity makes an ap-
pearance in that chaotic arrangement. When this happens, the famous
one is not represented as such, in a glorifying performance, but in a rather
oblique way, for instance, in an amateur shaky video, and he is portrayed
doing something strange, wholly unrelated to the celebrity’s aura. Such is
the case of a video of rock musician Steven Tyler made while he was on
tour with his group, Aerosmith, in Uruguay. We learn that “after he played
for thousands of people, he ended up digging into a garbage container in
the Old Town” (TT # 35). The climax of the video narrative arrives with a
comment that makes explicit what I claim to be the central meaning of this
series: “He arrived as a star and he leaves as a humble person”. Thus, the
narrator makes a parody of the proverbial Uruguayan humbleness, its neg-
ative arrogance, namely, boasting about not boasting about the supposed
national virtues as a key ingredient of Uruguayan mesocratic social imag-
46 Fernando Andacht
inary. This is a Mentality that takes pride in not being proud of its nation,
and in the love of middle-class ideals, and most of all in not trying to be
outstanding, a defining feature of the nation’s collective identity (Andacht
2002). On this point, it should be mentioned that at no time do we see the
narrator.
4. Concluding signs: the semiotic virtual antidote to nationalism Ti-

ranos Temblad
The quoted remark of that episode of TT ends with a musical scene that
is part of almost every program; it is the song Uruguay composed by Rus-
sian violinist Aleksey Igudesman. The video shows the artist playing while
accompanied by a youth symphonic orchestra of Austria, as he sings exu-
berantly with a heavily accented Spanish, in a manner that borders ridicule:
“Uruguay is the best country, better than France and better than Paris!”
With his unaltered deadpan tone, the narrator of TT says that the bizarre
behavior of rock musician S. Tyler – which was classified as the “ENIGMA
of the week”–is “a further evidence that” and then comes the end of the
program with the musical quote that exalts this nation both excessively and
with an unmistakable foreign element. Few expressions of praise can match
that of humbleness in the imagined mesocratic realm: the strong desire
to not be exceptional in any way, to be just one more modest member of
the national collective unit that is represented as a key national virtue. As
in a kind of contagion effect, this national trait has allegedly infected the
American rock star in his first visit to the country. The ironical praise of the
national ideology expressed through the leader of Aerosmith’s supposed
transformation into a mesocratic citizen is an example of the way in which
“parody creates and sustains public consciousness first and foremost by
exposing the limitations of dominant discourses: it counters idealization,
mythic enchantment, and other forms of hegemony” (Hariman 2008: 253).
Based on the audiovisual material of the YouTube program TT, there
is sufficient evidence to support the hypothesis of this text: the comment-
ed edition of quotes of miscellaneous, eccentric and overtly trivial vide-
os, with their centripetal and centrifugal visions of the Uruguayan nation,
generates as its central meaning post-nationalism, the ironic revisiting of
patriotism in the age of social media. In Peirce’s semiotic model, meaning
corresponds to the interpretant component of the semiosis process, which
is defined as “the mental effect, or thought” of the sign (CP 1.564). Far from
being an unchanging element, as I have already stated about the evolving
purport of political discourse, meaning is part of a logical metabolism in-
separable from temporality: the sign “addresses somebody, that is, creates
in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed

sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign” (CP
2.228). To express it most succinctly, “symbols grow” (CP 2.302).
My claim is that the programs of TT are interpretants of present-day
national ideology in Uruguay; the numerous visits to this YouTube chan-
nel and the enthusiastic comments on TT episodes can be construed as
acts of legitimation. The imagined community represented by TT is one
of the forms through which the Latin American political collective imagi-
nes itself today. This article’s aim has been to understand how these signs
are generated, and identify their political consequences. TT’s remarkable
popularity coincided with a historical moment of surging prestige for Uru-
guay’s nation brand. This was the outcome of a politician’s popularity who
was described by international media as “the world’s poorest president”
(José Mujica, 2010-2015), and of some laws which were passed during his
term of office (e.g. the legalization of recreational marihuana). According
to Kanarek (2015), this was mostly the work of quality news media such
as The Guardian and The Economist. The parodic take on nationalism per-
formed by TT could be understood as a defensive reaction to this threat to
the traditional Mentality of this nation; thus a strange semiotic virtual anti-
dote emerged to keep the time-honored limits of the imagined community,
and of its hegemonic ideology, in a non-traditional manner.
48 Fernando Andacht
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Kermode, Frank. 1967. The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of
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do. Tesis de Maestría en Comunicación, Universidad Católica del Uruguay,
Montevideo.
Labov, William & Waletzky, Joshua. 1967. Narrative Analysis: Oral ver-
sions of personal experience. In John Helm (ed.) Essays on verbal and visual
arts. 12-44. Seattle: University of Washington.
Mannheim, Karl. 1960/1936. Ideology and Utopia. London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul.
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making. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press
Nora, Pierre. 1989. Between memory and history: Les Lieux de Mémoire.
Representations 26: 7-24.
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Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss & Arthur Burks (eds.). Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
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50
Full references of the cited weekly episodes of Tiranos Temblad. Resu-

men de Acontecimientos Uruguayos (referred to as TT):
TT # 21 (05/12/2013 to 06/01/2013) https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=4_jFflmtDc8
watch?v=kPPS93dyF6Y
watch?v=riU7JzkQhAc
51
A SHIFT FROM “ME” TO “WE” IN SOCIAL MEDIA

Viktorija Lankauskaitė, Vilmantė Liubinienė,
Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
[email protected], [email protected]
Abstract
Currently media power is distributed via the multi-media World Wide
Web. Web 2.0 has transformed every prosumer into an individual, mini-or-
ganism – “Me the Media” (the concept coined by Bloem, van Doorn & Dui-
vestein 2009). Recently a trend has started to emerge, which indicates that
Web conversations are creating new power relationships. This is especially
vivid in the current multi-media coverage of political events, supported by
cross-cultural social activism. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyse the
emerging new trends in current social media that embody the shift from
“Me” to “We” in power relationships. The idea that everyone is inter-linked
and inter-active on the Web, involving not only common citizens and pol-
iticians, but also companies or brands, supports the finding that “We the
Media” is the next development in social media, which needs to be taken
seriously and investigated on a wider scale.
52 Viktorija Lankauskaitė, Vilmantė Liubinienė
Keywords: Web 3.0; crowdsourcing; participatory culture; collective

intelligence; digital culture; network society; media power; collective
action.
Introduction
Contemporary media theorist and psychologist Sherry Turkle in her
book “Alone Together: why we expect more from technology and less from
each other” (2011) considers the question of how technology redefines hu-
man communication. If new technology denies direct communication, we
come up against a problem – a huge amount of lonely, isolated people, cry-
ing for attention with the help of selfies. The book was published in 2011,
and since then we have witnessed the great advance in technology develop-
ment, together with the new modes of communication and new behaviour
models emerging. Is the problem of loneliness and isolation still relevant in
the contemporary networked society? Alongside the development of this
software, undermining modern communication, it is possible to hypoth-
esise that at least on social media a shift from the emphasis on “Me” (the
inner self-isolation) is occurring towards the emphasis on “We” – the com-
munity, which focuses its attention on participation and solving common
problems or initiation and implementation of joint ideas in action. To test
this hypothesis, our research aims at analysing the emerging new trends
in the current social media which embody the shift from “Me” to “We” in
several areas. In order to accomplish the aim, the following objectives have
been set: to analyse the changing context of contemporary digital culture;
to discuss the model of online self-identification, concentrating to the shift
from Ego to Hyper Ego; to provide interpretation for the shift from “Me”
to “We” based on the research of media content and emerging patterns in
communication.
In order to research new patterns in communication, we have employed
netnography as the research methodology. Netnography is a term coined
by Robert V. Kozinets (2002) to describe the use of online marketing re-
search techniques to gather information about the way individuals behave
and interact in the cybersphere. It has evolved from ethnography, a widely
used research methodology in the field of cultural studies, perceived as a
qualitative understanding of cultural activity in context. Nowadays eth-
nography, as outlined by Barker and Jane (2016: 39), becomes less an ex-
pedition in search of ‘the facts’ and more a conversation between partic-
ipants in a research process: “Ethnography now becomes about dialogue
and the attempt to reach pragmatic agreements about meaning between
A SHIFT FROM “ME” TO “WE” IN SOCIAL MEDIA 53
participants in a research process” (Barker and Jane 2016: 40). Nowadays,

in the context of media-oriented cultural studies, ethnographic techniques
are increasingly being used to investigate the ways communities and cul-
tures work online and on social media platforms. Thus netnography, or
ethnography on the Internet, is a new qualitative research methodology
that adapts ethnographic research techniques to the study of cultures and
communities emerging through computer-mediated communications. As
outlined by Kozinets, (2002) “netnography uses the information publicly
available in online forums to identify and understand the needs and de-
cision influences of relevant online consumer groups. Compared to tradi-
tional and market-oriented ethnography, netnography provides research-
ers with a window into naturally occurring behaviours, such as searches
for information by, and communal word-of-mouth discussions between,
consumers” (Kozinets 2002).
The structure of this paper develops along the following lines: analysis
of the contemporary digital culture, including an overview of the prosum-
er society, participatory culture, crowdsourcing, collective intelligence, etc.
and the discussion of emerging new trends in social media, which embody
the shift from “Me” to “We”, finalised by conclusions.
1. Analysis of factors, initiating the changes in contemporary digital

culture
Contemporary digital culture acquires a variety of new features; to
name a few, it could be referred to as “Digital Culture”, “Visual Culture”,
“Participatory Culture”, etc. All these concepts have evolved as a result of
developing contemporary media technologies which permeate our every-
day life and cultural environments.
New media, without having a long history behind it, is always in the
process of development. The fact that more and more people use social
media makes the subject relevant and important to research. Much of cur-
rent research focuses on the direct impact of social networks, both to in-
dividual, and communities, as well as to the development of social media
itself. However, the impact observed is more psychologically, socially, and
behaviourally based.
As electronic communication emerged, its impact on the society be-
came evident when people appeared to be more and more involved in the
networking. The term “Network Society”, first used by Jan van Dijk (De
Netwerkmaatschappij (1991) (The Network Society)), later by Manuel
Castells (The Rise of the Network Society (1996)), can still reflect the sit-
uation of the society today, even if the means of communication and the
devices are more advanced. Castells claims that the devices, and currently
developed new social networks, in this case social media, influence the be-
haviour in the everyday society because of information management. “...
The definition, if you wish, in concrete terms of a network society is a so-
ciety where the key social structures and activities are organized around
electronically processed information networks. So, it’s not just about net-
works or social networks, <...> It’s about social networks which process and
manage information and are using micro-electronic based technologies”
Castells (2010). This assumption reflects what is exactly happening today.
People might unconsciously behave according to the information they re-
ceive on the web. The information is filtered out by certain parameters,
according to previously made choices, as searches, clicks, or “like” buttons
are hit. Then, the web offers one or the other option according to the past
activity and influences the following behaviour both online and in reality,
when it comes to advertising, event promotion, and social involvement. We
tend to use and attend the things we are used to seeing.
Along those lines, it is also worth mentioning Lev Manovich (2013), and
his book “Software Takes Command”. Software within social media, its de-
velopments and improvements allows for the surveillance of a user’s every
online step, and for the influence of the future behaviour there. The impact
of software being a part of our daily lives lies not only in the improvements
of user interface, or general layout of the web environment, but also on how
advanced the web itself is. The algorithms used for content delivery and
promotion, or determining patterns of interest through searches, most vis-
ited sites, or general activity on the web are not a novelty these days. They
allow to create networks of people, groups, masses with the same interests,
goals, or working for the same cause, from all over the world.
Discussion about the internet, especially Web 2.0, is impossible with-
out mentioning the participatory culture. Henry Jenkins, the Professor of
communication, journalism, and cinematic arts at the University of South-
ern California has made the greatest impact in defining and promoting
the concept of participatory culture. By “participatory culture” he means
a form of culture in which the media users act not only as consumers, but
also as producers. He calls them prosumers. The term is most often applied
to the production or creation of some type of published media. Recent
technological advances have enabled private persons to create and publish
such media, usually through the Internet. This new culture as it relates to
the Internet has been described as Web 2.0. Further on, Jenkins elaborates
on convergence culture – the combination of new media and old media
within a single piece of media work – the coming together of different me-
dia products/technology (Jenkins 2006).
Another important concept, coined by Jenkins, which is very much im-
portant in understanding the digital culture is collective intelligence. Col-
lective or group intelligence, as defined by Jenkins (2006), emerges from
the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals
and appears in consensus for decision making.
“None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; we can
put the pieces together if we pool our resources …. Collective intelligence
can be seen as an alternative source of media power” Jenkins (2006).
Jenkins’ conception of media convergence, and in particular conver-
gence culture, has inspired much scholarly debate. Jenkins argues that
convergence represents a fundamental change in the relationship between
producers and consumers of media content.
Fuchs (2017), writing about the three forms of the web’s sociality (cog-
nition, communication, and cooperation), speaks about the change of in-
teraction on the web from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 to Web 3.0. According to
him, all three forms are intertwined and depend on each other, but he also
admits that a change is present. “The three forms of Sociality (cognition,
communication, cooperation), are encapsulated into each other. Each layer
forms foundation for the next one, which has new qualities” Fuchs (2017).
These “new qualities” are what we have now on the web and in society,
different kind of communication, cooperation, the need and willingness to
participate and contribute to the pool of intelligence and resource. Cogni-
tion alone is not enough, but it is not absent either.
John Moravec (2008) believes that a new paradigm for 21st century ed-
ucation will change the way teaching is perceived. If in the environment
of Web 1.0 the teaching was solely concentrated on communicating the
knowledge in one direction – teacher to student, in Web 2.0 it develops both
ways – teacher to student and student to student, and finally in Web 3.0 the
interaction involves not only teacher to student and student to student, but
student to teacher. This brings to the conception of crowdsourcing as “a
practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contri-
butions from a large group of people and especially from the online com-
munity rather than from traditional employees or suppliers” (Crowdsourc-
ing in Merriam Webster dictionary, 2011). Thus, crowdsourcing aligns
with the idea of the need for a bigger online community to achieve certain
goals, therefore one cannot be alone anymore once one is connected on-
line. Nowadays, the simplest example could be Q&A platforms, where one
person asks a question, and the community on the web tries to answer it as
best they can, based on their experience and knowledge. That way, the one
who asked the question gets more information from different sources and
has many more chances of getting the proper answer.
Among other scientists, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cuk-
ier in their book “Big data – the essential guide to work, life and learning
in the age of insight” (2017) refer to Big data as to “things one can do at a
large scale that cannot be done at a smaller one, to extract new insights or
create new forms of value, in ways that change markets, organizations, the
relationship between citizens and governments, and more” (Mayer-Schön-
berger & Cukier 2017: 6). In a way they also predict the change in the rela-
tionship between citizens as the collectivity, contributions which may bring
about major transformations. Further on, they concentrate on description
of the three major shifts of mindset: “the first, is the ability to analyze vast
amounts of data about a topic rather than be forced to settle for smaller
sets. Using all the data at hand instead of just a small portion of it. From
some to all. N=all. The second is a willingness to embrace data’s real-world
messiness rather than privilege exactitude. The third is a growing respect
for correlations rather than a continuing quest for elusive causality” (May-
er-Schönberger & Cukier 2017: 19).
All the theories and studies briefly discussed in this section clearly il-
lustrate the shift from “Me”, the user of the web, the consumer of the infor-
mation, to “We” – prosumers who are collaborating, creating, and sharing
the content. This trend is particularly in line with Jenkins’ ideas, and is
supported by other authors as well.
Analysing this trend, it is also important to concentrate on the issue
of virtual prosumers’ identities. It could be observed that some studies
aim to research “Me-Media” dynamics (Bloem, van Doorn & Duivestein
2009), while others discuss the conditions of multiple identities enacted
in Multi User Dimensions (Turkle, 1995). For Turkle, the multiplicity and
heterogeneity of online identities is rooted in the new social experience
of postmodern culture. Barker and Jane (2016: 265) note that “the decen-
tred or postmodern self involves the subject in shifting, fragmented and
multiple identities. Persons are composed not of one but of several, some-
times contradictory, identities”. In this “Me-Media” dynamic, composites
of digital alter egos are rapidly becoming an accepted form of personal and
brand identity. They increasingly form the basis for the social and econom-
ic activity in which individuals, organizations, and government engage. As
Bloem, van Doorn & Duivestein 2009 note, “the third media revolution
emancipates physical identities to the “Hyperego” level: the digital Me’s all
are hyperlinked and super active on the Web, involving citizens, brands,
companies and politicians“ (Bloem, van Doorn & Duivestein 2009:14).
As the aim of this study is to test the hypothesis that a shift from the
emphasis on “Me” to the emphasis on “We” (the community) is visible in
social media, the second part will deal with the analysis of different cases,
selected according to the methodology of netnography and illustrating the
emerging trend in the current social media.
2. Analysis of the emerging new trends in social media, which

embody the shift from “Me” to “We”
Following the principles of netnography, several cases will be analysed
and discussed in detail, illustrating the trendy shift from the individual to
the collective action in social media.
The interface of social media networks itself allows for assumptions that
it was designed for crowds to use, for masses to engage in one or other ac-
tivity online. First of all, the existence of the Newsfeed could be discussed,
as it is now one of the most significant features of social media. Introduced
on Facebook in 2009, it soon reached other social media platforms such as
Twitter, Instagram, and others. This feature allows seeing changes made by
people in the friends list on Facebook, whether it would be a life event or an
ordinary update. Previously seen as a breach of privacy, now it is adopted
by many users and rarely questioned.
Furthermore, developments or User Experience features like “like”, “fol-
low”, “share”, “subscribe” or buttons of similar origin, presumably encour-
age participation and connection with others that hold similar interests.
By clicking one or the other button, social media users assign themselves
to one or the other group, a so-called segment of interests that might be
later used for advertising, research, or general reach purposes, sometimes
unknown to the users.
Another development that is widely used, appearing less as an automat-
ic process and more as something actively adopted by the user, is the use
of hashtags, tagging, and commenting. The users themselves choose which
hashtag to use or whether to use it at all. Tagging might be more intrusive
because one user can be tagged on photos or posts by other users, but the
one tagged now has an option to remove the tag without any repercussions.
The other possibility, commenting, permits users to engage each other in
public discussions, confirming their interest in a particular topic, or the
need of the discussed matter to be at the top of the Newsfeed.
All these features are directly connected to the Newsfeed, because the
more attention a post gains, the more likely it is to stay at the top of the
page for the longer time. Every like, share, comment, or follow expresses
the approval of the crowd on the web, the social media users. This is where
the collectiveness becomes evident; one or two likes is nothing compared
to two or three thousand.
The following cases can show the power of those developments, and
how groups of people across the web create trends that help them to stay
visible and followed, and how “Me” on social media shifts to “We”.
2.1. Illustration of the power of crowdsourcing (Case 1).

Laisvės TV (EN – Freedom TV) an alternative internet TV channel
started in Lithuania, joined Facebook on 28 Aug 2016. First TV show was
streamed on 11 September 2016 on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/
channel/UCMfPBtm9CWGswAXohT5MFyQ/about). The channel had
157 videos (by 29 August, 2017). By the time of 29 August, 2017 it held the
number of 47,316 subscribers, and the most popular video had 9,237,401
views. The show is so popular, some of the episodes have been made in
Russian as well.
It is an internet television channel based only on open code. The shows
are streamed on YouTube, but despite the premise it is still professional
and of high quality. Television production professionals and experienced
specialists also contribute to the production of several different TV Shows,
broadcasted on the same channel. Apart from being non-profit television
production, it aims at the viewers as the ones who know what they want
to see most. Again, each “like” (22,819 people like and 23,352 people fol-
low the page as of 30-08-2017, (https://www.facebook.com/laisvestv/) on
Facebook page, or Subscribe click, acts as an approval of the content. The
viewers are not only invited to watch the content, they are also able to con-
tribute both financially and creatively. Financial contributions are made on
Patreon, a sponsoring platform where individuals can donate money and
directly support the project. Currently Laisvės TV has 4,423 patrons, and
gains $15,389 per month Patreon.com (http://www.patreon.com/laisvestv
30-08-2017). This is one of the best examples of crowdsourcing, the TV
channel is the only one in the world supported exclusively by its viewers.
Laisvės TV also stresses the importance of not allowing the big corpora-
tions to support them, because they want to preserve complete objectivity,
and no influence on the content. The example of this channel, now a plat-
form of addressing various issues of the wider community shows that the
community itself can be responsible for the content it receives and, more-
over, that the contributions of each single member, through crowdsourcing
practices, can create something powerful and worthwhile, convincingly in-
dicating that Social Media is a place for crowds and collectivity to flourish.
2.2. Practical implementation of participatory culture (Case 2)

“Putvinskio gatvės diena” (EN – Putvinskis street day) http://www.
vdu.lt/lt/ivykiai/renginys-putvinskio-gatves-diena/ announced on 27 May
2017 is an event dedicated to one particular street in the city of Kaunas,
Lithuania. The citizens of Kaunas were invited through social media to join
and spend some time with their neighbours enjoying conversations, social,
educational activities as well as to explore what that street has to offer. The
interesting thing is how social media and activity on the web urged the
people to get out of their houses and join the live conversations with the
people they live close by. This illustrates how, though social media users
may be “alone together” Turkle (2011), participation on the web brings
some part of that collectiveness into the real world as well.
Another illustration triggering participation is related to the joint com-
position of the Lithuanian coat of arms used as a decoration on the car of
a well-known racing car driver Benediktas Vanagas who participated in
the Dakar rally in 2017. He has used his social media profile and invited
his fans to participate together, at least virtually, by creating a big collage
of photos that would make up a Lithuanian coat of arms – Vytis. People
were able to click a link on his Facebook page, which would take them to
a webpage allowing to upload a photo. The photo then appeared among
thousands of other photos, together creating a silhouette of a horse and a
knight riding it. A car sticker was made which later decorated the car and
was kept through the Dakar ride of Benediktas Vanagas.
This shows the Social Media Network to be an outlet that not only allows
informing people of the option to participate (the driver still shared photos
and videos from the site, kept the fans up to date), but also to take a part in
symbolic car-race as the member of community signifying the belonging
to the state that the driver represents. Through Social Media people were
able to virtually join the race, and become “Them” on the web, instead of
only “Him” alone – the driver.
2.3. Collective intelligence in action (Case 3)

The power of internet seems to be more and more important to the
various creators of media content, especially artists, when they search
for inspiration or for something to build their work upon. A tool, called
Hit-Record, was established by a well-known actor, Joseph Gordon Levitt,
to bring artists together for collaboration. A creator (a writer, actor, painter,
filmmaker, singer, etc.) can upload his or her product on the web for other
artists to use for their creations. All of the work that is submitted becomes
open source and anyone that belongs to the platform can dispose it. For
example, if there is a writer who submits a poem, a singer can take it, and
record a song with the lyrics of the poem. Then later, a filmmaker can take
the recording and use it as a soundtrack for the film. Any kind of similar
collaborations and exchanging artwork is possible and encouraged. The
platform is a great example of reaping the benefits of collective intelligence
to create the best work possible, because it might be so, that one creation is
much better in a different form and seen through somebody else’s eyes, and
HitRecord permits exactly that.
Conclusions
1. Emerging new trends in social media are related to the shift in a
semantic paradigm, which consists of a transfer of the emphasis from “I”
– individual achievement, goal attainment, individualism, to “WE” – Web
3.0, crowdsourcing, participatory culture, collective intelligence, etc
2. Rapid and overwhelming technological development paves the way
for the current changes – the shift from individualism to collective actions
on the web.
3. A observed shift from communication to cooperation which enables
joint actions to be translated into real mass activism.
References
Barker, Chris & Jane, Emma A. 2016. Cultural studies theory and practice.
London: Sage Publications Ltd.
Bloem, Jaap; van Doorn, Menno; Duivestein, Sander. 2009. Me the
Media: Rise of the Conversation Society. Kleine Uil, Uitgeverij.
Castells, Manuel. 2010. The Rise of The Network Society: The Information
Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Wiley.
Crowdsourcing. 2011. In Merriam-Webster dictionary (last accessed
October 20, 2017, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
crowdsourcing).
Fuchs, Christian 2017. Social Media – A Critical Introduction. UK: Sage.
Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media
Collide. New York and London: New York University Press.
Kozinets, Robert V. 2002 The Field Behind the Screen: Using Netnogra-
phy For Marketing Research in Online Communities. Journal of Marketing
Research Vol. XXXIX (February 2002), 61-72
Manovich, Lev. 2013. Software Takes Command. New York: Bloomsbury.
Mayer-Schönberger,Viktor; Cukier, Kenneth. 2017. Big data: The
essential guide to Work, Life and Learning in the Age of Insight. London:
John Murray Publishers.
Moravec, John. 2008. Toward Society 3.0: A New Paradigm for 21st
century education. (last accessed October 20, 2017 from https://www.
slideshare.net/moravec/toward-society-30-a-new-paradigm-for-21st-
century-education-presentation).
Turkle, Sherry 1995. Life on the screen. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Turkle, Sherry 2011. Alone Together: Why we expect more from Technology
and less from Each other. UK: Hachette.
Van Dijk, Jan. 1991. De Netwerkmaatschappij (The Network Society).
Houten, The Netherlands: Bohn Staflen Van Loghum.
PART II Aesthetic and
Interactive Practices in
Digital Culture
65
POSTCARD FROM ISTANBUL: DIGITAL

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CITY AS MEMORY
IN TASOS BOULMETIS’S POLÍTIKI KOUZÍNA / A
TOUCH OF SPICE / BAHARATIN TADI
Giorgos Dimitriadis
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
[email protected]
Abstract
Reconstructing space with the use of computer generated imagery (CGI)
is commonly used in moviemaking to enhance the depicted pro-filmic re-
ality, creating virtual spaces in which layers of the narrative that are more
difficult to represent via realistic mise-en-scéne, such as emotional condi-
tions, can become visually explicit. In the 2003 film Polítiki Kouzína / A
Touch of Spice / Baharatin Tadi, the Istanbul-born Greek filmmaker Tasos
Boulmetis digitally combines heterogeneous elements to reconstruct a vir-
tual experience of his own sense and memory of Istanbul: the urban land-
scape in the film is a hybrid of on-location scenes of the modern city, CGI
and enhanced coloring, digitally fused into a mural of historical and per-
sonal memories. By deliberately conveying a strong emotional tone to the
audience, the film equates the notion of place with the experience one has
of it: as the memory of mid-Twentieth century Istanbul is digitally re-com-
66 Giorgos Dimitriadis
posed, the city dissolves under the pressure of its emotionally charged re-
flection, and the general concept of “location” is redefined through individ-
ual perception. Digital technology is used not simply to bring to life a past
urban setting, but becomes a tool for affect, thus revealing invisible layers
of the filmic narrative.
Keywords: film, special effects, narrative, visual space, cinema, digital
Introduction
After the sweeping effects of digital technology applications on cinema,
the visual construction of space (especially in relation to the connection
between characters and setting) has been a controversial subject. The tech-
nologies used to create locations, on the one hand, make more extensive
use of digital graphics both to impress and affect audiences with the life-like
quality of the virtual spaces, now easily recreated with computer generated
imagery (CGI); but on the other, when the distinction between shooting
on-location and pure CGI is blurred, various aesthetic, narrative and even
ontological issues arise. Tasos Boulmetis’s Polítiki Kouzína1 (2003) is an ex-
ample of such a movie, as it uses digital manipulation to establish the strong
bond between man and city. This bond is presented through the childhood
memories of the main character Fanis (Georges Corraface)2, deported as
a child with his family from Istanbul in the 1960s. Thirty years later he is
a successful scientist in Athens, burdened with nostalgia and regret. In a
game of flashbacks that continuously blend present and past, the viewers
share Fanis’s memories and perceptions, filtered through the heavily emo-
tional recollection of family feasts and enhanced senses. The city of Istan-
bul, both of Fanis’s present time and of the 1960s, is deliberately presented
like an old postcard: pastel colors and sepia tones, in addition to digital
compositing of live action through CGI, are employed to evoke a nostalgic
rendering of the city which relies heavily on the visual for meaning. Istan-
bul in Polítiki Kouzína transcends the literal and the geographical; in order
to be conveyed more as a carrier of memory and emotion than an actual
place, the city becomes dematerialized, a virtual metropolis reworked with
CGI so that both compositing and color manipulation transform its actual
spatiotemporal aspects for the sake of nostalgia and memory, at the inten-
1
The movie was also marketed outside Greece under the Turkish title Baharatin Tadi and
the international title A Touch of Spice.
2
The character of Fanis is played by Georges Corraface (adult), Odysseas Papaspiliopoulos
(18 years old) and Markos Osse (8 years old).
POSTCARD FROM ISTANBUL... 67
tional expense of a completely accurate historical or visual representation

of the real city. Stretching over a turbulent past and a promising future, this
kind of representation of the city becomes the perfect setting for narrating
lives in limbo; it represents all things stuck “in-between” the old and the
new or the past and the present, and eventually becomes the ideal setting
for both conflicts and their resolutions.
This mixture of elements lies at the core of the content as well as the
technical aspect of the movie. By following Fanis’s story the viewer is intro-
duced to an image of Istanbul that is inextricably bound with the lives of
its inhabitants. Fanis is portrayed as a man unable to get over or even cope
with the emotional void left inside him after his family is deported from the
country and resettles in Athens, trying to adapt to conditions vastly differ-
ent than those they were accustomed to in Istanbul. On the level of charac-
ter development, these traumatizing events lead the main character to de-
velop into a creative, emotional and multifaceted personality that matches
the essentially heterogeneous nature of his beloved city. In addition to this,
the concept of fusion is also reflected in the structure of the movie itself;
just like cooking, a major theme in the movie, politics and astrophysics are
interrelated in the story as the background to all of Fanis’s memories. Real
actors and settings are mixed with CGI as a commentary on the effects
of blending and pastiche, stressing the effect of meanings deriving from
thoughtfully assembled narrative elements and technical bric-a-brac.
This multi-leveled visual game of “cooking”, in the wider sense of mix-
ing things together, is also reflected in the wordplay implied in the Greek
movie title, Πολίτικη Κουζίνα. The movie poster features the first word
of the title in uppercase letters (ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΗ Κουζίνα), thus intentionally
concealing the stress between either the second or the last syllable, and
causing significant ambiguity in the way this word is read.3 This ambiguity
acquires a clear dual denotation within the context of the movie: on one
hand, Πολίτικη Κουζίνα means “Istanbul Cuisine”, a reference to the wealth
of Istanbul culinary tradition and appreciation of the elaborate food on
the family dinner table, which is an important social ritual forming the
axis around which the entire familial structure of the Greek community
of Istanbul revolves. When the stress is on the last syllable on the other
hand, Πολιτική Κουζίνα, it becomes a figurative translation and metaphor
for “political give-and-take”, a Greek turn of phrase and, in the context of
the storyline, refers to the political turmoil of the time during the deporta-
3
The poster retains this ambiguity although the movie was marketed using the first alter-
native for the title, i.e. Polítiki instead of Politikí.
tion of Fanis’s family. On the etymological level, the root of both Πολίτικη
and Πολιτική remains the word “πόλις”, the archetypal Platonic concept
combining city, state and community, denoting the link that connects all
aspects of human life with one’s communal environment. The city in this
sense becomes the stage or setting upon which modern man performs the
drama of his existence; as such, enhancing it visually with the use of CGI
can indeed accentuate the visual and emotional impact of that drama.
Coloring Memory
In Polítiki Kouzína, one of the main agents underlining this visual, exis-
tential continuity between man and urban landscape is the way in which the
color palette is manipulated in post-production. In order to communicate
Fanis’s nostalgia and emotional void, Boulmetis seems to have considered
the Greek audience’s collective memory, a significant part of which comes
from old refugee families as a result of several military conflicts Greece was
involved in especially during the 20th century. That collective memory has
infused Greek culture with the strong feeling of the abandoned homes. The
visual coherence of coloring in the movie, in combination with the emo-
tional associations of the specific colors selected, creates a strong aesthetic
impact, which is sanctioned within moviemaking with the goal of estab-
lishing or supporting the meanings moviemakers wish to communicate.4
The use of color to establish additional layers of meaning is both com-
mon in the practice of moviemaking as well as a recurring issue in cinema
theory. With regard to the frequency or willingness to use digital technol-
ogy in post-production for chromatic alterations, Richard Misek observes
that it is commonplace practice nowadays, ranging anywhere between a
subtle color grading to a complete re-working of the entire color palette,
and applied to almost everything available in the media (169). The obvi-
ous reason is that the features of color, such as tone, hue, intensity, etc. are
parameters associated with the handling of light, which has always been
an intrinsic feature of cinematographic expression. Brian Price comments
that moviemakers have long realized the importance of color in conveying
meaning: far beyond being an “incidental characteristic of film stock”, color
selection is a very careful process that is expected to affect the experience of
spectators by establishing “meaning, mood, sensation, or perceptual cues”
4
In contemporary cinema, John Belton discusses the “Digital Intermediate”, i.e. the stage
in postproduction that begins when the original film material starts undergoing digitiza-
tion and ends after the new, digitally processed files are transferred back to film (58) and
locates a significant portion of the creation of meaning in a movie by moviemakers in the
process that a movie goes through in that stage (59).
(2).5 William Johnson also acknowledges that specific use of color in visual
arts helps elicit emotional responses, due to the associations that the spec-
tators make between certain colors and specific emotional conditions (6);
in fact, he comments on the ways in which movie-wide chromatic patterns,
like e.g. a specific hue or palette, help the story acquire a visual consistency
and aesthetic unity (17), which is the case with Polítiki Kouzína as well. Fi-
nally, John Belton uses the examples of movies like Gary Ross’s Pleasantville
(1998) and Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City (2005) to describe
the way the application of a specific color scheme in a movie anchors each
color to a specific matrix of meanings that subtly blends with the overall
narrative (62–63). In this sense, color becomes a subtle, powerful meaning
carrier; regardless of whether the action takes place in a real or a CGI set,
color becomes a kind of second-order, virtual background that provides
additional layers of meaning that operate parallel to the literal ones and
are associated with the internal, emotional and non-verbalized state of the
characters.
Most of that non-verbal meaning in Polítiki Kouzína relies on selecting
color schemes traditionally associated with memory, longing, and the pain
of nostalgia. This had to be accomplished in a way that would not only
make sense in the fictional microcosm of Fanis’s family story, but would
enable spectators to forge associations with their own stories as well. Since
the associational meaning and significance of specific colors are cultural-
ly and ideologically-bound, thus expected to be different across various
traditions and geographical areas of the world, according to Philip Cow-
an (143), the use of color in Polítiki Kouzína should also be traced back
to the cultural and historical specifics of the region. The entire movie has
been digitally processed to obtain a faded pastel tone, making it resemble
the old hand-tinted postcards from Asia Minor, whose old-style aesthetics
and patina now carry the melancholia of “leaving home” that Boulmetis
wishes to make resonant throughout the narrative. This color manipulation
directly sets the emotional tone for an audience that actually retains such
mementos. The movie respectfully capitalizes on the fact that objects like
these carry their own history in Greek tradition, being vital components in
the micronarrative of origins and heritage that families cherish.
Digital post-production colorization cleverly extends this “old-post-
card” color effect, from the use of actual postcards as props in the story, to
5
Price notes that, despite this conscious and meticulous attention to color by moviemak-
ers, the field of film studies has actually paid little attention to the ways color is used in
movies (2).
the old-looking texture of the entire movie. This artificially created texture
ensures strong associations of memories with the present time, as if it is a
reminiscence of a distant past brought to life in the present time. When
Vassilis (Tassos Bandis), Fanis’s grandfather, teaches him and his friend
Saime (Gözde Akyildiz)6 geography with spice-scented postcards of Greek
landscapes, in a scene where the movie subtly reproduces even the yellow-
ish stain that time leaves on paper, everything is contextualized, from the
colors to the screened objects and the characters, in a unified representa-
tion of past-ness or remembrance blended with the intangibility of space.
In Vassilis’s lesson, a place can be experienced even without actually being
there; in the same way that Fanis and Saime experience distant places only
with vision and smell, spectators are seamlessly transferred into a heavily
emotional long shot of the two children near a lighthouse in the Bosporus,
which features the trademark CGI-enhanced scene of a bright red umbrella
being carried away by the wind over the sea. This example perfectly ex-
emplifies the capacity of digital colorization to reaffirm and transfer fun-
damental oppositions (such as those between past and present, or waking
and dreaming) to the visual plane that Misek asserts in his commentary
of the potentials of digital film coloring (177). Facilitating the interaction
between color and context – which are, for Beth Tauke, “reciprocal coor-
dinates” that “symbiotically fade in and out of each other” (28) – digital
coloring eventually bridges not only present and past for the characters,
but places the audience on this bridge as well.
Enhancing the impact of physical objects without possessing any tan-
gibility of its own, color is a powerful catalyst for meaning because, ac-
cording to Tauke, it connects to other sensory associations while actually
remaining inarticulate (27). Fanis comes to know the world through such
an overwhelming process of associations that it is permanently imprinted
in his unconscious; colors, smells and language, like his grandfather’s spice
mixes, are bound with the attic of the spice store, forever tangled with the
image of Istanbul he puts together in his imagination. This spiritual rath-
er than intellectual way of knowing the world around him establishes an
urban universe, within the fictional world of the narrative, that exists only
in his mind. In addition, it also demonstrates the spatial and temporal dis-
placement Istanbul undergoes in the movie for the sake of representation,
and that the audience comes to share both with the main character and
6
Gözde Akyildiz plays the 5-year-old character. The adult Saime is played later in the
movie by Basak Köklükaya.
with each other through the common experience of movie-watching and

the power of collective memory.
Although hardly a novelty in cinema as a whole, in the digital era col-
or reveals its true potential as an important sub-narrative tool. A striking
example in Polítiki Kouzína is the scene in which various CGI images and
scenes from the city are linearly composed and chromatically unified in
a simulated panning shot that represents an artificial panorama of scenes
from life in Istanbul of the late 1950s. The scene is successfully composed,
not only because it conveys a large amount of visual information in a very
compact yet coherent way, but also because it succeeds in representing
the way a succession of memories provides a seamless transition from the
present to the past. As grown-up Fanis in present-day Athens hears of his
grandfather’s sudden illness (his grandfather, who was not deported but re-
mained in Istanbul by his own choice), Fanis’s mind is flooded by a sudden
recollection of the city. He tries unconsciously, through an overwhelming
emergence of tangled memories, to recompose the image of Istanbul from
the bits and pieces he remembers from childhood. Vassilis embodies the
entire array of Istanbul memories that Fanis retains, as all his childhood ex-
periences of the city revolve around the image of his grandfather. As such,
Vassilis stands at the very center of the emotional link between Fanis and
Istanbul; when that link is broken with his death, the city is reaffirmed for
Fanis, and for the audience in the process, as nothing more than it already
was: a part of his memories, which is more important that the actual place.
The chromatic patterns used in the movie, particularly in the artificial
panning shots, stress this semantic displacement of the city as a site which
carries personal, individual signification. In that sense, the digitally com-
posed virtual panning shot does not aim to realistically show what Istanbul
was like fifty years ago, but to illustrate how the city is reconstructed as
memory inside Fanis’s mind through a series of mental associations. The
actual Istanbul dematerializes under the pressure of the enchanting mural
with which it is replaced on screen. Blending time and space, CGI aids this
deliberate dematerialization, serving a different representational intention
in moviemaking with regard to aspects of rendering history on screen; it is
an example of CGI not serving a probably futile pursuit of presumed his-
torical or spatiotemporal accuracy, but becoming a version of what Louise
Krasniewicz sees as the “visual demonstration of the boundary fluctuations
that humans and their worlds are experiencing” (qtd. in Burgoyne 228).
Mediating all historical experience through Fanis’s subjective experiences,
the movie finds its place in the branch of digital cinematic historicity that
favors a more personal, rather than objective, authenticity.
On similar grounds, Robert Burgoyne discusses this kind of CGI which

establishes a different kind of authenticity in its depiction of the past, one
that subordinates “fidelity to the record” to “meaningfulness, understood
in terms of emotional and affective truth”. This kind of historical cinemat-
ic consumption by spectators, Burgoyne continues, is established on the
effect of memory and, similar to the latter, is associated with the physical-
ity of the human body; thus it directly targets a more affective experience,
i.e. one that simulates a more personal contact with the past that is being
screened (223). This kind of experience has an impact that exceeds an ac-
curate but emotionally flat visual historical representation. Digital technol-
ogy in Polítiki Kouzína on one hand enables this multi-layered experience
of cinematic historicity by facilitating the association of multiple stimuli
with one another; and, in the same context of Burgoyne’s argument on oth-
er digitized historically-based narratives (224–225), it immerses the audi-
ence, through characters’ viewpoints, into an experience of history that,
though completely artificial, becomes an unlived collective memory with
an impact as realistic as any other memory. The CGI in Polítiki Kouzína
is deliberately and obviously oriented toward this more personal kind of
authenticity, one that uses the power of memory as emotional leverage in
the response it elicits from the audience. The digital manipulation of city
representation is therefore the result of luring spectators into emotional at-
tachment to the content, a moviemaking technique that, at least in the case
of this particular movie, is both intended and, in the context of Burgoyne’s
argument, representationally legitimate.
On Objections to Realism
Inevitably, digital intervention in sensitive areas like representation of
the past and authenticity of memory has been accused of rupturing the
ontological link between image and its referent, which is the cornerstone of
what Bazin understood as the naturally “ethical and moral dimension” that
derives from the photographic nature of film (Burgoyne 220–221). Kayley
Vernallis, for example, identifies the “referential function” of color in pho-
tographs as the source of their meaning, thereby claiming that the “faded
photograph lies”, because its original referential meaning has been compro-
mised (462) and its aesthetic value has been reduced (467). For Vernallis,
more than a simple alteration, fading inevitably entails a significant loss of
meaning as it undermines the expectations that we have from color photo-
graphs to “mirror the world” (463–464). Under this scope, it is normal for
Vernallis to view digital manipulation of images as a process which raises
by default concerns about loss of originality (473). If one follows Vernallis’s
line of thought, the use of digital technology in general, let alone to artifi-
cially produce a patina of fading that alters the original color, would indeed
cause a severe aesthetic and semantic degradation to the image that should
be met with skepticism. Nevertheless, in an argument such as this, in which
authenticity is placed precariously close to a sense of accuracy, the CGI
in movies like Polítiki Kouzína would easily be rendered as “inauthentic”;
this observation, however, suffers greatly from the frailty of the concept of
authenticity itself.
Arguments like Vernallis’s assume the common but recently contested
notion of the photographic (and thus also the cinematic) apparatus as a
mechanical aid to human vision, an idea similar to aspects of Kendal Wal-
ton’s concept of transparency, but should remain flexible and adaptable in
cases where digital graphics are used to enhance layers of authenticity that
supersede the strict tangibility of things, as is the case in Polítiki Kouzína.
If anything, the purposeful manipulation of color and spatiotemporal pa-
rameters not only crafted with a specific narrative line in mind, but aiming
at finding common ground between that narrative and a collective sense
of historical reality, should be seen as a realistic technique in its own right.
For example, Lev Manovich, commenting on William Mitchel’s argument
on the obvious technical crossover between painting and digital graphics,
illustrates that CGI manipulation repositions cinema somewhere between
painting and photography because of the practical similarities that exist
between computational and painting tools (304).7 Instead of this duality
being a problem linked to issues of ontology and a proprietarily photo-
graphic sense of veracity, movies like Polítiki Kouzína demonstrate the
ways in which CGI manipulation reflect experiential realities that stretch
even further: the unprecedented financial success of the movie proves that
the audience recognized a kind of reality that is infused with elements not
limited to the tangible or the haptic. The manipulation of color in Polítiki
Kouzína, instead of being a loss or a risk, elicits an emotive parameter that
is an integral and indispensable part of the specific kind of representation
intended in the movie, lying between the personal and the historical.
Color alteration should therefore not be charged with breaking the in-
dexical relation between the original and its image, because, as Johnson
rightly notes, colors in a movie are actually never identical to the original in
7
Misek also comments on the frequent metaphor between painting and digital coloriza-
tion, starting from cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel’s opinion and further extending
the comparison between the two (169–170). Misek provides a number of examples from
popular cinematic texts that relate to the various ways in which colorization has been used
in specific ways to blend with the narrative.
real life due to the technical specificities of the medium of cinema (7), and
this is true regardless of digital or analog manipulations. If this technical
truth is contextualized in the argument which equates color with authen-
ticity, this would essentially mean that all photographic color is already
unrealistic from the moment the image is created. Since the reconstruc-
tion of Istanbul in Polítiki Kouzína is not a photographically transparent
image of the city, in Walton’s use of the term, but a virtual representation
of memory, color is an essential carrier of information rather than degra-
dation. As Johnson puts it, color “sharpens the viewer’s perception of the
screen image” in the sense of bringing additional details to the foreground
(8). Additionally, it is the emotional response elicited by the fading of ac-
tual photographs of the past that actually prompts moviemakers to control
color in the first place, in order to elicit a similar emotional response from
their audience by enabling the underlying tone or mood of the narrative to
extend to the visual level. The CGI image of the chromatically-enhanced or
spatiotemporally recomposed city does not malevolently impose itself on
reality. CGI imitates the way reality is composed in the mind of the spec-
tator, as memory composed from bits and pieces of external stimuli; thus
the CGI image of Istanbul simply enables a visual rendering of the brico-
lage process through which the audience already mentally reconstructs its
understanding of urban space. The fact that this rendering on screen may
be one of infinite possible representations, thus jeopardizing objectivity, is
hardly a counter-argument, given the fact that there can be no claims for
objectivity or a single way in which memory can or should be visually ren-
dered. The aesthetic result is left at the creatively hit-and-miss discretion of
digital artists. In fact, the massive and generally uniform positive impact
that the movie had on the Greek audience could be an argument in favor
of its objectivity rather than against it; the movie claims its aspect of truth-
fulness exactly via the fact that its CGI techniques confirmed a experiential
truth for a significant amount of people.
Man and the City

The mystical spatial energy of Istanbul is enhanced beyond the geo-
graphical location itself, with the latter eventually succumbing to its own
reputation, existing in the sphere of culture as a concept somewhere in be-
tween Fanis’s story and the collective memory of both Greeks and Turks. A
powerful symbol of past empires, Istanbul becomes the locus for the clash
between past and present; the virtual city inside Fanis’s mind becomes a
battlefield of old promises and passions that rupture the city’s continuity,
claiming a payoff of guilt and his old debt to family bonds, the breaking of
which is partly his own responsibility. Through the strong connection Fanis
has with Istanbul, Polítiki Kouzína presents the city as something more than
the natural habitat of contemporary man in which he lives, loves, works
and dies. In his study on inhabited space, Arnold Berleant notes that the
distinguishing character of a place is affected by its physical or topographi-
cal identity, its physical coherence or architectural homogeneity, and, most
important to the present discussion, its interaction with the human factor,
or the people that inhabit it (43). In Berleant’s view, therefore, understand-
ing a place is inextricable from the experience one has of it. This cultural
dimension ties the physical traits of a place to the human element; the dis-
tinctive meaning of a place is acquired through “the interaction of human
sensibility with an appropriate physical location” (43), i.e. the meaning
or importance that human actions give to a place. On the same grounds,
Aušra Burns reads Berleant on the importance of the “experiential realm”
that comprises an understanding of the city as lived space. This importance
is revealed by the fact that the city can only be conceived as a continuation
of the individual; consequently a complete understanding of urban space
should incorporate the lived experience of it that one has (Burns 69).
In his own study of Polítiki Kouzína, Dimitris Eleftheriotis argues that
this experiential dimension of the city, as portrayed in the movie by Fanis’s
memories and behavior, accounts for the commercial success and popu-
larity of the movie. For Eleftheriotis, one of the main reasons the audience
responded positively to the movie was because spectators picked up on
the director’s intention to use Fanis as an agent of nation-wide “past and
present national anxieties, fantasies and aspirations”. According to Eleft-
heriotis, the movie gradually constructs the bond between man and urban
space by projecting a dual mobility, first a virtual one between the present
and past as Fanis recalls his memories, then an actual one, as he travels
to Istanbul (18-19). His arrival, just in time to bid farewell to his dying
grandfather, as well as to Saime and to any chance he ever had of reuniting
with her, is the culminating point of the movie using memories as building
blocks to reconstruct the image of the city. After Fanis buries Vassilis and
walks around the city trying to retrace whatever is left from his childhood,
the virtual and the actual mobility collide in an overwhelming sequence
that strongly emits loneliness and a sense of regret.
As the movie gradually progresses towards its foreshadowed melan-
cholic resolution, Boulmetis renders the emotional ties between Fanis and
Istanbul in the mixture of the bitterness of deportation, remembrance of
lost love, and the unbreakable bonds of kinship, all of which are gradual-
ly interwoven with the beloved memory of home-made food. Boulmetis
creates a cinematic “placelessness” that is established somewhere between

physical objects and personal experience. This place-in-between vividly il-
lustrates the tormented memories of Istanbul that Fanis struggles to cope
with throughout his life, the things and people left behind but who are
not actually there anymore, except in the image of the city that his mind
retains. This condition is a visual example of what Sarah Menin defines as
the state of being atopos: an essentially negative condition, “a characteristic
of an emotional, mental and physical nothingness that can accompany de-
pression or sense of Unheimlichkeit – home sickness or not feeling at home,
or a deep angst of unbearable emptiness”, and is a condition remedied only
by endeavoring to find a place again, even if the quest only remains spiri-
tual rather than physical (2). Menin describes atopia as the consequence of
encountering a place that is not there anymore, a re-affirmation of the fact
that a familiar and beloved place is a positive factor in a person’s healthy
life. (2) As Fanis is trapped in the internal void of loss and the consequent
experience of being atopos, the viewers follow him literally and virtually
oscillating between neighborhoods in Istanbul and his imagination. He is
not merely seeking to return to the place itself, which he easily accom-
plishes towards the end of the movie; from a wider perspective, he longs to
reunite with the irrevocably lost worldview of his childhood.
In the very end of the movie, Fanis makes his peace with the past, clos-
ing the circle of memories inside his grandfather’s run-down spice shop.
Fanis’s hope of return and reunion is frustrated, as he realizes that the Polis8
of his youth is no more; the way the city is illustrated in the movie makes
it clear that this happens because, for him, it had always been a mixture
of memories, smells and colors which he naively thought he could regain.
The actual city remains, but the representation of its emotional charge is
inevitably lost along with Fanis’s childhood years and, as he is coming to
terms with it, he uses his imagination to recreate the mixed smell of the
spices in order to help his memories resurface. Indeed, the final CGI scene
with the various spice seeds composing a microcosm of Fanis’s universe,
both metaphorically and literally, is both intense and visually eloquent; it
manages to escape shallow emotionalism by representing Fanis’s internal
world as a grown-up’s game with spice dust, denoting the completion of his
redemptive circle. As Istanbul floats quietly like an ark of history in the ev-
erlasting flow of Bosporus, Fanis makes peace with his regrets by listening
to the city that bred him, seeing it moving on without him, and eventually,
deciding to let go.
8
The abbreviation Polis is a common reference to Istanbul in Greek.
References
Belton, John. “Painting by the Numbers: The Digital Intermediate.” Film
Quarterly, vol. 61, no. 3, Mar. 2008, pp. 58–65.
Berleant, Arnold. “The Aesthetics in Place.” Constructing Place: Mind
and Matter, edited by Sarah Menin, Routledge, 2003, pp. 41–54.
Burgoyne, Robert. “Memory, History and Digital Imagery in Contem-
porary Film.” Memory and Popular Film, edited by Paul Grainge, Manches-
ter University Press, 2003, pp. 220–236.
Burns, Aušra. “Emotion and Urban Experience: Implications for De-
sign.” Design Issues, vol. 16, no. 3, Autumn 2000, pp. 67–79.
Cowan, Philip. “The Democracy of Colour.” Journal of Media Practice,
vol. 16, no. 2, 2015, pp. 139–154.
Eleftheriotis, Dimitris. “A Touch of Spice: Mobility and Popularity.”
Greek Cinema: Texts, Histories, Identities, edited by Lydia Papadimitriou
and Yannis Tzioumakis, Intellect, 2012, pp. 17–36.
Johnson, William. “Coming to Terms with Color.” Film Quarterly, vol.
20, no. 1, Autumn 1966, pp. 2–22.
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. MIT Press, 2001.
Menin, Sarah. “Introduction.” Constructing Place: Mind and Matter, ed-
ited by Sarah Menin, Routledge, 2003, pp. 1–37.
Misek, Richard. Chromatic Cinema: A History of Screen Color. Wi-
ley-Blackwell, 2010.
Price, Brian. “General Introduction.” Color: The Film Reader, edited by
Angela Dalle Vacche and Brian Price, Routledge, 2006, pp. 1–9.
Tauke, Beth. “Stain: Phenomenal and Literary Approaches to Color
Studies.” Design Issues, vol. 10, no. 1, Spring 1994, pp. 19–28.
Vernallis, Kayley. “The Loss of Meaning in Faded Color Photographs.”
Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, vol. 38, no. 3, Autumn–
Winter 1999, pp. 459–476.
Walton, Kendall L. “Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photograph-
ic Realism.” Marvelous Images: On Values and the Arts, Oxford University
Press, 2008, pp. 79–109.
79
“IT’S OVER 9000.” APEIRON NARRATIVE CON-

FIGURATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY MEDIASCAPE
Vincenzo Idone Cassone
University of Turin, Italy
[email protected]
Abstract
Recently, a peculiar narrative configuration has developed and is spread-
ing through the internet culture and new media. Characterised by a specif-
ic representation of the individual growth process, Apeiron narratives find
their origin in pen & paper role-playing games, but it is only after the de-
velopment of digital games and the diffusion of the Japanese cultural codex
through the contemporary mediascape that they have become a coherent,
autonomous and viral phenomenon.
In the following pages, this narrative configuration will be described
through a series of paradigmatic examples; its roots will be traced back
to the peculiar traits of role-playing games, and the importance of recent
digital adaptation will be highlighted. Finally, I will describe its diffusion
beyond the domain of fictional text, hinting at possible environments for
its diffusion.
80 Vincenzo Idone Cassone
Keywords: videogame, narrative, fiction, semiotics, aspectuality
1. Description
1.1. Introduction: memes and power level
“It’s over 9000” is one of the first and most famous memes still used on
the internet: it is generally used in messages as a reply to incredible values
or numbers, often ironically or to imply an excess in forecasts or predic-
tions. In recent years, its success served as a starting point for practices of
meme remix-remake, which could be called a meta-meme.
Figure 1: the original image of the “it’s over 9000” meme
It is possible that this success is not by chance: the scene from which the
meme is inspired can be considered one of the clearest representations of
a recent narrative configuration, which has been spreading across different
media platforms in the last years.
The meme itself is derived from a sequence of the American version of
the anime (Japanese cartoon) Dragon Ball Z, created by Akira Toriyama
and a sequel of the famous Dragon Ball series.
In order to define the paradigmatic elements of the meme, a brief re-
sume of the plot of the DBZ series is necessary: the cartoon starts with the
arrival on planet earth of the vicious race of the Sayans. They are equipped
with a combat scanner (called scouter), which is able to precisely measure
the combat potential of living beings, and assess it on a numerical scale.
The aim of the Sayan Raditz is to convince his brother Goku (the main
character of Dragon Ball) to join them, and conquer Earth. Since Goku
refuses, the two fighters start to battle. Raditz knows he will win, since his
combat power is 1500, while the two strongest fighters on earth, Goku and
his friend Junior (who joined the battle) only have a power level of 416 and
408. By acting recklessly, however, he is killed through a stratagem by the
“IT’S OVER 9000.” APEIRON... 81
two earthlings. Despite this he is able to send a dying message to his much
stronger comrades Nappa and Vegeta, who head for planet earth. Since the
two aliens arrive one year later, the main characters have enough time to
train and be ready to face them.
One year later, in the scene from which the meme is taken from, Goku
joins the battle at a later stage, while his friends are being defeated by Nap-
pa. Before stepping up, Goku gives a demonstration of his combat pow-
er, to show his enemies how strong he has become. Nappa, whose scouter
got destroyed during the previous battle, asks Vegeta for the result. Vege-
ta, stupefied and overcome by anger, shouts “Unbelievable... It’s over nine
thousand”, destroying the scouter out of rage. Nappa (whose power level
is 4000)1 does not trust the result, charging relentlessly: as a result, he is
defeated with one blow.
1.2 Representing power and growth

Three main characteristics of DBZ’s representation of power let us out-
line the peculiarity of its narrative configuration:
1) The measure of Competence: through the semionarrative framework
developed by Greimas (1983), the measure of the scouter can be defined
as a sanction of a specific performance. However, it is important to note
that the scouter does not measure the actual fight (that is, the main perfor-
mance), but only a virtualisation of performance of the subject, or it should
be said, their competence. In the scene previously described, the Addressee
Nappa refuses to acknowledge the Sanction, and as a result he is defeated
when Goku’s Virtual Competence translates into a Performance (an actual
fight). The Sanction of the scouter, however, is conveyed through a nu-
merical value on a specific scale, rather than vague guessing or judgment
from the warriors themselves. This numerical scale translates every possi-
ble ability of the fighters (strength, speed, stamina, technique etc.) into a
mono-dimensional axis.
2) Competence/Performance discrepancy: by extending the considera-
tion to the previous episodes of Dragon Ball, a second trait is visible. While
the main character’s power level is 20 times higher than his previous fight
(from 416 to 9000), this growth is not mirrored by a change in the rep-
resentation of fights: fighters’ movements, punch feedback, and spiritual
energy are substantially comparable if not identical in the two battles, both
in the anime and in the manga.
1
For a list of power levels with sources, http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_pow-
er_levels (last visit 27/09/17)
DBZ “grammar of fights” was mainly created at the beginning of the se-
ries, and aside from specific events (such as the fighters’ transformations),
remains constant within the series. To simplify, there is no way for the
reader to discern the actual power level of the fighters involved in a battle
without knowing beforehand. After all, the author of DB, Akira Toriyama,
explicitly said the scouter was designed as a simple plot device to make the
readers aware of the relative strength of the fighters, without having to rely
on different visual cues and exhibition of strength for every battle.
3) Exponential growth: right after destroying the scouter, Vegeta asks
himself how it is possible for the weak Goku to develop so much in only
one year. His doubts do not regard his enemy’s current fighting competence
(he is still stronger than him), but Goku’s competence in growing. The in-
credible development in power of the main characters becomes increas-
ingly clear as the story proceeds in the following narrative arcs: Goku beats
Vegeta (power level 18.000) with a quadruple kaiohken (his special attack,
which multiplies his power per 4). In the next arc, Goku’s power is 90.000,
and grows further during the episodes. In the subsequent one, during the
fight against Freezer, his power raises from 3 million to 150 million thanks
to his transformation into Super Sayan, surpassing his enemy’s 120 million.
By describing the process of growth in DBZ through its aspectuality
traits (Fontanille 1991), it can be defined as durative (the process of growth
is continuous), iterative (constituted by multiple cycles of growth) and pro-
gressive (the process is oriented through hierarchically growing Sanctions,
following units of measurements on a growing scale).
To summarise the previous observations, the process of growth is char-
acterised by three main elements: 1) the subject’s Competence, which is
directly represented and sanctioned through a numerical value and scale,
linked to the value of a virtual Performance. 2) The growth process, as rep-
resented through the different numerical Sanctions, is characterised by the
following aspectuality traits: durativity, iterativity and progressivity. Using
a visual metaphor, this could be represented by an exponential equation,
developing through a higher order of magnitudes as the story develops. 3)
This growth in competence is not balanced by a comparable change in the
representation of the actual performance related to the competence (the
battles), which seem to follow a static visual and narrative style.
1.3. Apeiron configuration in comics

The elements described above are not limited to the Dragon Ball series,
but are a key part of multiple contemporary narratives, starting with Jap-
anese and Korean comics (manga and manwa): by expanding the analysis
to the presence of these elements in shounen and seinen, it is possible to

define the constitutive parts of a common narrative configuration, which
will be referred to as Apeiron from now on. In addition, well-known com-
ics, such as Tokyo Ghoul, Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Claymore, Tower of
God, Re:Monster, The Gamer, and many others can be used as examples to
describe variations and expansion in the configuration described below:
1) The unit of measure for Competence (and thus of the process of
growth) can be represented directly or indirectly. For instance, in One
Piece, the pirate threat is measured through the bounty assigned to them;
in Tower of God, characters’ ability is measured through the number of
floors of the Tower they have climbed; in Claymore, each soldier is ranked
through its number on a general leaderboard for all the soldiers of his/her
generation.
2) The measure of Competence can also be represented through hier-
archies, ranks and titles: in Tokyo Ghoul, the anti-ghoul police ranks its
enemies in classes ranging from C- to SSS (and maybe more); the investi-
gators are divided into 4 levels (second class, first class, special class 1, spe-
cial class 2) predominantly according to their combat prowess. In Bleach,
shinigamis’ Competence is based on their rank number in the respective
corps (1° captain, 2° vice-captain, 3° lieutenant, etc.). While the unit of
measurement seems to not be as precise as a numerical value, the growth
in competence correlates with the same exponential rhythm through titles
and hierarchies: the main character in Bleach defeats a vice-captain, then
a captain, then the strongest captain among the army corps in only three
days, despite his enemies’ decades of training to reach those positions.
3) These leaderboards, numerical values or ranks/hierarchies can
be combined together to create complex representations of the levels of
strength, in order to avoid the confrontations to be too predictable. Fur-
thermore, plot devices can be devised to make the circumstances more nu-
anced (multiple characters teaming up, unknown special powers revealed
etc.), acting as specific “calculations.” As a result, the readers start to per-
ceive the inherent logic behind the values and measurements, integrate it
into the narrative development of the story, and use it to “compute” the
possible narrative outcomes for the story.
4) Among the specific narrative plot devices used for “calculation”, a key
role is played by limit-break processes: transformations (Super Sayan in
DB), alternative forms (Kakuya in TG), all-out special attacks (Bankai in
Bleach). Almost all the comics listed above feature one or more limit-break
processes, in which previous numerical values or ranks are suddenly
crossed and overcome, acting as a quantum leap in Competence. These
plot devices are generally used in the most climatic battles, in which the
difference in competence among the enemies is too high, or too low, acting
as a trump card to produce (and justify) specific narrative developments.
1.4. The original traits in role-playing games

The Apeiron configuration, while common in eastern comics and car-
toons, is not limited to Japanese/Korean cultures, nor can it be fully said
to originate in the traditional domains of the narrative. On the contrary,
it is the result of a complex process of intermedial translations, in which
abstract narrative structures spread, change and diffuse through multiple
media and cultures.
However, this should not be seen as the result of an actual genealogy or
direct imitation (which could be proven with difficulty) so much as the re-
sult of the spread of specific abstract narrative structures through the con-
temporary mediascape (Appadurai 1996), a process further encouraged by
the social development of the digitalisation, and by the key paradigmatic
role achieved by games as a medium in the 21st century (see Idone Cassone
2017).
For this specific configuration, it is possible to highlight the role of
traditional and digital games in its origin and development, specifically
role-playing games, the game genre most based on the development of
player Competence.
1) As a general pattern in role-playing games, both traditional (Dun-
geons & Dragons, Vampire) and digital (such as the Japanese Final Fanta-
sy or Dragon Quest series, the Western Dragon Age, Divinity: Original Sin
and Fallout), the characters played by the user are defined by a character
level and other statistics, directly dependent on the level achieved. As per
the units of measure described in the previous paragraphs, levels acts as a
Sanction of the character’s Competence, and only indirectly of its perfor-
mance. Each time players fight, characters gain experience and increase
their level, gaining new powers and increasing their stats, which in turn
increase the damage they do, their health points, their magic points, etc.
2) While new visual effects are sometimes employed to represent char-
acters’ strongest special power, the main difference in the performance is
limited to the display of attacks’ damage output, or of the health points and
the magic points available. A specific attack will always trigger the same
animation, regardless of whether the character’s level is 1 or 100; it is only
through the damage counter that it is possible to perceive the difference in
Performance.
3) The individual progress is once again tied to narrative development,

and shaped through an exponential-like curve: as players progress through
the story, the quests and fights cause their characters to gain levels, while
new and stronger enemies appear in the next narrative arcs, including the
so-called Boss, the strongest and last enemy of a narrative arc, whose pow-
er and level is generally superior to that of the main characters. While the
level range vary according to each game (from 1 to 100 in FF, from 1 to 20
in D&D…), the difference in the other stats usually highlights the quantum
leap from early to peak levels.
However, the roots of this system of exponential growth can be traced
back to analogical games, such as the forefather of pen and paper RPGs:
Dungeons and Dragons.
Figure 2: a chart describing the increase in power of warriors and magical

classes in D&D
The mechanical issue later labelled as “linear warrior, quadratic wizard”

has been visible since the earliest versions of D&D. It refers to a difference
in progression between the fighter classes and the magic ones: while the
former gained points of damage in a linear manner (rolling 1 dice, and
adding X), the latter gained damage points of damage by multiplying the
dice roll (rolling X dice); in addition, magic classes gained further spells,
and new dice for each one of the previous spells known, while fighters pro-
gressed in only a limited number of attacks.
As a result, the perceived exponential growth in traditional RPGs is not

due to a single quantum leap in a comprehensive unit of measurement, but
to the sum and accumulation of multiple powers at a rhythm far greater
than the standard one; in a similar way to what Vegeta witnessed in the “it’s
over 9000!” scene, described above.
Therefore, the general paradigm of role-playing games embodies the
three main traits defined in the previous paragraph: measure of Compe-
tence, Competence/Performance discrepancy, and Exponential growth.
4) However, they also feature various examples of the limit-break process
described for the Apeiron narratives, paradigmatically implemented in
the Final Fantasy series. In Final Fantasy, power limits do not exist within
narrative arcs; instead limits are imposed on the maximum level (99) and
maximum damage (9999) obtainable in the game. However, it is possible
for players to surpass this limit through special powers called Break Limit
(or sometimes special moves called Limit Break), that enable characters
to surpass the limit and inflict a maximum of 99.999 points of damage
(provided the character is skilled enough to reach it). The same limit and
limit break is often applied to Health points, Mana points etc. In the Italian
adaptation, these abilities have been called “Apeiron”, from Anassimandro’s
concept of the infinite, boundless and endless, from which this narrative
configuration takes its name.
A less explicit limit-break process is featured in the progression sys-
tems of MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online roleplaying games), like
World of Warcraft. The main difference in WRPG is that the limit break
does not result from special attacks or a single power, but consists of the
possibility to surpass multiple limits dictated by the game (limit caps). In
WOW, players have a maximum level cap of 100: when they reach it, ’it is
the equipment that starts “levelling up.” Divided into different tiers, virtu-
ally infinite (from T1 until the actual T21), the main five pieces of equip-
ment represent a new “leap”, and set a new power boundary tied with fre-
quent updates of the game. With respect to the model of the fairy tales, in
which objects grant specific Competence on a simple dichotomy, here all
the objects have the same function, but the competence is made discreet by
the difference in numbers in protections, damage, weight etc.
The Apeiron narrative configuration, formerly described only through
contemporary manga and anime, seems to be deeply rooted in the tradi-
tions of roleplaying games, and also manifests in their new digital manifes-
tations, both in Japanese and in Western video games. After describing its
main four traits and game-related origin, it is now necessary to highlight
the semiotic outcomes of this configuration, how it interacts with “tradi-

tional narrations”, and how it is spreading in the contemporary mediascape.
2. Analysis
2.1. Micro-level aspectuality
As a result of this interaction between value measurements, hierarchies
of power, narrative arcs, limits and limit break, Apeiron narratives create
a complex effect of aspectualisation (Fontanille 1991) out of the aspectu-
ality of the process of growth. The structure and the development of the
individual narratives deeply interact with the grammar of Competence and
the progress of growth of the characters, both in games and in traditional
narratives.
The process is the result of two interacting levels of aspectuality: the
micro-level (in which the reader/player’s point of view is within the narra-
tive flow), and the macro-level (the phase of re-elaboration, in which the
reader/player’s POV is beyond a single narrative arc, or the whole series).
At the first level, the development of Competence is represented both
through durativity (through phases of training) and punctuativity (the
measurement of competence through numbers and ranks). Only in the
first case is it possible to discuss a real representation of “progression” for
the microaspectuality, since viewers experience the character through the
process of growth, while in the second case the process of growth is only
re-elaborated at a macro-level, by comparing the actual Competence value
with the previous value and inferring the evolution.
However, the limit-breaking moments, represented through a punctua-
tive aspectuality (a sudden change in measurement) make the reader aware
of the immediate growth in character Competence, through the sudden
shift in measurement and in performance. ’It is during these moments that
it is easier to witness a change in the non-numerical representation of the
performance.
2.2. Semiotic boundaries and thresholds

As a result of the punctuative vs. durative micro-level aspectuality, a pe-
culiar structure of semiotic boundaries end thresholds (Zilbelberg 2001) is
created: these boundaries both affect the narrative development (separat-
ing the different story arcs) and the Competence measurement (separating
the pre- and post-limit break). As explicated in the Dictionnaire (Greimas
and Courtes 1979, entry “aspectualisation”), boundaries and thresholds are
linked to aspectuality, since the macro-level points of views on the process
are the result of the positioning of the observer with respect to specific nar-
rative boundaries/thresholds.
In the case of Apeiron narratives, the process of growth is represented
through two main complementary points of view: the first centred on the
subject/ anti-subject relationship, the second centred on the relationship
between narrative arcs.
In the first acts in a narrative arc, the main characters are placed at the
lower level of the power scale, while their enemy/ies are put on the upper
boundary of the power scale. By assuming the POV of the main character,
growth process is perceived from a “bottom-up perspective” in which the
final goal is not simply to reach the limit, but to surpass it. As noted by Fab-
bri and Sbisà (1985), boundaries and thresholds are tied with the specific
result of debrayage and embrayage: in this case, the distinction in narra-
tive arcs is strengthened by limit-break events, which settle a new degree
in subject Competence and act as the ending of the previous bottom-up
perspective. As a result, a new narrative arc, a new perspective and a new
aspectuality on the process of growth are established in the following arc.
If the story had been written from the point of view of the anti-subject
(a “top-down” point of view), no development or growth in Competence
would have been possible: the resulting aspectualisation would be that of
a continuously stagnating anti-subject competence. But since the narra-
tive configuration is built on following the main subject’s path from a bot-
tom-up perspective, the moment in which the limits of the Competence
and the limits of the narrative arcs are reached necessitates a new arc.
However, due to the exponential growth increase that characterises
Apeiron narratives, the new arc will need to develop exponential growth
through the replication of the bottom-up POV. The boundaries of the new
narrative arc behave in the exact same way: new anti-subject, new limit,
new limit-break.
This second arc/arc point of view shapes the general aspectualisation of
the whole text: aspectualisation not limited to explicit actions, but refer-
ring to the general positioning and interaction of the reader/player with all
the narrative horizons, within and beyond the boundaries, in relation to
virtual processes (growth), actual processes (limit break), and realised pro-
cesses (continuous acts of establishing and surpassing limits). These forms
of aspectualisation result from the use of units of measurement within the
narration, and the separation into narrative arcs.
2.3. Perspective and retrospective

When the reader moves from macro-level to micro-level aspectuality,
another outcome of the Apeiron dynamic becomes apparent. The reader/
player will try to synthetize the text, integrating the narrative development
and the growth-process grammar into a coherent shape, through the mi-
cro-level points of view and aspectualities used in the text. However, due
to the above-mentioned dichotomy between the punctuative and durative
representation of the growth, and the iterative nature of the growth across
different narrative arcs, two main types of narrative inconsistencies can be
observed in Apeiron narratives:
a) The passage from one arc to the other causes a retrospective para-
dox. Due to the exponential representation of growth, and to the use of
limit-break as narrative endings, everything that a character has been ex-
perienced becomes insignificant when a new arc is reached. The previous
enemies, challenges, and power balances are now meaningless, since the
new arc follows the same bottom-up, progressive point of view, in which
new limits and anti-subjects shape the power balance. In this regard, Apei-
ron narratives can be considered the opposite of classical Epic narratives,
in which the meaning of the action is defined only in a retrospective way,
as an obligation and valorisation of the Past.
b) The passage from single arcs to the interpretation of the entire text
produces a discontinuity function paradox: since growth is experienced
mainly through discontinuous punctuative measurements and limit breaks,
it is the reader who must translate it into a continuous, progressive process,
“connecting the dots” and filling the narrative gaps in power balance and
competence growth. But since the process is represented through an itera-
tive, bottom-up view, a multiple perspective incoherence may arise (char-
acter overgrowth, different “curves of power”, implicit imbalances between
characters, etc.).
As a result of these two narrative inconsistencies, a conflict between the
narration and the progression is produced: on the one hand the story needs
to progress through specific successions and coherence; on the other, the
aspectuality created through numbers and ranks develops its own coher-
ence, pacing and logic. Some typical results of these inconsistencies can be
briefly described:
a) In the DBZ series, the main enemy of the Freezer Arc has a power
level of 530.000, threatening to make a planet explode by triggering its nu-
cleus. Several narrative arcs later, the devil Darbura declares that a power
of 200-300 kiri (a new unit of measurement introduced in the series) is
enough to blow up a planet. However, by a Q&A in the 2004 V-Jump re-
view this power should be equal to 15 million in the traditional unit of
measurement, but both Vegeta and Freezer are able to destroy the planet
while having only 0.36 and 10 kiri respectively.
b) Many digital RPG feature grinding dynamics: players can (and

should) repeat simple tasks/fights over and over to gain experience points
and level up. As a result, in games such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Age or
Pokémon it is always possible to continue training indefinitely, without
needing to follow the story. The consequence is that by spending a huge
amount of time, players can reach a power level high enough to destroy any
sense of challenge in the game, making every enemy weak in comparison.
However, these enemies will still be described and presented as the strong-
est character so far, producing almost comical results. As in Final Fantasy
X, in which the final boss Braska triggers a moving dialogue with his son
Tidus (the main character), but then could be killed with two normal at-
tacks if the party has the Limit Damage Break ability.2
c) American comics and fantasy TV series do not entirely follow the
Apeiron narrative configuration: generally they do not feature systems for
measuring competence, despite following iterative narrative structures and
occasional limit-break events. As a result, due to the huge cast of heroes
in the Marvel and DC comics universes, and the long (almost 10-years’
worth) narrative plots, it is difficult for readers to interpret the power bal-
ance of heroes and their development.
It is probably for this reason that
readers attempt to elaborate unofficial
ranks and leaderboards of characters
strength, trying to systematize the logic
of power in these fictional universes. As
a retrospective attempt to satisfy readers,
Marvel created a Power Grid of Marvel
Heroes in the Official Handbook of the
Marvel Universe. For each hero, the pow-
er grid measures strength in 6 attributes,
divided in seven tiers, ranging from one
(weaker than common man) to seven
Figure 3: a comparison between the (god-like power).
Captain America and Iron Man However, due to these described ret-
power level rospective inconsistencies, intensified
by the number of heroes and stories
and the relative low granularity of tiers, the Power Grid created more de-
bates and incoherence than it solved. As an example, the character Captain
America, believed to be one of the most important heroes of Marvel, and
2
As recorded by this player: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URTwowYgSWw&t=354s
(last visit 27/09/17)
who has defeated several key enemies, is technically only a low-tier char-
acter, and should have been crushed by many of his enemies, rivals, and
allies.
3. Extensions and conclusions

3.1. Non-fictional Apeiron configuration
Until now, the Apeiron narrative configuration has been described and
analysed through texts that could be labelled as “fiction.” However, it is
also possible, due to its adaptability and its compatibility with the digital
culture, that the fictional boundaries could be crossed and that it could
become an abstract discursive configuration, used to represent several pro-
cesses of growth in the digital age, even non-fiction ones. Two examples
partially support this hypothesis:
a) It is now a common trend for the producers of IT components such
as NVidia, Apple or Arm, to officially present their new products during
specific conferences, aimed at the tech-savvy public. The structure of the
discourse used during this presentation seems to follow the key traits of the
Apeiron narratives, even in a rough and imprecise way:
Figure 4: the graphs of Apple (left) and NVidia (right) SoC increase in
Competence
As can be observed in the image, the power curve used for both Ap-
ple A and the NVidia Tegra Soc (system on chip) line is an exponential
curve. However, the values that determine the curve are taken from bench-
marks or flops in terms of theoretical performance. Both these units of
measurement are the results of virtual measurements, which do not cor-
respond to an actual performance increase and cannot be translated into
real-case scenarios. Technological leaps, while possible, are the result of
complex relationships between research conducted in production systems,
raw materials, physics, and software development, which of course do not
necessarily produce exponential progress at each new stage. However, the

culture surrounding the technological evolution of “trending” technologi-
cal artefacts seem to be fascinated by this narrative configuration: it is not
casual, maybe, that in video-game online forums, the speculations about
the raw power (in flops) of consoles is often compared to ’Dragon Ball’s
power level scale.3
b) Applications, such as Stackoverflow, Classcraft, Steam and other dig-
ital platforms, employ elements of gamification intended to quantify ele-
ments of game design in a non-game context (see Deterding 2011). Not
casually, the same game design dynamics of progress described above are
used to shape the progress of users: the acquisition of experience points,
the increase in levels, and the use of leaderboards (or eventually missions
and trophies). As in the case of World of Warcraft and Dungeons and Drag-
ons, while single elements of their systems are structured through linear
growth, the accumulation of several dynamics (badges, experience points,
missions, powers) grants the impression of an exponential progression. This
model is generally applied to specific activities (coding solutions, school
learning, digital shopping) considered to be repetitive activities, without
inherent meaningful progression. These gamified elements are designed to
change the perception of the traditional routine through the impression of
continuous growth and increase in competence, even if the iterativity of the
performance remains (as in grinding dynamics).
3.2. Satire, parodies and references

The dissemination of this narrative configuration can also be observed
in a further process: the development of full-fledged parodies and satires
targeted against the configuration itself. The development of these coun-
ter-discourse could prove the Apeiron narratives are starting to be per-
ceived clearly among the main cultural narrative structures and config-
urations, marking its spread in the semiosphere of internet cultures as a
result of its strong ties to the culture of digital games and contemporary
animation.
a) Onepunch man is a Japanese manga and anime, whose narrative
structure is based on a 1 on 1 parody of the Apeiron configuration. The
main character is (inexplicably) the strongest man in the universe from the
beginning, to the point of becoming incredibly bored, since he can defeat
any enemy with just one punch. While the other heroes struggle to gain
ranks and fame in the Hero association, he saves the world almost invol-
3
As in http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1379817&page=2, post #23, #48,
#163 and ss. (last visit 27/09/17)
untarily. Since he is so strong and fast, no opponent is able to watch his

performance (except for the reader), so he is still considered a third-class
hero, and most of his epic deeds are attributed to other heroes passing by,
or to inexplicable circumstances.
b) Tengen Toppa Gurenn Lagann is a Japanese anime in which the Apei-
ron configuration is made explicit through a figurative reasoning (Lancioni
2009): a visual metaphor that acts as a paradigm for the narrative logic
itself, being validated or criticised by the main characters.
The main characters’ progressive growth is represented through the
metaphor of the spiral power: the spiral shape, the drill (the miner’s tool),
the double helix of the DNA, and the class of spiral galaxies are all man-
ifestations of the narrative structure’s main attributes: a drive that moves
forward by repeating over and over the same movement, accelerating in the
process, combining the human struggle for growth in the biological chain
of the DNA and the desire to achieve evolution of all life in the galaxy.
The only noteworthy enemy of this drive is the race of the anti-spirals,
beings which seek balance in the universe, and believe that the spiral drive
is the origin of the entropy of the universe, and of its future death. Since the
anti-spiral strategy is to win the fight by being just as strong as its enemies,
any limit-breaking power is useless, highlighting the inconsistencies in the
Apeiron narrative. The only way for the main character to win is conciliat-
ing the Apeiron narrative into a double-spiral shape, connecting both the
perspective point of view to a retrospective one, able to bring together the
past and the future of human growth as a single entity.
Figure 5: the spiral figurative

reasoning in Tengen Toppa
Gurenn Lagan
Conclusions
While not enough to completely prove the hypothesis, these exam-
ples seem to confirm a possible extension of the Apeiron configuration to
non-fictional discourse, and supports its development as a recognised and
clear narrative structure in the current mediascape.
94
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95
CONSTRUCTING THE CORPORATE

INSTAGRAM DISCOURSE – A CRITICAL
VISUAL DISCOURSE APPROACH
Søren Vigild Poulsen
University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
[email protected]
Abstract
Since October 2010, the Instagram app has provided its users with
means of visual communication that previously were reserved for profes-
sional photographers. Simultaneously, the Instagram Corporation’s official
blog has offered suggestions on how the features of the app could be ap-
plied. In this manner, the corporation has established a norm of Instagram
use. Norms of technology use, i.e., socially learned ways of behaving and
communicating with technology, are well-researched in technology and
science studies, but thus far these studies have only included social media,
e.g., Instagram, to a minor degree. Furthermore, it remains largely unex-
plored how these social rules are represented multimodally in discourses
about social media technology. Through a critical multimodal discourse
analysis, this paper describes how the aforementioned corporate regulative
norms on the usage of Instagram were established on the corporate blog
96 Søren Vigild Poulsen
from 2010 to 2014. The findings show that the discourse on the blog adjusts
its focus. Initially, it dealt with correctional tools for the app, but it then
progressed into presenting tools for experimental visual expression. At the
same time, the blog confines the experimental uses of the application and,
thereby, the possible perception of what entertaining imagery is. This way,
the study demonstrates how the Instagram Corporation seeks to regulate
the use of the app.
Keywords: social media, critical multimodal analysis, Instagram, nor-

mative discourse, semiotic technology.
1. Introduction
Since October 2010, the Instagram corporation1 has provided its users
with a means of visual communication previously reserved for profession-
al photographers, along with a social network site for users to share pho-
tos and videos. At the same time, the Instagram corporation’s official blog
(blog.instagram.com) has offered suggestions, both visually and in writ-
ing, on how the app’s tools could be applied. The blog also includes and
promotes images from users that have made creative use of relevant tools,
e.g. for a social event or particular use of a new filter. Thus the organiza-
tion uses their blog and social networking site in specific ways as corporate
communication to create a specific framework of knowledge or discourse.
Corporate use of social media remains an emergent field in discourse
studies (Darics 2015; Danielewicz-Betz 2016). More specifically, further
investigation is required of the ways in which businesses and organizations
construct discourses through social media, and the applications of these
discourses for the social practices of professional communication.
(Multimodal) discourse studies have paid attention to social media
(Page et al. 2014; Adami & Carey 2016), but most studies center on Twitter
and Facebook (e.g., Eisenlauer 2013) rather than Instagram. And, while
discourse studies of Instagram have taken an interest in user groups, for
instance, mommy bloggers (Zappavigna 2016, Zhao & Zappavigna 2016),
politicians (Avedissian 2016), and location-based groups (Manovich 2016),
no studies seem to have looked at the Instagram corporation and their
communicative practices. This study seeks to provide more knowledge in
this intersection of social media, visual discourse, and corporate commu-
nication.
1
Instagram was bought by Facebook in April 2012, but I shall refer to Instagram as an
independent company.
CONSTRUCTING THE CORPORATE... 97
Based on an ongoing study of the discourse on Instagram’s corporate

blog from 2010 to 2016, this article provides a critical visual discourse
analysis2. The article seeks to demonstrate that the blog generates a special
use of images, and from this basis, the study attempts to elucidate which
visual resources the Instagram corporation uses to realize its discourse. By
specifically centering on blog posts that encompass the use of tools in the
app’s user interface, this article shall study the construction of the corporate
blog’s discourse in addition to the discourse’s corporate communicative
context. As part of the research, this article investigates how the Instagram
corporation frames uses of the app and notions of visual creativity through
visual discourse. In doing so, the study demonstrates to what extent the
Instagram corporation seeks to regulate the use of the app, and impose a
norm that constrains other notions of visual creativity.
The article is structured in six sections: Following this introduction, I
introduce the theoretical framework and methodology for the study in sec-
tions two and three. Sections four and five present the findings of the crit-
ical visual discourse analysis, with my concluding remarks in section six.
2. Theoretical framework
To investigate the ways in which Instagram constructs a normative dis-
course, this study employs critical visual discourse analysis both as theoret-
ical framework and methodology (Kress & van Leeuwen 2001, 2006; Mar-
tin & Rose 2003; van Leeuwen 2005, 2008). In this framework, discourses
are not understood as texts or speech, but “as socially constructed ways of
knowing some aspect of reality” (van Leeuwen 2016: 138) that people use
when they think, communicate and act. Thus, discourses are the frames
people draw on in various sense-making social practices. In this case, I ex-
plore how the Instagram corporation makes meaning about the application
and, thus, prompts its users to understand and engage with the Instagram
app. Discourse is based on practices that are “context-specific frameworks
of making sense of things” (ibid.) within specific social groups. This way,
the study reconnects discourse to social practice, i.e., socially regulated
ways of doing, “from which it derives (context-specific) meaning” in order
“to analyze the processes of transformation, or recontextualization (Bern-
stein 1981, 1986), that occur as practices are turned into discourses” (van
Leeuwen 2016, 139).
2
The analysis of the discourse realized in writing is explored in forthcoming work (Pouls-
en, in preparation); in this article, I will attempt to reconstruct the discourse based on the
images.
It is a fundamental assumption that the discourse not only recontex-

tualizes the social practice of making pictures, but also transforms prac-
tice in the process of representation. Van Leeuwen (2005, 2008a) suggests
that transformations in discourse may include substitutions, deletions,
rearrangements, and additions of elements to (representation of) social
practice. Additions are subdivided into three important kinds: purposes,
legitimations, and evaluations. Van Leeuwen has, to a great extent, shown
how these transformations are expressed in texts. In this article I will use
his analytical concepts slightly differently, to describe Instagram’s use of
their blog’s constructed discourse. With inspiration from the concept of
additions, I focus not on how such transformations occur in the visual dis-
course itself, but on how images, and the discourse they express, are used
communicatively on the corporate blog. As shown by Wu (2016), a corpo-
rate blog combines different text types, which serve different communica-
tive purposes and functional goals. Thus, a close inspection of discourse
use indicates the social actors’ interests and rhetorical strategies (Kress
2010) that form part of the communicative context of Instagram’s corpo-
rate blogging.
Given that people use all available means to represent aspects of their
reality, discourse analysis is concerned with the multimodal realization
of discourse. As there is no generally accepted definition of mode (see
Bateman 2008; Kress 2010 for discussions of mode), I provide a working
definition for pragmatic reasons: a mode is a semiotic system that affords
people with a bundle of resources for making meaning in social contexts.
Thus, a discourse analysis must not only focus on writing but also on im-
ages, and on the interaction between these two primary modes used on the
Instagram blog. In this article, which is part of a larger study, I primarily
focus on images as a semiotic mode.
Since discourses do not exist independently of their expression (van
Leeuwen 2016), by looking at the visual means employed by Instagram,
one can characterize the realization of discourse in texts. On this basis, I
can reconstruct which visual semiotic resources are employed to create (a)
which parts of the discourse, (b) how viewers are established in relation to
visual representations, as well as (c) how these two dimensions of meaning
are organized. These three dimensions of meaning are termed the ideation-
al, the interpersonal, and the textual metafunction, respectively (Halliday
1978).
In other words, to describe the kind of discourse constructed, the anal-

ysis takes, as its point of departure, a description of how discourse is made
by means of visual ‘grammar’ (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006). By grammar
I refer to an analytical description of how meaning making and visual re-
sources are socially regulated.
Also, this study is critical. By critical I mean an analysis that investigates
and makes explicit assumptions, justifications, arguments and rationale for
discourse construction. In this way, the study is part of a critical tradition
(Fairclough 1993; Wodak & Meyer 2015). The study seeks to contribute
with knowledge that which otherwise remains unspoken, taken for grant-
ed, or thought of as common-sense by Instagram users. Following Machin
& Mayr (2012), I assume that analytical description is a form of critique,
and thus that analysis provides knowledge for people to question and de-
bate. As a discourse analyst, my findings are not seen from a privileged po-
sition, and they are themselves informed by an academic discourse I must
be aware of when identifying potential bias. 11
3. Methodology
In this analysis, I seek to answer two questions: firstly, what meaning
is constructed visually on the Instagram blog, and second, what is this
meaning used for the corporate blog? For the first part of this article, I
will analyze the visual discourse and its realization in terms of different
kinds of metafunctions. For the second part, I focus on the function(s) of
visual meaning on the blog. I will divide the description of discourse into
a grammatical level and a meaning level, cf. the division of strata in Halli-
day’s (1978, 1985) Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The grammatical
level concerns the way discourse is construed, while the level of meaning
concerns the kind of discourse constructed.
This study introduces selected methods for the analysis of visual dis-
course on which Instagram draws when it blogs about tools for making,
editing and sharing pictures and videos in the app’s user interface. The
specific analytical terms listed in Table 1 will be explained. The terms are
selected for existing work of visual social semiotics (Kress & van Leeuwen
2006) and critical discourse analysis (van Leeuwen 2006, 2008). The list-
ed terms represent only part of an exhaustive analysis; I adopt Machin &
Mayr’s (2013) tool kit approach where analytical concepts are included on
the basis of their relevance to the analysis of visual data.
Ideational mean- Interpersonal Interpersonal

ing meaning meaning
Textual meaning
Grammatical Transitivity Social distance Information value
level Social relation Salience
Social interaction
Modality
Meaning level - entity Engagement Periodicity
- activity Inclu- Power
sion/exclusion
- Involvement
- Categorization
Table 1. Specific analytical terms
To study visual discourse, I look at texts (blog posts) about app tools in
which Instagram uses images. Data for the analysis consists of 50 blog posts
about tools, such as photo filters and editing and sharing functions, on
the official corporate archive in 2010-2016 (blog.instagram.com/archive).
These posts represent a small fraction of those that focus on specific topics
as well as on individuals or groups of users. More specifically, I examine
posts about the release of updated versions, the introduction of new tools,
and posts on the use of photo filters and other editing and sharing tools.
Images from these blog posts fall into two categories: user-generated imag-
es used with the users’ permission to illustrate a feature or tool of the app;
and images made by the Instagram corporation. Both types of images are
used when Instagram shows visual examples of the tools presented.
By analyzing multiple texts that exist in the same context, I attempt to
document the existence of and reconstruct the ‘Instagram corporate dis-
course’ based on my analysis and interpretation of blog posts. As Roderick
(2016) puts it: “I strive to establish how such texts make tacit normative
claims about the “nature” of technology and their uses through multi-
ple semiotic modes such as language, images, typeface, and music” (p.5).
This approach aims to document how ‘Instagram discourse’ is construed,
changes, and shifts focus. I only analyze posts that explicitly mention tools
in the app to focus on the ways the Instagram corporation itself chooses
to construct a discourse. It could be argued that the analysis ought to in-
clude blog posts introducing how selected users apply in-app tools when
making their photos. Such an analysis could arguably illuminate how In-
stagram ‘imposes’ a normative discourse about certain types of app usage

by only showing feature usage of selected users that coincides with these
norms. While this is a valid point, I seek to map Instagram’s own semiotic
sense-making, and not that of users. Yet, a future analysis of blog posts
about these selected users could, undoubtedly, bring more nuances to the
findings of the current analysis.
4. Visual discourse analysis of Instagram’s corporate blog part 1: The

discourse of images
4.1. Ideational meaning in blog images
4.1.1. The ideational grammatical level: Transitivity
To analyze the ideation of images on Instagram’s blog, I want to describe
meaning on the grammatical level in terms of transitivity, the system that
manifests ideation experiences as meaning. Analyzing transitivity in the
blog images enables me to describe how representation of core elements of
the discourse, the social actors, their actions, and their circumstances are
expressed visually. The representation of these elements indicates the ways
in which actors’ actions are constructed, and also to what extent actors and
things are assigned agency in the represented social practices.
Regarding ideation in images, visual representations can focus on ac-
tivities or entities (Martin & Rose 2003: 324). At the grammatical level,
activities and entities are described in terms of processes that represent
experience of reality as ‘goings-on’ – doing, happening, being, having, etc.
(Halliday 1994: 106-8). Kress & van Leeuwen (2006) define activities in
images as ‘narrative processes’, that is to say visual vectors (e.g., a line or a
body part) indicating an action, actors doing something associated with a
specific social practice. Entities are termed ‘conceptual processes’, which is
defined as visual processes that realize entities and structures. The images
on the selected blog posts are primarily conceptual processes and only nar-
rative processes to a limited degree. For instance, in the blog “Instagram
Tips: Using Lux” (11.2.2012) shows a series of simple things (a church, a
street, and car) (Figure 1).
In a few cases, participants perform a ‘reactional process’, this means,
the process is realized by the person’s gaze and indicates an internal process
of reacting to something. One example of this process is found in the post
“Instagram’s Newest Filter: Willow” (Figure 2). Two participants, a cat in
one image, and a woman playing the guitar in another image, perform the
simple act of looking, and their line of sight realizes reaction processes.
Of the conceptual processes, we find mostly analytical processes, or
processes that manifest whole-part-relations, identity and attributes of
entities, and almost no classificatory processes. In other words, we find

no processes that represent a class or group whose members share one or
more properties. The only example seems to be images of a city (class) and
similar-looking skyscrapers (members).
Figure 1. Examples of conceptual processes object on the blog post about us-
ing of the Lux tool. Source: http://blog.instagram.com/post/17436816889/
instagram-tips-using-lux (accessed 9.10.2017)
Figure 2. Examples of reactional process on the blog post about the Willow filter.
Source: http://blog.instagram.com/post/37739409065/instagrams-newest-fil-
ter-willow-yesterdays (accessed 9.10.2017)
4.1.2. The level of ideational meaning: Phenomenon focus, inclusion/

exclusion, and categorization
In the previous section I analyzed the processes that make up the con-
strual of grammatical-level image experience. I can now describe the
meaning these processes realize. The analytical processes represent single

motives, primarily animals, buildings, cityscapes and nature (e.g., the sky,
a horizon, or trees). Blog posts that exemplify these entities are “#hudson”
(4.10.2011) and “Photo Tips: Straighten up!” (1.9.2011). Thus the images
represent simple entities. It is important to notice that the pictures demon-
strate the end result of a tool effect, that is, things users have taken pictures
of; only in the cases where users take selfies, would one find representation
of the social actions of mobile photography. But in the collected data, there
are no selfies. Also, it is significant that in blog posts that launch new tools
and/or reintroduce improved tools, people--both individuals and groups-
-are mostly absent. A reason for this might be that it is a legal matter. If so,
it might be an attempt to draw attention away from the presented tool to
the depicted motif. Nevertheless, Instagram’s representation is focused on
the pictures where people are excluded (van Leeuwen 2008). This exclusion
can also be said to exemplify deletion as one way that the social practice of
making mobile pictures is transformed (ibid.).
In the few cases, where people are depicted, they are represented indi-
vidually, not in groups. And in these pictures of individuals, the persons
are cast in generic categories, not specific (ibid.), for instance, a man, a
woman or a baby, not particular identities. For instance, in blog post “Color
and Fade” (7.4.2015), a woman is shown looking at something (realized by
the reactional narrative process where the person’s gaze indicates a vector)
outside the picture frame. In a few cases, people directly at the camera are
shown, as, for instance, on the blog post about face filters (21.9.2017).
On the basis of the visual represented ideation, one is able to identify
an ‘Instagram discourse’: Its content consists of single, stand-alone things
from an outside world. In this discursive world, people are almost not rep-
resented, while they, of course, exist and are present in reality.
4.2. Interpersonal meaning in blog images

4.2.1. The interpersonal grammatical level: Social distance, social re-
lation, social interaction & modality
If we now turn to how representations are constructed in relation to the
viewer, images can be characterized in terms of their social distance. Put
differently, social distance is the distance between the represented partici-
pant(s), that is people and/or things, and the viewer. Most images show the
motives from a removed social distance from which you view the whole
participant. In some cases, images are taken from a close personal distance.
E.g., the blog post “How I Shoot Macro Nature Photos with @rickyhead”
(5.8.2012) shows close up photos of insects, water drops and seeds (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Examples of images with a close personal distance. Source: http://

blog.instagram.com/post/28766749799/macronaturephotos (accessed 9.10.
2017)
Since there are no people in most of the blog pictures, the social rela-
tion, i.e., the relation established between the image and viewer on the ba-
sis of image angle, can only be described on a vertical axle that determines
whether an image is shot from a high, middle, or low angle. The horizontal
axle that concerns the viewer’s involvement in a depicted person’s activity is
irrelevant in the images. In the selected images, a simple description is that
they are shot from a point of view that allows the viewer to see the motive
from a neutral line of sight. Also, there is no social interaction, i.e., inter-
action between depicted persons and the viewer by way of a person’s gaze.
As mentioned in the transitivity analysis, we only find a few photos de-
picting people and in those cases, the people mostly look to the side and
thereby not at the viewer. In terms of social interaction, i.e., the interaction
between the represented persons and the viewer, we would describe the
interaction as an indirect address at the viewer.
The modality of the images, relating to the truthfulness or ‘realness’ of
visual representation, is noteworthy. It is notable that all images appear
impressive as a result of their colours. The modality of most images is high
to medium. For instance, a blur or vibrance function creates a more natu-
ralistic photo style. If we describe the images’ modality markers (Kress &
van Leeuwen 2006), the images modify their representation of the truthful-
ness of the depicted participants by (for example) saturation, temperature,
brightness, focus (depth of field), and detail. These markers relate to the
resources that photo filters and other editing tools provide (for a descrip-
tion and discussion of resources of Instagram filters, see Poulsen 2017).
What does this indicate? Each photo stands out and exemplifies that the
discourse of Instagram makes photos beautiful, and this is also expressed
in the blog’s written text, for instance in the first blog post “Welcome to
Instagram”, 5.10.2010).
4.2.2. The interpersonal meaning level: Power, engagement,

appraisal
In most images employed by Instagram, a vast social distance is used to
create meaning that illustrates the visual effects a tool creates. The social
distance that displays the motives in their entirety is combined with the
neutral social relation, thus indicating an equitable power balance between
the producer of the image and the viewer. The visual resources co-create
an independent view. However, the indirect social interaction created in
those images mostly without people also prompts a social encounter where
the viewer either does interact or is invited to engage. The viewer is offered
information and is positioned as a spectator rather than as someone who
interacts. In this way, a discourse, that mainly centers on the viewing of
‘things’ in the world and only to a minor degree on viewing people who
are absent, is constructed. From a critical perspective, this may seem like
an odd choice since Instagram’s mission is to enable its users to create en-
gaging images and share them with their friends and relatives; in the blog
post about introducing video from June 20, 2013, the corporation states:
“Instagram has become a community where you can capture and share
the world’s moments simply and beautifully” (http://blog.instagram.com/
post/53448889009/video-on-instagram). The selected images on the blog
challenge Instagram’s concept that the app should enable users to make im-
ages that are not only beautiful but involve people and bring them together.
The invitation to view, but not to engage, is further underscored by the
mixed coding orientation, that is, “sets of abstract principles which inform
the way in which texts are coded by specific social groups” (Kress & van
Leeuwen 2006: 165). The aptness to view the depicted subjects seems to
be informed by a mix of two codes: one, a naturalistic coding orientation,
where the judgment of the ‘realness’ of images is based on a naturalistic,
common-sense representation of subjects. And second, a sensory coding
orientation that supports the sensuous, pleasurable depiction of things.
While the Instagram photos in the blog portray a naturalistic real world,
the tools that the application provides enhance the colors, light, saturation
etc. of these images. This photographic ‘enhancement’ creates more than
real or super-naturalistic images, which may prompt the viewer to be im-

pressed and even astonished by the visuals.
4.3. Textual meaning in blog images

4.3.1. Grammatical level: Information value & salience
If we turn our attention to how the images are composed, the visual
structures in the Instagram blog images can be described in terms of infor-
mation value, meaning resources for organizing the visual information in
the image frame, and salience, meaning resources for making participants
significant in the image (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006). Of the selected blog
images, most are built up of a center-periphery structure in which the de-
picted participant is placed at the center of the image, while other partic-
ipants are positioned in the visual margin. In some cases, the images are
organized in a top-button structure. For instance, these information struc-
tures are found in images with a horizon that divides the images into two
parts, one part above the horizon and the other part below it. In the post
“Color and Fade” (7.4.2015), one finds an example of both information val-
ues: on two left image, a single, centered entity (a woman with sunglasses),
(Figure 4)
Figure 4 Examples of a center-margin structure (the two left images) and a

top-button structure (the two right images). Source: http://blog.instagram.
com/post/115772769267/150407-color-and-fade (accessed 9.10.2017)
Information organization resources co-create the visual meaning by

making elements in the picture salient. As described by Kress & van Leeu-
wen (2006), images employ various resources to make certain elements in
the image stand out. In the blog images, these applied resources include
focus, foreground-background, color, tonal contrast, and placement in the

visual field.
4.3.2. Textual meaning level: Periodicity

Textual resources create a particular periodicity or flow of information.
The center-periphery structure used in many of the blog images creates a
textual meaning about the centered participant that is realized by the an-
alytical process, cf. the ideational meaning level. Thus, the elements that
inhabit the Instagram discourse, like buildings, nature, animals, are also
placed center stage in the image. These centrally placed elements are fur-
ther accentuated by salience markers such a tonal contrast and brighter
color.
The top-bottom structure, on the other hand, is often used to bring out
details of the photographed subject, e.g. leaves on threes or light and clouds
in the sky. Again, this supports an aesthetics of the ‘beauty’ in things and
the outside world that is depleted of people that the viewer simply looks at,
but does not engage.
5. Visual discourse analysis of Instagram’s corporate blog part 2: The

function of images
5.1. Discourse as recontextualization of the social practice of making
pictures
I will now turn to how the discursive meanings described in the above
sections are used on the blog. To do so, I will describe the relation between
discourse and social practices. The blog represents multimodally, in writ-
ing and images, the social practice of making mobile pictures. At the same
time, blogging is a social practice within corporate communication that is
enacted by the Instagram corporation on their official website. Drawing on
multimodal social semiotics, the blog can be defined as a genre (van Leeu-
wen, 2005). As a genre, the blog recontextualizes the social practice(s) of
mobile photography. It follows that the blog imports this practice from its
own context into another context, that of the corporate blog, to represent
it to the blog's audience and to use the represented practice of mobile pho-
tography to serve the purposes and interests of the Instagram corporation.
Furthermore, the blog can draw on potential visual meanings made by us-
ers in their individual contexts.
Blogs are structured as a sequence of communicative actions, or speech
acts (Martin 1992). In these sequences, images serve different communica-
tive functions. Based on the selected data, I present three functions that I
would argue can be identified: legitimation, purpose, and evaluation. This
line of argumentation is inspired by van Leeuwen’s (2008: 104-5) concept of

additive discourse transformations. However, I use the terminology slight-
ly differently to describe the communicative and rhetorical use of images
on the blog, rather than how discourse transforms the represented practice
by adding elements to the images themselves.
In the following, I will elaborate on these functions in the context of
corporate blogging. I will, however, not go further into the analysis of the
blog genre, or how the sequence of actions is organized and the kinds of
actions it contains. This is the subject of another article that focuses on the
written text of the Instagram blog. Also, therefore I only describe additive
transformations of the represented social practice, leaving out other kinds
of transformations.
5.2. Communicative uses of the visual discourse

The ‘corporate Instagram discourse’ changes and transforms the repre-
sented practice under the process of recontextualization. These transfor-
mations relate to the blog's communicative functions, specifically the use
of images relating to legitimation, purpose and evaluation.
5.2.1. Use of discourse I: Legitimization

By incorporating user images in their corporate blog, Instagram bor-
rows some of the potential meanings created by users through their mobile
photo practices. Instagram thereby incorporates meaning made by users
into its corporate blogging practice. In doing so, the images become a way
to legitimize the in-app photo tools presented on the blog. As users have
already applied a tool to make ‘beautiful’ images, they function as ambas-
sadors for the applied tool and ‘demonstrate’ that the feature is approved
by incorporating it in their own photographic practices. This technique,
in which Instagram exploits user “approval,” is frequently used on their
blog. An example could be the post “#Valencia” (13.10.2011), which shows
images from users that have used this new filter, thus indirectly approving
of it.
5.2.2. Use of discourse II: Purpose

Van Leeuwen (2005, 2008) argues that a common feature of discourse is
to ascribe some purpose to the recontextualized practice. While in written
discourse, this purpose may be expressed by adding a cause or an explana-
tion in writing, e.g. “because …” or “in order to …”, he does not offer exam-
ples on how such purposes can be represented visually. Yet I still find this
kind of addition useful and relevant to the findings in this present analysis.
Purpose is not represented in the images themselves, but in the use of im-
ages. I would argue that the use of the same image, as in the case of “Insta-
gram 3.2. -Improved Camera with a New Filter” (10.12.2012), serves as an
example of visual purpose. The same image is shown in two versions: one
without Tilt-shift (a blur tool), the other in which the tool is used. In this
way the images illustrate a before and after state and therefore function as
a visual explanation of a tool’s effect. Another example is found in the post
describing what the user must do to (re-)create a tintype photo (posted on
9.6.2012). The images illustrate the purpose in terms of what a tool can do
and how a beautiful image can be created. The purpose of the tool is, in this
way, visually documented or exemplified.
5.2.3. Use of discourse III: Evaluation

When an image is presented on the blog, it realizes an evaluation made
by the Instagram corporation as a social actor. The images exemplify what
the corporation values as beautiful (alternatively, ‘stunning’ and ‘amazing’).
The series of blog post entitled “How I Shot” could serve as visual examples
of evaluation. These images make up a style, and that style manifests an
aesthetics (Kress 2010) affiliated with specific social groups (Adami 2014;
Poulsen forthcoming). On these grounds, the images shown on the blog
are subject to a (positive) evaluation of Instagram. They are heralded as ex-
amples of what Instagram judges to be beautiful images. While supporting
visual creativity, the blog also enforces visual norms in its endorsement and
selection of images.
6. Conclusion
This article reports on a study of the discourse on Instagram’s corpo-
rate blog between 2010 and 2017. Given that the blog makes special use of
images, the study describes the visual resources for realizing discourse. By
focusing on blog posts about (the use of) tools in the app’s user interface,
the study explores discourse construction and its use in the context of busi-
ness communication. The study uses critical visual discourse analysis to
produce its findings. The corporate blog of Instagram includes user images
to create a discourse of a (super-) naturalistic, sensually depicted outside
world. Furthermore, the blog facilitates an aesthetics of ‘things’ that are
singled out and presented as beautiful, stunning and amazing in their mere
appearance. At the same time, people are almost absent in the selected im-
ages. Thus there are no social activities depicted and no social engagement
depicted. The visual resources enact a neutral, indirect, and disengaged
point of view, whereby the blog's viewer is positioned as a passive observer
offered visual information, and who simply looks at the images presented.
This study thus critiques the discourse for departing from Instagram's ar-
ticulated company mission, a wish to enable sociality and the sharing of
photos.
Instagram uses visually constructed discourse to attribute purpose, le-
gitimation and evaluation to their social practice of corporate blogging.
Firstly, the blog images illustrate what new and/or relaunched tools can do;
in other words, they illustrate the tools’ functional purpose. In this way the
images become part of an explanation of tool usage. For instance, we are
shown the same image in two different versions, before and after a tool's
effect is applied. Furthermore, the images legitimize Instagram’s new and/
or improved tools. The rational for this could be that the images ‘document’
the (beautiful) effects of the tools, while implying that the users who have
already applied the tools in their mobile photo practices approve of them.
It follows that the users and their images function as ambassadors for the
app and the tools it provides. In other words, the tools have already been
put to use by the Instagram community, and the Instagram corporation
simply reports on the fact that the improved or designed tools enable users
to make better images. Finally, the images facilitate an aesthetics of ‘things’.
When the images are embedded on the blog, Instagram endorses this aes-
thetics and indicates their approval of user-made images.
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113
FORMALISM AND DIGITAL

RESEARCH OF LITERATURE
Marek Debnár1
Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia
[email protected]
Abstract
The relation between the humanities and information technologies has
become so strong in recent decades that it is no longer possible to see this
relationship as a mere temporary phenomenon. Together with massive dig-
italization of books, journals and other texts, collected into extensive elec-
tronic libraries and hypertextual databases, it is now necessary to rethink
and redefine not only the concept of reading, but to specify new possibil-
ities for analysing literary and specialized texts. The aim of this study is
to point at new approaches to reading large text collections in the light of
Moretti’s method of distant reading. This paper uses the methodological
issues of relation between distant reading and Russian formalism as back-
ground for this consideration.
1
This submission was created as part of a research assignment for the VEGA 2/0107/14
grant “Hypermedia Artefacts in a Post-digital Era“
114 Marek Debnár
Keywords: distant reading, humanities, Russian formalism
Distant reading
The idea of “world literature” as a set of shared cosmopolitan values has
been known since the time of J. W. von Goethe. The proposed methodolo-
gy of literary science transcends the horizon of a complete work of one au-
thor, period or genre, appearing in Russian formalism. The idea of distant
reading, i.e. reading mediated by IT tools, that was introduced by Franco
Moretti in the essay Conjectures on World Literature in 20002, refers to both
of these perspectives.
Moretti’s approach to the idea of “world literature”, as was understood
by Goethe in conversations with Eckerman (1827), and twenty years later
by Marx and Engels in the Communist Party Manifesto3 (1848), is critical.
He describes it as a contemporary intellectual gesture limited by the area
of Western Europe, more precisely, by “German philologists working on
French literature” (Moretti 2000, 54), which does not mean that he turns
away of this concept. “World literature” is the main area of his interest,
but not as a label for a set of literary works but rather as a methodological
problem. In order to define the term “world literature”, we need to find such
a research method that corresponds to the current state of the problem; a
method that exceeds a simple but unviable notion that it is enough to read
more.
In Conjectures on World Literature, Moretti does not openly avow the
thoughts and procedures of Russian formalism. However, he is so strongly
inspired by formalism that for his theory of distant reading that he em-
ployed the title “new formalism without close reading” (Arac 2002, 38).
Moretti then describes his method as “a little pact with the devil: we know
how to read texts, now let’s learn how not to read them. Distant reading,
where distance is a condition of knowledge, it allows us to focus on units that
are much smaller or much larger than the text: literary formation, themes,
tropes – or genres and systems. And if, between the very small and the very
large, the text itself disappears, well, it is one of those cases when one can
2
Essay was originally published in the magazine New Left Review No. 1/2000 and was later
included by Moretti to the book Distant Reading, Verso 2013.
3
With reference to a text: “In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-
sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of
nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations
of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-
mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and
local literatures, there arises a world literature.” (Marx – Engels 1977, 151 – 152).
FORMALISM AND DIGITAL... 115
justifiably say, that less is more. If we want to understand the system in its
entirety, we must accept losing something.” (Moretti 2000, 57).
The enthusiasm for a new methodological approach is indisputable, as
is the latent inspiration for formalism that can teach literary history the
regularities of a literary field, as written in the study The Slaughterhouse of
Literature (The Slaughterhouse of Literature 2000). In this study, published
in the same year as Conjectures on World Literature, he adds: “Form is a
repeatable element of literature – what returns fundamentally unchanged
over many cases and many years” (Moretti 2013, 86). In this period, Moretti
speaks very broadly about formalism and openly admits the inspiration by
Viktor Shklovsky and his Theory of Prose (1929) five years later in his book
Graphs, Maps, Trees – Abstract Models for Literary History (Graphs, Maps,
Trees – Abstract Models for Literary History 2005). The work belongs to
the founder’s work in the field of literary science on textual analysis using
IT tools, whereby Moretti represents three models of quantitative analysis.
Using graphs, he analyses the history of changes in the complexity of the
novel genre; through maps, he illustrates geographical changes in aspects
of English “rural” prose; and genealogical trees enable him to analyse vari-
ous mutations in the detective genre. A trinity of quantitative analyses rep-
resent three approaches to what was described by Eichenbaum as a goal of
formal method in the text devoted to work of the Petrograd Society for the
Study of Poetic Language (Opoyaz), called The Theory of the Formal Meth-
od earlier in 1925: “We do not incorporate into our work issues involving
biography or the psychology of creativity, assuming that those problems,
very serious and complex on their own, ought to have their place in other
disciplines. We are concerned with finding in evolution the features of im-
manent historical laws – that is why we ignore all that seemed, from this
point of view, circumstantial, not concerned with literary history. We are
interested in the very process of evolution, in the very dynamics of literary
form, insofar as it is possible to observe them in the facts of the past. For
us, the central problem of the history of literature is the problem of evolu-
tion outside individual personality – the study of literature as a self-formed
social phenomenon” (Eichenbaum 1971, 50).
Besides historical patterns of the form, stressed by Moretti in both
texts in 2000, we cannot even define a biographic author mentioned by
Eichenbaum in his approach. Formalism thus reacts to an approach that
reduced literary history to the psychological interpretation of works of
“great authors”. This movement did not perceive the literary work and its
value framework as an isolated product; however, they perceived it on the
background of other works and in connection with them. From the point
116 Marek Debnár
of view of literary form development, the most important aspect is the im-
pact of work on work, which was the reason the formalists broadened the
sphere of research from “high literature” to the popular and folk literature
that played a significant role in the creation and development of literary
genres and forms. This quantitative expansion of literary research field
forms the basis not only for formalistic research but also the procedures
in the field of textual analysis that are based on information technologies.
Moretti extended this deflection to a whole set of authors whose works
are in a close dialogue with literary history: “Trouble with close reading
in all of its incarnations (from the new criticism to deconstruction) de-
pends on extremely limited criteria... we invest so much in individual texts
only because we think that very few of them really matter.”(Moretti 2000,
57). Moretti’s version of “formalism without close reading” is primarily
about creating abstract models for the development of literary forms on
the ground of specialized text corpora, therefore shifting the attention from
privileged authors and works to the level of individual changes in the whole
genre.
False clues
An example of such an exploration is the use of indicia in relation to
the development of English detective fiction from the time of their first
occurrence, that is, from the end of the nineteenth century. The topic is
discussed in the last chapter of Graphs, Maps, Trees, which is an extend-
ed version of the study The Slaughterhouse of Literature and, at the same
time, best illustrates Moretti’s relationship to Russian formalism. While in
Slaughterhouse he does not acknowledge his inspiration by Shklovsky, in
the study Trees he directly refers to him. In the Theory of Prose, specifically
in his essay Mystery novella, Shklovsky analyses (along with other works)
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories from the perspective of
genre construction, form and time sequence of syuzhet. At first, there is
nothing extraordinary, though he is attracted by a special way Doyle works
with clues: “Secondary data are the most important, integrated in a way, a
reader will not notice them” (Shklovsky 1971, 142). From a schematic point
of view, these are common short stories with a secret: “this scheme was not
created by Conan Doyle, but he did not even steal it. It results from the sub-
ject matter” (Shklovsky 1971, 143). Speaking about clues (Shklovsky calls
them “hints”), he writes: “Everyone intent on engaging in the creation of
Russian plot-based literature should pay close attention to Conan Doyle’s
use of clues and the way the denouement emerges out of them”(Shklovsky
1971, 143).
In creating the genealogical tree of detective genre development, out-

lined in Moretti’s Trees, it is clear that the functional use of clues (present,
visible, decidable, etc.) appearing in Conan Doyle’s and some of his con-
temporaries’ work is gradually becoming the main developmental branch
of detective genre fiction. The outcome of these investigations is that only
works of that period that contain the right variants of clues – and Moret-
ti proves that it is a really small percentage–are brought into the literary
awareness of the present time. In the case of Doyle, Moretti suggests one
possible hypothesis as to the success of Sherlock Holmes stories could be
based on the fact that they had been posted in the prestigious Strand Mag-
azine: “But why should form be the decisive reason for survival? Why not
social privilege instead – the fact that Doyle was writing for a well-estab-
lished Strand Magazine and his rivals were not?... So, I went to the library,
where I discovered that, in the course of the 1890s, over one hundred de-
tective stories by twenty-five different authors had been published in the
Strand Magazine alongside Sherlock Holmes. Since so many authors had
access to the same venue as Doyle, the social privilege objection lost its
force.” (Moretti 2005, 74).
In this case, Moretti proceeded with data examination in the manner
of Vladimir J. Propp in his pioneering work Morphology of the Folktale
(1928), wherein he studied one particular variant of a tale based on one
file, and without the use of IT tools. This enabled him to identify thirty-one
functions that make up the basic building blocks of every “magic folktale”
(Propp, 1971, s. 35-72), or a fairy tale which contains a magical object (for
example “self-setting tablecloths”). Propp worked with a precisely defined
corpus of texts, with the “material” that contained folktales listed in the
index of Aarne – Thompson, a folklorist and a collector of folk literature,
marked by numbers 300 – 749. Propp then subsequently narrowed down
this collection, analysing 175 total texts. Obviously, Propp had read all of
these texts and extracted the individual variants of the whole collection
himself. At first, Moretti carried out his research on much larger set of
texts using digital tools, but the results’ verification principle remained the
same as in Propp’s case.
Quantitative results reveal much more about the development of form,
but by reading all the short stories of one particular collection of texts
Moretti also revealed something more important than just confirming
Conan Doyle’s status quo. “Secondary” and forgotten detective stories, that
no one paid attention to, create two new branches of the genealogical tree
of detective fiction with regards to plot and storyline construction. The en-
thusiasm for this discovery was so great that Moretti summarized this ex-
118 Marek Debnár
perience in words: “The more one looked in the archive, in other words, the
more complex and “Darwinian” became the genre’s morphospace.”(Moretti
2005, 74). This language is not coincidental. In the preface to the second
edition of Modern European Literature: A Geographical Sketch (Modern
European Literature: A Geographical Sketch) included at the beginning of
the book Distant Reading (Distant Reading 2013), Moretti admits that one
of his most powerful inspirations was the evolutionary theory of the ori-
gin of species by Ernst Mayr which he wanted to apply to the evolution of
morphological (genre) transformations of literary field (see Moretti 2013,
1 – 3). Similar to Propp, Shklovsky and other formalists, also in Moretti’s
“quantitative formalism”, in the pamphlet of Stanford Literary Lab he called
morphological (genre) category a presumption of quantification analysis.
This makes it a necessary aspect of distant reading: at the beginning of the
research, it is used to set up a typological “spectrum of variations” (Mayr),
and at the end, it is used to set up the genealogy of morphospace with all its
developmental branches.
Another necessary aspect of distant reading is a distance that makes it
possible to “read” quantitative data from the point of view of form: “we
must step back from quantitative field and look for solution in a completely
different one, and it is a field of form (morphology)” (Moretti 2005, 24).
Distance from data is what enables their “reading”, or interpretation. This
aspect is also observed by Sean McCann in the article A Few Quibbles about
Moretti’s Graphs, Maps, Trees (A Few Quibbles about Moretti’s Graphs,
Maps, Trees 2011): “It is wonderful to see the graphs and to get a sense of
the vast range of material that still needs to be discovered and understood
...but as Moretti notes, all this is just data until hypotheses are generated
(produced, by the way, via “interpretation”) (McCann 2011, 109).
After clarifying Moretti’s formalistic resources, we are getting back to
the distant reading, metaphorical description of quantitative formalism
that Moretti on mentioned in Graphs, Maps, Trees once. He describes it
very briefly as a reading that does not put emphasis on details but on the
distance as a specific form of knowledge that “reveals broader interconnec-
tions. Shapes, relations, structures. Forms. Models” (Moretti 2005, 1). In
the final texts, he even introduces a distinction between “explanation”–that
falls more within cognizance of quantitative formalism–and the interpreta-
tion of a text, as if he was already aware of the risk in working with a great
deal of material, and that the hypothesis is likely to prove true (concerning
the size of the text archive). In other words, the outcome of quantitative
formalism, for which the morphological category is a presumption of anal-
ysis, is that which had been expected at the beginning. Moretti’s study of
clue occurrence in detective genre was also based upon the same assump-
tion. He explicitly focused on clues as found in Doyle’s work, as he con-
sidered them a dominant evolutionary shift within the genre. He focused
beforehand on the apologetics of the Western European Detective canon in
order to create a model for the whole genre tree. Such a procedure resulted
in tautology, and tautologies seem true in every possible interpretation.
Conclusion
It has been thirteen years since the first publication of Conjectures
on World Literature (2000) until its re-publishing in the collection of all
Moretti’s texts devoted to Distant Reading (2013). The range of digital ar-
chives has grown enormously during that time, eliminating the old barrier
to literary research represented by the unavailability of texts. However,
new barriers have emerged, such as the impossibility of identifying a great
deal of forgotten, secondary texts, so called The Great Unread,4 problems
that have also occurred in other areas of textual analysis. Nevertheless, the
use of IT tools has its future in literary and broader humanities research.
The oft-mentioned crisis of the human sciences is also caused by their pro-
crastination, and is accompanied by a sort of a priori mistrust towards new
technologies. In defence of our approach, it can be said that if humanities
are losing their attractions at present, they should not hesitate to seek new
approaches to find meaning and use.
4
A term The Great Unread was introduced to literary science by a narratologist Margaret
Cohen (see Cohen 2009).
120
References
Arac, Jonathan. 2002. Anglo-globalism? New Left Review 16: 35 – 45.
Cohen, Margaret. 2009. Narratology in the Archive of Literature. Rep-
resentations 108 (1): 51 – 75.
Eichenbaum, Boris. 1971. Teória formálnej metódy. In Teória literatúry
– výber z „formálnej metódy“, ed. Mikuláš Bakoš. Bratislava: Tatran.
Marx, Karol – Fridrich Engels. 1977. Manifest komunistickej strany. In
Antológia z diel filozofov. Marxisticko-leninská filozofia, ed. Ladislav Holata.
Bratislava: Pravda.
Moretti, Franco. 2000. Conjectures on World Literature. New Left Re-
view 1.
Moretti, Franco. 2005. Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Liter-
ary History. London: Verso.
Moretti, Franco. 2013. Distant Reading. London: Verso.
Propp, J. Vladimír. 1971. Morfológia rozprávky. Bratislava: Tatran.
Šklovskij, Viktor. 1971. Teória prózy. Bratislava: Tatran.
121
ENCHANTED OBJECT: INDIAN SARI, NEGOTIATING

THE ONLINE AND THE OFFLINE SPACE
Seema Khanwalkar
CEPT University, India
[email protected]
Abstract
This paper is an attempt to understand the intersections between the
internet, global cultures and technology, and the material object, the Indian
sari. The Indian Sari, like other ethnic clothing, has always acted as a means
of affirming position and agency for Indian women. Even today it is a
significant part of the communicative grammar for its offline avatar. But its
online presence makes this garment even more discursive. Typically online
communities, in linguistic terms, are ‘cultural communities’ (paradigmatic)
where knowledge is shared to deepen expertise, and offline communities
are ‘communities of practice’ (s yntagmatic) where people share concerns,
passions, and problems to deepen interaction. But as Umberto Eco says,
more and more paradigmatic communities are becoming syntagmatic, and
the Indian Sari is in an interesting intersection of offline and online contexts
as the wearer, the garment, and the transactions all create discursive spaces
122 Seema Khanwalkar
that implicate the global and local in identity formations. It also forces us
to relocate the Sari as a signifier and reexamine its materiality in relation to
its floating presence.
Keywords: Global cultures, technology, material object, online space,

online communities
1. Paradigm of Online Cultures

The intersection of global cultures, technologies and markets has created
new paradigms of consumption in the digital world. The Internet and other
digital technologies comprise a complementary set of communication
with a three-prone objective: inform, recall, & persuade (Nyeck, 2004),
characterized by an original interactivity since the user is interacting with
the media and with the product through the media. Digital technologies
have offered a new distribution network to companies, through so-called
e-commerce. A very basic characteristic of the digital world is that it has
neither physical nor technological boundaries (Okonkwo, 2009); this
means access to a limitless space. And with the emergence of social media,
consumers become empowered and gather themselves in eco communities,
still without any geographical or cultural boundaries (P. R. Berthon, Pitt,
Plangger, & Shapiro, 2012) when successful digital strategies set long-
lasting relationships with consumers, via the creation of global and cross-
cultural brand communities, with easier, more accurate identification of
their desires and needs (Chen, 2001)
Most online communities are created between people who have
something in common. They usually do not know each other, but are
aware of being part of the community. As Anthony Cohen (1985) would
describe it, such communities are ‘entities of meaning’, founded on a shared
conglomeration of normative codes and values that provide community
members with a sense of identity. The structuralist terminology of
‘paradigmatic’ and ‘syntagmatic’ applied here to the two types of community
further clarifies the two as ‘cultural communities’ (paradigmatic) and
‘communities of practice’ (syntagmatic)1. Online communities are typically
cultural communities, where members share expertise of some kind. In
communities of practice, members share concerns, passions, and problems
and deepen their knowledge by interacting on an ongoing basis. But a lot of
paradigmatic communities are becoming syntagmatic communities as they
1
The application of the two structuralist terms has been referred from Tardini, S and
Cantoni, L. 2005
ENCHANTED OBJECT... 123
become more and more interactive. Umberto Eco (1983) would call these
interactive objects co-constructed by their publishers (writer, designers,
engineers etc.) and their users. The former develop a sort of language –
with basic elements (nodes/lexias, or sub-node items) and link rules, while
the latter choose which paths to activate.
1.1 Digital as a Space

Calling the digital a space and recognizing its communicative and social
power has also led to investigations about the nature of manifesting and
traversing this space by both individuals and social groups. Humanistic
geographers have called ‘Space’ a wide open and continuous area of action
that individuals understand by experiencing movement, while place, they
say, is a discrete space devoted to the ideas of staying, resting, engagement
aspects, that relate to ‘value’ and a sense of belonging’ what Yi-Fu-Tuan
called ‘topophilia (Tuan 1974: 4).
What then is the nature of dwelling in the digital? The digital is a complex,
fluid and pervasive space as Maggi2 conceptualizes and is not bodily based
but has a strong cognitive connotation. To understand the nature of
dwelling in this space, Maggi (2014: 90) turns to Bullnow’s (1963) theory
of Space that is anthropological and not physical or mathematical. Bullnow
calls it the ‘Hodological Space’ a space of movement. The familiar, the units
that are part of our cultural knowledge, are ‘Safe’ in a hodological sense,
Maggi says. The act of moving through space is therefore a continuous act
of reinterpreting as safe or as hostile what surrounds us. Streets become
networks, a safe way to move into the world. What lies beyond the street
is experienced from the ‘safe street’. The digital experience, according to
Maggi, is compared to the motorists’ experience on the safe street. Hence
exploration of the digital moves first along the safe trails already set by
others, trails that become conventional over time. These conventional
schemes are semiotically part of a larger cultural organism. ‘We learn to
move within the digital by observing the behaviors of the social groups we
get in touch with, and by following their movement schemes they are used
to.’ (Maggi 2014: 90)
The digital world is seen as an ecosystem that includes, for example, the
websites and apps that manifest the digital place, not any single one of them,
nor their sum. It also includes the human interaction and the narration
that spans all these channels. This first person experience is identification
with the digital self and makes us actants3 of a story articulated through
2
Maggi in Resmini, A (ed), (2014, P.90), Reframing Information Architecture
3
The concept of ‘actants’ is inspired by Vladimir Propp’s (the Russian Formalist) and sub-
the digital channels. This narrative attribute of the digital space means that
the space is a textual manifestation of narrations. It confers us with roles
and the grammar for those practices of interaction we will be a part of. The
forces of the digital space have consequences for the way people move and
interact within them. This is an algorithmically controlled environment
encouraging people to perform actions in a pre-coded system. Umberto
Eco (1979) proposed a theory of textual cooperation that, when applied to
a digital space, helps to understand the movement within a digital space as
purely interpretative rather than a bodily movement. Umberto Eco says the
textual strategy implicit in the digital space requires a model reader who
must fulfill the requirements to actualize the text’s potential content; the
reader interprets the content on the basis of what it allows the reader to do.
So, how then do spaces such as Facebook and Twitter construct the identity
of their users and their social interactions?
Maggi proposes three formal traits that Facebook and Twitter have in
common:
They both allow individuals to go beyond their ‘real’ social networks of
family, friends, relatives, and colleagues, and to touch unreachable groups.
Built into both are two dimensions to express their identities. The
Synchronic dimension that constitutes a fixed identity of the self which
forms the core information–a name, a short bio, a picture etc., and the
diachronic dimension that includes all the content posted over time and
eventually becomes a log of the person’s evolution on the site.
The identities constructed by these two dimensions happen in three ways
according to Maggi: a) ‘Self telling’, or ways and mechanisms for telling
one’s story for personal and public benefit; b) ‘Pervasiveness’, or ways and
means to link one’s real identity to the one represented in the digital world;
and c) ‘Intersubjectivity’, or ways and means to represent and expose the
relationships between individual and others.
The task of representing the self on Facebook, Maggi says, essentially
relates to the ‘exhibitionist narrative program’, or the posting of biographic
information, content, and performing actions such as shares or likes. Our
identities are clearly linked to stereotypical knowledge that Facebook
sequently A.J.Greimas’s theory of ‘actants’. Propp began by linking spheres of actions to
characters offering an important insight into the dramatic text and to look for patterns
in folklore – also referred to the ‘deep structure’. Greimas went further to assign ‘roles’ to
characters and once a character assumes a role; he becomes an ‘actant’. For further read-
ing, see Propp’s ‘Morphology of the Folktale’ (1928) and Greimas, ‘Structural Semantics’
(1966). The concept of ‘actants’ here essentially aims to highlight the digital text and the
interactions within its coded system. The reader in this case is guided by the codes and
accomplishes his/her role as an actant through participation and interpretation.
already possesses – so we identify with traits such as movies we like, places

we visit, etc. We declare some indicators about ourselves, and comply
with some pre-existing elements that we are forced to choose, like the
relationship indicator. So in narrative terms, finding an adequate element
in the Facebook list ensures that we attain a sanction, and if we do not, then
we find ourselves in violation of the ‘normality’ of Facebook.
‘To be on Facebook means to flatten our personality to the stereotypical
person template available on the platform: whoever is not willing to do this
will not fully get in tune with the place and its genus loci’ (Maggi 2014: 91)
Maggi confirms this when he says that at the discursive level the
synchronic profile information is shown through a static layout pre-
designed for us.
1.2 Objects on the Internet

Digital spaces have most certainly compelled us to think about a
‘narrative of objects’. Alexis Lloyd (2013 puts it succinctly in this post:
As more of our objects and environments become actuated,
connected, and data-enabled, these enchanted objects are
developing the capacity to contain their own stories. An object can
remember its history, can understand how it is used, can talk to
other objects around it to understand its environment. As these
capabilities evolve, objects no longer become inert backdrops to
our experiences, but active participants in our world that can share
stories about themselves and us.
Alexis goes on to elaborate on the narrative potential in this framework
that is borrowed from David Rose’s (2011) term ‘enchanted objects’:
‘The first is the construct of objects as portals -- objects that can be
used as totems or touchstones to draw you into a story, to transport
you to another time or place through the locus of that object. We
currently infer the history of our things in broad and abstract ways,
through the quality of scratches and wear, through the patina of age,
through markers and labels and signs of personal possession. But
what if that history became more literally inscribed, either recorded
by the object itself or written to the object by an author?’
Does the internet as a space privilege the object to the extent that the
Indian Sari thrives as many other objects, ridiculous, mundane (like a
toaster) and profound, become the frontiers of web-based technologies?
Is it a case of overreach or a demonstration of the fact that the ‘internet of

things’ is the next big thing in human lives? As Doug Thomson (2013) says,
And much like Facebook has become, for many, a kind of ambient
social backdrop in their life, the happiness of your toaster or
the temperature of your living room will be a kind of mesh that
underpins our feeds and pokes, a humming kind of ambient noise
that auto tunes itself based on mood or location.
What does it mean for those narratives to exist? Who gets to author
those stories? Who wants to listen to them and in what contexts? Do objects
become storytellers themselves or do they require human authorship and
interpretation? What do these questions foretell for the Indian Sari, both
offline and online? That the Sari as a mode of negotiating physical and
cultural inter-subjective spaces and relationships is indeed a compelling
argument. But with the sari shifting its inhabitation between the physical
and the digital, it is even more compelling to see the impact of the digital
as a space on women as actants in the digital narratives that surround the
sari. Does the sari retain any of its material power, or does it get embroiled
and tangled in the identity of the digital self? What do we experience of the
sari in its online avatar?
2. Anthropology of the Sari in the offline world

The manner in which it is draped, parts of it used to express identities,
cultural rules, and emotions, has made the Sari a significant aspect of being
Indian. The cut fabric or the sari is the symbol of totality and integrity; it
symbolizes the whole of manifestation. But the sari begs an anthropological
understanding particularly because it is a ‘living costume’: it is witness
to several costume changes and influences, and yet is carried forward by
millions of women who have an intensely private relationship with the
sari amidst changing times, changing aesthetics, and changing buying and
selling formats. These are certainly big issues to contend with, and also a
significant cultural juncture in India. There exists, however, a fundamental
relationship with the sari that has acquired cultural overtones over a long
period of time. The Sari takes the role of mediating the relationship between
a person’s sense of self and the outside world. Banerjee and Miller call it the
‘fellow actor’4 whose presence must always be remembered.
4
ibid
2.1 ‘Elevated Sari’

But, ‘the Sari forces a continued engagement, a conversation between the
wearer and the garment.’5 These conversations, so aptly described, include
a ‘subtle alternation between actions that become almost unconscious or
automatic and others that are highly self-conscious’. The effect of the sari it
has been well documented, and experienced, is to give a heightened sense
of themselves, and that makes them believe that the sari makes the body
more beautiful and womanly. In a detailed anthropological account of this
relationship, Banerjee and Miller have given several accounts of the degree
of intimacy between the two. They recount a very dominant metaphor
of ‘feeding the Sari’, to prolong its life through proper starching, that is
traditionally made from water used for boiling rice. A villager is quoted to
have said that the sari has to be fed in order for it to have ‘blood in its body’,
just like us human beings. And hence the life of the sari is comparable to
the bodily needs and strength of the woman, who withers with age and
wear and tear.
The Sari accommodates demands of rationality and modernity with
ease as Banjerjee and Miller talk about the defense of the Sari by women,
for its practicality for manual work, as well as its role in managing the
complex contradictions in the world of Hindu religion. The pallu of the
sari protects from the sun and from the male gaze, and the Sari as a cloth is
in constant motion akin to the female body. The aspiration towards higher
dignity, maturity and a sense of indian-ness is what makes the Sari ‘elevated’
according to this account. Wearers of the Sari aspire to reach this position
that they feel can be achieved only through the Sari.
2.2 Grammar of the Sari: Syntagmatic relationship of the parts with

the whole
The Sari is characterized by the display of the three main parts – the
borders, the space-in-between that constitutes the length of the sari, and
the end-portion, or the Pallu. For centuries, the aesthetics of the Sari has
been expressed in these three spaces and the Pallu has always been the
final reckoning that Indian women use in a variety of ways as a means of
connecting with the world around them6. The Sari has always been bought
for the beauty of its Pallu, and weavers and artists across the country
painstakingly labor on this part, giving the sari its distinct identity.
5
Banerjee and Miller, 2004
6
Chui, D, 2011
The anthropological significance of the parts of the Sari have been

well captured in research on Indian cinema (Dwyer and Patel 2002,)7.
These works have shown how the personalities of the actresses have been
articulated by the manner in which they either ‘control’ the sari, or let
the sari become their shield from the outside world. The veiling and the
unveiling of the Sari as a metaphor has been beautifully captured across
cinema; notable among these is the Bengali film maker Aparna Sen who has
shown transitions in a woman’s life, from being a devoted wife, to taking
a lover outside her marriage. In both cases, the way she drapes her Pallu
(first veiled behind the Pallu, and later unveiling it to convey intimacy with
another man), is the central signifier and demonstrates that there is no need
for words to express herself8.The notion of power and control associated
with the Sari are like subtexts; idioms of self-worth and self-confidence in
their relationship to the body. Indian women feel empowered in the act of
controlling and rearranging their Pallu. This is particularly interesting in a
modern context, when women use Sari as a mode of power in professional
spheres. The Sari becomes a very strong tool in the communicative grammar
of the woman’s persona. She can actually take time to think, reword, and
mull over what she has to say, while adjusting her Pallu, that can prove to
be distracting to the observer, thus serving as a respite and interjection in a
situation that she might have lost control over otherwise. Men, on the other
hand, do find the Sari’s Pallu very distracting – whether it stays, adjusted,
or is falling off the woman’s shoulders, because eventually it gives away a lot
about who the woman is – confident, strong, self-assured, or meek, under
confident, or even sexually open and comfortable about her body. Unlike
most Western clothing, the sari, and in particular the Pallu, constantly
moves and corresponds to various situations a woman may find herself
in (Miller 2004). To hold the end of the Pallu particularly tight signifies
anger, and to use it as cover hides an embarrassed face, making it a valuable
non-verbal form of communication. A woman may have to cover her head
after marriage as a sign of modesty, but she can equally use this to her
advantage so that those around her are completely unaware of the feelings
that lie behind the veiling. However, the pallu can also unintentionally
portray a woman in a certain way, especially in an erotic light through its
accentuation of facial features such as the lips or eyes (Miller 2004). In this
sense, the pallu is an ambiguous object which is only at times completely
in the control of women. By veiling one’s face, a woman is able to hide her
7
The descriptions below have been extracted from Dwyer and Patel’s work on the visual
culture on Indian Cinema
8
ibid
emotions, but she is equally able to make them apparent to all those around
her without uttering a word.
Interestingly, the culture of wearing saris also creates ‘syntagmatic
communities’ as they are a network of relationships, hierarchies and part
of the grammar of getting it right. The interactions over the Sari that
take place offline create social relations and could be seen as ‘syntagmatic
communities. The online interactions are paradigmatic in the sense that
these communities share something ‘similar’, in terms of interest etc. But
these online paradigmatic communities are turning syntagmatic over
time, as interactions between the members are creating networks and
combinations of different elements during the process.
3. Sari in the Digital Space

The digital version of the Indian sari opens up an array of narrative
perspectives, and embeds its collaborators as actants of a story articulated
through pervasive information architecture across different channels.
The digital space is creating new cultures of fashioning the Indian Sari in
everyday life. It is undoubtedly a whole new imagination that is creating a
‘new wearer’ of the Indian sari, but is at the same time interacting with and
reproducing the old, traditional wearer.
Digital space is not cohesive or closed; as Deleuze and Guattari (1988)
suggest, it is a ‘Spatial Striature’, suggesting pathways to cross it and
escape from it, encouraging individuals to let themselves be seduced by
the possibilities of these actions. Unlike analogue spaces, digital spaces
constitute the possibility of being acted upon and thus imply a strong
human presence. The digital space for the sari is a textual manifestation
of a narration. Conversations, expressions and descriptions characterize
the online narratives of the sari. The tactile experience of the sari is carried
forward through the verbal power unleashed on the user. The discourse is
powerful enough to lure even the unsure, the uninitiated into its hypnotic
dialogues. The internet is a predominantly expressive space, and everyone
who is there feels compelled to articulate and address an audience that
is largely unknown and unexplored. This is a paradigm that digresses
from the known, the obligatory, and the traditional expectations for a
sari in everyday life. The subtle semantics of the traditional sari and the
articulations that go with it are altered on the internet, creating communities
of wearers who are constantly sharing and conversing with one another,
prodding, encouraging, and talking design, colors, textures and shapes.
The object draws them into stories; the sari transports women beyond their
physical realm and their immediate relationships. Women evolve their
personas through these online expressions. The digital space allows the
women to narrate for themselves and for the public, and they gleefully play
between their real identities and their digital selves. They become willing
‘exhibitionists’ as the digital space seduces them and exposes the narratives.
Storytelling and Imagination of the Online Sari
The online presence of the sari is a ‘photographed’ ideal. When you see it
out there, you can relate to it through the flash-light, settings: the idealized
image. It takes a leap of the mind to imaginatively drape it around oneself.
So the sari is a source of myths online, it is all about the power of our
imaginations and our ability to project our self-images. For example below
is the extent to which women can transcend the material discomfort in
order to project an easy inhabitation of the sari:
“I grew up in a middleclass household where women had a
catchphrase for what they wore at home. Mothers and aunts
would call it ‘ghawrey-pawra sari’. In an unhappy translation, it
would mean the sari meant to be worn inside the house; in other
words, a sari soft and comfortable enough to accompany a woman’s
housekeeping movements. This was in contradistinction to the
stiffness of the sari worn outside, one that did not lend itself to
easy movements. In a Byloom sari such as this one, I find that the
distinction has evaporated: it is possible to live in this cotton sari.9
Another example of mythical imagination that can take it to heights
of poetic essence is this woman who compares the sari to the myth of
Scheherazade, and weaving the complexity of the colours and lines into a
climax:
“This is my favorite shade of blue, which, for want of a name, I call
‘condensed blue’. While I could spend an afternoon talking about
my love for this color, the truth is that its beauty could only be
revealed in a fabric and texture as beautiful as this one. It’s one that
does not leave you at visual pleasure alone. I chose this sari from a
photograph I caught in a newspaper. All the news in the day’s paper
was forgotten. 10
This is Scheherazade’s sari, I tell my niece: a story is waiting to be
told. The colors seem to be engaged in a random conversation.
In school, our art teacher once gave us a lesson on colors – how
they were different and related at the same time. In this sari I see
9
Quoted from https://www.facebook.com/byloomonline/?fref=ts
10
Ibid
the colors broken into lines and then, like the circular disc in the
Physics lab which, when turned rapidly, brought all the colors into
the climax of white, this sari dissolves and remains indifferent to
mixing at the same time.11”
It is almost like a poetic license unleashed on the fabric of the whole six
yards of unstitched material. The written word takes over what was once
discussed between women orally, and the written word ‘insists’, further
entrenching the mythical realm of the Sari into the life and hearts of the
women. And that is the enormous success of the ‘Online Sari’.
“My friends have a word for this sari: ‘Nilambari’. However it is not only
the blueness of the sky that I find in it. I find this sari mysterious: I’ve never
felt – and perhaps looked – the same on the various occasions I’ve worn it.
I grew up in Himalayan Bengal, and when I look at this photograph, taken
by a young girl whose hamlet I’d gone to visit, I find it almost emerging, as
it were, from our blue mountains. That is a reminder to me, again, of how
organic the relation between what we wear and what we live is.”
The whole tactile and sensorial appeal of traditional sari buying is replaced
with struggles in one’s mind about possibilities and hopes, and in the ways
the mannequin or mannequin-like bodies that wear the sari entice the
viewer. The shapes of these bodies can be enticing and distracting, making
it an out of the body experience. But nobody complains, and ultimately
the mannequin wins the attention. What is even more interesting is that
women are becoming blasé and very confident about their bodies when
they send their picture for posting to the designer on their sites. It is an
interesting way to overcome the ‘mannequin block’ and show up for what
you are, how you look and for one’s own body. But the sub-text is clear,
‘show and flaunt’, don’t get left behind.
3.1 Narratives of Arbitrations: Online avatars

Expressions in the online space are mediated through ‘avatars’12. In the
digital context an avatar could be the representative of an individual user
within a virtual space. According to Meadows, avatars are created according
to the interaction between space and user, and may represent different
world perspectives much as people themselves do (Meadows 2008: 13).
‘Avatars may come in different sizes and shapes; they could simply
be profile images used in a social media platform or advanced animated
11
From https://www.facebook.com/byloomonline/?fref=ts
12
The term avatar is originated from a religious context of Hinduism, and the Sanskrit or-
igin of the word defines the worldly apparitions of divine beings (Partridge, 2005, p.148).
character models inside a video game. The avatar is a sub-medium of online

communications and expressions.’ (Sengun, S: 150)
In the context of the Sari, the women who buy and the women who
arbitrate are avatars, constructing an image of themselves much beyond
who they are. The internet makes the buyer vulnerable and exposed to
eyes that see her, evaluate her, and create expectations of their self-image
too. She is the center of a different kind of a ‘gaze’ that is materialistic and
commercial, as well as objective and critical. The designer, who creates
these saris and presents them online, is also at the center of the entire gaze
and is the mediator who ensures a parity and acceptance which makes
every woman feel good about her image.
The avatar can become a more intimate construct of self than the physical
self itself. Lacan observes that “other is the one who sees me” (Lacan 1992:
19) and through this gaze one feels the desire which cannot be fully realized
in the physical. However in the virtual the user has the ability to create
infinite linguistic representation of his or her self and fulfill each desire by
phasing into the avatar and matching the gaze’
The Sari’s designer is deeply conscious of the gaze on her and must
become the avatar of the arbitrator, who does not allow for any unfortunate
exchange between her viewers and buyers and creates an ambience of
‘win-win’ for all. Both merge into their ‘avatars’ to match their ‘self-gaze’
and the ‘gaze’ of the others, in an interesting fusion of a spatial condition
orchestrated in and through the digital space. Below is a reproduction of
dialogue taken from Facebook, an exchange between the designer and her
online friend.
Na Lalidi. This was specifically made for someone. Planning to
do a similar one in olive (instead of orange) and brown instead of
ivory13...
Here the designer panders to the gaze of the viewer and her own self-
gaze -
Sohini- as I browse your Fb shop, I kept wondering who you are.
Ur vision is so clear, Ur passion is so reflective, Ur creations r sooo
unique, Ur values r so deep, Ur communication is so simple n Ur
connectivity to one n all around you is so straight! I had to write
this note to you n say ‘you r Blessed’ indeed by ur Lord Ganesha”.....
and with these lovely words Shiva Bhowmick becomes a part of
13
Quote from https://www.facebook.com/DorDesignsBySohini/?fref=ts
the DOR family.....Thanks so very much for the sweet message...u

surely made my day..:))14
The Gaze also involves co-opting of family and friends..and thus grows
and perpetuates online….
Kshamani–we are so happy that you and your ma are now parts of
our family :) love the fact that she wore her saris for her birthday,
which means a lot to us. Huge hug to ma and you :)15
This in itself is a big boost to the women, who are essentially competitive
and aspirational. The effect of images of other women who might look better
and more attractive in these saris is mitigated by the designer ensuring the
women that everyone looks lovely. Women have also expressed that they
overcome their inhibitions after the initial mental blocks and go all out to
flaunt their new saris and their new selves. It is a space for experimentation
of not just new fabrics and textures, but also for who they are, and what
they can look in new designs and new aesthetics.
Udd is a happy textile brand, we at Udd encourage the Bohemian
Spirit and get inspired by folk -tribal art, which is then transformed
into beautiful art fabrics!! We encourage artists at heart whether
they be from rural India or young urbans!!16
We are designing a SPECIAL UDD Lengha set for an even More
SPECIAL UDD woman- for the most important day of her life- we
are thrilled- honored- excited- nervous!!
We worked on a special SHIV- PARVATI ON NANDI art work for
her Lengha !!17
They get views and comments that make them feel elated and liked,
and help them to take the next step, and get bolder in their experiments
with the sari, making this space utopian and free from the constraints of a
typical offline space.
3.2 ‘Titled online Sari’

Traditional Indian Saris have always been known by their titles which
correspond to their weave, the region, or the style of design and printing
– Kalamkari, Kanjeevaram, Paithani, Tangail, Bomkai, Madurai Cotton
14
Ibid
15
ibid
16
ibid
17
Quoted from https://www.facebook.com/Uddstories/?fref=ts
etc. Designers on Facebook have created identities for their saris in

continuation with this tradition, but in a metaphorical realm. ‘Dor’, UDD,
Anga Chhaya, ByLoom, Nextiles, Raw Mango18….these are some of the
titles that create individual identities for the designers and are umbrella
terms that subsume the designer’s intent. The metaphorical titles allow for
unrestricted experimentation and expression for the designer, and allow
her to borrow aesthetics from traditional prints, weaves, designs, textures
and weaves. ‘Inter-textual’ and ambiguous title semantics fosters curiosity,
and allows for a flexible attachment to the designs. Some designers like
to maintain their personal name as the identity of their creativity; these
belong to a different class who do not like to be in a competitive zone like
most others. They create designs as their personal ideology, their belief
in fabrics, traditional weaves, textures, colors and designs. They are in no
hurry to arouse curiosity and their presence is deliberate, slow and easy.
They make no announcements of their forthcoming creations, nor do they
call out to their potential customers, they are happy being admired and
liked for what they create by a few. Their designs are a carry forward of
the original designs, and are presented as time-tested traditions, unlike
the others, who create new forms and new aesthetics, experimenting and
creating excitement around their forthcoming designs.
Black self-patterned supernet jacquard with rich embroidered border
with contrast jamevar pleats in green n gold with matching blouse fabric...
with elegant green gold latkans hanging from the pallu ends...19
3.3 Digital Sari and democratic alliances

The image of the object in the digital is the final image, without the
experiences of the fabric, the wearing of it, the stitching of the blouse, the
accessories, or any other live feeling that is mandatory with the purchase of
the offline Sari. The conversation that surrounds the stitching of the blouse
with the tailor is one of the most significant aspects of the traditional Sari
culture. Some of this is attempted on Facebook, when the designer discusses
this with her buyers and gives her options of how the final product will
look. Some designers attempt to seal the transaction by offering to get the
blouses stitched for the clientele, and identity is fostered by creating specific
kinds of cuts and designs for the blouses.
The client on the other hand has a different relationship with the local
tailor, with whom she shares a much more direct dialogue and even
engages in almost a duel over the design, the delivery date, and the cut,
18
Names of the online designer sari pages on Facebook
19
Quoted from https://www.facebook.com/DorDesignsBySohini/?fref=ts
and expresses her displeasure if something goes wrong. The tailor, in this
case usually male, shares a familiar relationship with his client, given
that as an outsider ‘male’ he is allowed to measure and comment on her
changing body aesthetics, a sanction that he acquires over many years of
transactions. The tailor can also be dragged into revelations of the new
designs, or competitive aesthetics of other women, and co-opted into
cultures of rivalry and envy. He tends to give them a sneak preview, a sneak
peek at other’s fabrics and designs and thus becomes a co-conspirator in
their desire to look the best.
Online, this conspiracy angle gets all mixed up in articulations of
‘democratic alliances’ between the designer and the client. The designer
has to ensure that none of her clients are betrayed, sometimes even fails to
reveal any special designs made on ‘customized’ orders. It is a distance and
a hard attempt to maintain parity between all her existing and potential
clients. Her image is much more at stake, as her business depends on it.
Like local vendors who claim rights over their territory, the local tailor,
too is not looking actively for new clients. He exists in an oasis that he
has created over years and years of personal interactions. The relationship
he shares with each of his clients cannot be replicated online, because
there are rules and codes of behavior that disallow any discussions beyond
professional boundaries. Also, the terms of endearment online are very
universal and applied to everyone equally. The terms of address usedare
very similar, and though some of these designers do try (admirably) to
include personal statements in their conversations about the designs, it is
after all an ‘open arena’ that is being witnessed by others at the same time.
The designer has to play a balancing act between making personal and
endearing conversations with some and ensuring that she doesn’t sound
aloof and distant with others. Unlike the local tailor, she also has little
access to the person’s life, or real persona, so it is all in her imagination and
her creation of this person that she addresses and can only hope that the
person really is as ‘wonderful’ and ‘amazing’ as she imagines her to be.
Don’t have any more of the fabric left. Besides this I am making
another one with this same kalamkar20in pleats on brownish
mustard jute silk with real hand painted kalamkari work on the
pallu...that will be ready soon.21
20
Kalamkari or Qalamkari is a type of hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile, pro-
duced in parts of India and in Iran. The word is derived from the Persian words ghalam
(pen) and kari (craftmanship), meaning drawing with a pen (Ghalamkar).
21
https://www.facebook.com/DorDesignsBySohini/?fref=ts
She does not have the luxury of being the relaxed, like the local tailor
who knows that he has loyal neighborhood clientele for reasons beyond his
competence and tends to get complacent in the knowledge.
Hello my lovely DOR peeps, a very bright n happy good morning
to all of you. Just so you know, I will be away on vacation starting
Thursday till the 22nd. During this time I will have limited access
to the page, so if you have any queries, questions, concerns, do drop
me a line and I will get back to you at the earliest...and once I am
back in Mumbai, I will be back with yet another range of exclusive
saris from DOR!!! So see y’all then...love n hugs... :)22
See you all today evening. I will start Uploading around 7.30pm IST
and will respond to all queries once the entire batch is uploaded.
Please bear with me till then... :)) and all queries will be responded
to on a first come first basis...there are 14 saris in the current batch...
please do leave your email id as well. I am in the process of creating
a DOR mailing list and plan to do catalogue from next batch for
streamlining the entire process... :)) thanks once again and my
apologies for not keeping my promise of uploading yesterday. See
y’all then in a few hours...much love...23
3.4. ‘Mirror Mirror’: Self-Image in the online Sari

An aligning theme is the ‘dramatis personae’ that women like to
portray. Most women are seen smiling, very happy in their attire, posing
for admiration, or are shown as ‘communities of women’, together in their
aesthetics, walking the streets like cult queens to stake a claim on the space.
So the women display personas like – ‘articulate art aficionados’, ‘history
buffs’, ‘art collectors’, ‘conservationists’, etc.:
Grids appeal to me in a way that is difficult to explain. Whether
it is in the paintings of Paul Klee and Pete Mondrian, the alpana
patterns around the tulsimawncho or the game of dots and crosses,
there is something about them. To quote my niece again, this is an
‘Arithmetic notebook’ sari. What marks this sari out for me is the
surprise that comes in the red border. 24
I think one of the charms of a Byloom sari is that it is always
quoting something or someone: a memory, a person, a period in
22
ibid
23
ibid
24
From https://www.facebook.com/byloomonline/?fref=ts
history, even a mood. As someone who likes negotiating with the

past in various ways (the tanpura in the background belonged to
my mother-in-law, and when I framed it into a table, I thought it
was one way of ensuring that she was in the living room whenever
we had guests visiting), this is something about Byloom’s aesthetic
that appeals a lot to me.25
Just as the sari is the most beautiful ‘anti-fit’ garment we know, so
is the Byloom sari’s way of playing with it. Nowhere is this more
apparent than in this sari which has a remarkable elasticity that
lends itself to a wonderful drape.26
Truth be told, this is the most comfortable sari I’ve worn in my life.
And in the villages where I visit on work, a female jute cultivator
once asked me, ‘Can you wear this sari to sleep? It looks so soft’.27
As with other Byloom saris, I can wear it in classrooms and under
the sky.28
Conclusion
The traditional, offline sari can be folded, molded, non-starched, un-
ironed, and unkempt, yet it still remains a ‘sari’. Does this serve to achieve
a sense of mastery or comfort with the sari? It is said to vindicate the sari’s
iconic status and the potential difficulties of inhabiting the garment. With
‘elevation’ comes the potential for a fall. The sari is not a ‘rational’ garment
in the same sense as the other popular ‘salwar kameez’29 has become over
time in India30. The sari is far more flexible in its appearance and in its
symbolism, and is far from the rational enterprise of modernity as Banerjee
and Miller assert. It does not belong to the realm of science, efficiency,
utility and output and is on the other side, where there is beauty, radiance
and womanly glow. The two most popular garments in India straddle the
platforms of the ‘practical’ and the ‘symbolic’. In the midst of all this is
the online sari that serves to create a dialogue of expectations, dreams,
25
https://www.facebook.com/byloomonline/?fref=ts
26
ibid
27
ibid
28
ibid
29
Salwar Kameez is popular attire originating in the north of India and Pakistan. The shal-
war are loose Pajama -like trousers. The legs are wide at the top, and narrow at the ankle.
The kameez is a long shirt or tunic, often seen with a Western-style collar; however, for
female apparel, the term is now loosely applied to collarless or mandarin styled collars.
30
See Banerjee and Miller, 2004 for further discussion on the Salwar Kameez and the sari
aspirations and linkages. It has become a dialogue on the art of imagining,

dreaming, wondering, and posing questions about the sari. In a strange way
it seeks to remove the ‘symbolic’ from the essential sari and borrow imagery
from the ‘practical’, in an attempt to make the sari more conversational.
This online discourse seems to create the first few steps that the uninitiated,
the curious, and the excited onlooker require to inhabit the sari in future.
In a quirky manner it has replaced the maternal voices that surround the
sari in Indian homes and is bringing in a soft, cajoling, convincing approval
for all those women who dare to try it on. The online sari can be termed as
a resounding success, its technological buffering notwithstanding, due to
its ‘narratives’.
The ‘story’ of the sari is being retold in multiple ways in the digital
space, and it is this telling that is attracting the women to participate and
‘retell’ it further. But the essential sari remains where it is, steadfast, multi-
functional, articulate in several spaces, and is still seen as the most coveted
symbolic garment for a woman’s beauty. It is the people around the sari who
change, re-invent and celebrate the length and breadth of the same. The
online space for the Sari plays a major role in reinventing the fundamental
relationship of the object with the user. By making the Sari more accessible
the online space breaks the constraints of physical space (be it of the house,
the courtyard, the market or the tailor shop) and encourages an altered
interaction with the object. The fluid typology of this online space, allowing
users to connect different data sets to create instant representation, goes a
long way toward de-mystifying the Sari and reinventing it as a cultural idea.
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Websites: Facebook pages: Dor Designs by Sohini, AngaChhaya: an on-
line boutique, Mahua Sarkar Sen, Raw Mango, UDD, ByLoom, Nextiles
PART III Digital Age in
Corporate Communication
143
ENGAGING BRAND COMMUNICATION IN

FACEBOOK – A TYPOLOGY OF
THE BRAND PAGE USERS
Yagodina Kartunova
[email protected]
Abstract
Facebook offers great opportunities for brands to connect with custom-
ers and build relationships with them in order to increase their loyalty and
the company’s sales. In regards to these goals, one of the most important
key performance indicators is the customers’ activity – liking, comment-
ing, sharing, recommending, expressing love, etc. On one hand, there is a
lot of research on customers’ engagement, behavior and motivation. These
studies provide valuable information for marketers to understand the way
in which individuals use the social network and interact with others as
well as the reasons behind their actions. Based on this knowledge they can
develop their communication strategies and create content which has im-
pact on the target audience. On the other, there are still some research gaps
which can be further explored. One of them is related to the impact of one
of the most important company assets – the brand culture, on the custom-
144 Yagodina Kartunova
er’s behavior and willingness to become part of the digital brand story. This
paper presents a Facebook brand page users typology, developed by using
a semiotic approach, which is based on their brand culture adoption and
brand narrative engagement.
Keywords: Facebook brand communication, brand culture, applied se-

miotics, digital communication
1. Introduction
The customers are the core of every marketing strategy – in digital me-
dia as well as in more traditional ones like television and radio. On the
Internet, rich information is collected about every step of the user’s on-
line journey – websites visited, time spent on them, actions, interest, etc.
Companies can buy or find every piece of the digital footprint of the target
audience, and use it to craft their communication strategies and send high-
ly targeted messages. But this is just one part of the knowledge they need
to create iconic brands which build loyal relationships based on love with
their customers. A quantitative survey of more than 10 000 marketers from
92 countries, conducted by Harvard Business Review, reveals that brands
are distinguished by their ability to integrate data on what consumers are
doing with knowledge of why they are doing it, granting new insights about
consumers’ needs and how to best meet them (Arons, 2014). Facebook
provides detailed statistics about their customers’ characteristics and ac-
tions. These numbers are really valuable, but marketers need to combine
them with deep understanding of customers’ behavior, the way meaning is
conveyed, the way customers interpret the brand messages, the motivation
behind their actions, etc. This way companies can create value for the target
audience and build relationships with the prospects.
By clicking on the Like button, Facebook users become fans of the
brand, and if the algorithm of the social network decides that the content
published by the company is relevant it appears on customers’ newsfeeds.
The trend over the last couple of years is that Facebook limits the brand
content, or the so called organic reach. Experts believe that only 2% of
brand fans see its posts if they are not sponsored. One of the main reasons
is that the number of brands on the social network is increasing, and as
Facebook wants to show relevant content which will engage the users, its
algorithm focuses on the personal publications. That is why organic (non-
paid) visibility is becoming one of the main challenges for companies. One
possible solution is to promote posts. The other is to create content which
ENGAGING BRAND COMMUNICATION... 145
engages the customer and inspires interaction. The third one is to motivate
the users to change their settings and choose to see every brand post – this
is also related to building relationship with the target audience by creating
meaningful content which leads to action.
The creation of engaging content, and building relationships with the
target audience, are currently one of the main marketing challenges for
companies. Although there is a lot of research related to this topic and their
numbers is constantly increasing, there are still some gaps which are of im-
portance for the development of successful corporate communication. One
of them is the impact of a brand culture on the target audience’s actions.
This article aims to present a typology of the Facebook users of brand pag-
es, based on their perception of the culture elements (values, rituals, hero,
symbols) and their impact on customers’ behavior. It will help marketers to
segment the target audience, to create valuable and relevant content which
drives customer behavior and which is valuable for the brand. Although
it can be applied to other social media, our research focus is on Facebook
since it is currently the most popular communication channel used by cus-
tomers and companies. This study is related particularly to brand pages
because that is the official place where a company can tell its mythological
story, present its culture, and motivate users to become part of the brand
story by developing it.
2. Facebook and brand communication

It has become a common truth that Facebook has changed the way in-
dividuals interact. The main goal of the social network is to connect people
and give them a digital platform where they can communicate, exchange
information, and most importantly develop their personal digital story
and build their identities. The word “friend” has changed its meaning – on
Facebook people connect not only with their strong ties (close friends and
relatives) but also with their weak ties (acquaintances, even strangers with
shared interests). This way they can create a large network of connections
that can be extremely valuable for brands. Since 2009, posts from brands
have begun to appear in the news feed. This way they become part of indi-
viduals’ digital daily routine. By then the need to check the newsfeed on a
daily basis had become a habit for individuals all over the world. Facebook
states that people are interested in brands and use them to express them-
selves and build their identity. Mark Zuckerberg’s team bases its decision
on Marshall McLuhan’s idea of a global villages connected with one uni-
versal communication platform (Kirkpatrick, 2011). In this way Facebook
changes the relationship between a customer and a brand by offering on-
going two-way communication in real time – something that is impossible

in traditional media as well as in some new media formats.
With this new opportunity the brand experts face a new challenge –
how to create criteria for the success of the corporate communication on
the social network. At the beginning marketers followed the same logic
as in other new media channels – at that time advertisers payed for the
number of impressions. According to this method, the number of fans be-
comes the main KPI (key performance indicator), as they are the potential
receivers of brand messages. Marketing budgets are invested in increasing
the number of brand page fans, and experts are trying to find a correlation
between their number and the increase in sales. With time marketers came
to understand that the quantitative factor cannot be the only indicator for
success, and it is difficult to prove there is a direct link between an increase
in fans and an increase in company sales. With time, communication ex-
perts changed their approach and started paying more attention to interac-
tions with the fans and their feedback. They evaluate not only the immedi-
ate results such as the increase in sales but the long term benefits related to
customers’ behavior (building relationships, loyalty, etc.).
With the development of social media and improved tools for data analy-
sis related to customers’ behavior and pages’ performance, communication
is now focused on the engagement of the brand page’s fans (Kleine-Kalmer
2016:12). More and more companies realize the opportunity to understand
the customers’ way of creating meaning and thus to build relationships with
them, to exchange signs directly with the customers and thus influence
their interpretation and brand perception which will lead to decision mak-
ing. Currently fans’ engagement rate and the number of people reached are
the main KPIs for the success of brand pages on Facebook.
3. Existing research
3.1. Customer engagement
Customer engagement is defined as a contextual psychological state with
cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dimensions that have different levels
of intensity and play a major role in the relationship between the company
and consumer (Brodie et al., 2011). This is related not only to purchase, but
also to recommendation, active sharing of the positive experience with the
brand (van Doorn et al., 2010), and repeat purchase and loyalty (Verhoef et
al., 2010). Customers’ engagement can have different value for the compa-
ny depending on the following 4 components (Kumar et al., 2016):
- Brand purchase;
- Recommendation;
- Influencing the opinion and behavior of other prospects;

- Feedback.
A study on customers’ behavior (van Doorn et al., 2010) defines engage-
ment as a “behavioral element which is not limited only to purchase”, and
is related to motivation (on a cognitive, behavioral and emotional level)
to interact with the brand (ibid:253). The scientists based their survey on
previous research on sales, word of mouth, recommendations, and publi-
cations, and take into account the preconditions and consequences of the
audience’s actions. As a result, they identify 5 aspects of consumer engage-
ment (ibid: 255):
- Connotation: the way the customer sees the brand;
- Form or modality: the type of interaction the customer
chooses to communicate with the brand;
- Reach: time (sporadic or long-term) and location (global or
local) of the engagement;
- Impact: refers to the effect that the engagement has on the
brand. It may be immediate or postponed in time, strong or
weak, affecting many people or not, etc.;
- Consumer goals: if individual goals match and meet those
of the brand, their engagement increases.
Based on Van Doorn’s research, the marketing professor Gummerus
(2012) analyses the customer engagement in the Facebook community.
She believes that given the specifics of the social network, experts need to
take into account the passive reading of posts which can also impact their
behaviors. In her study Gummerus defines two types of customer engage-
ment in a Facebook community (Kleine-Kalmer 2016:20):
- Related to the group: interactions with the other members
and satisfying individual needs (likes, comments, etc.);
- Related to the brand: activity related to the brand.
The researchers discovered that most users are passive members of the
group, but did not find the reasons behind this behavior. When building
their corporate communication on the social network, the company must
take into account both types of engagement–passive and active (Schau et
al., 2009). The first is related to consuming and experiencing the brand’s
content by watching and reading. The second one inspires action in the
form of liking or expressing other type of emotion, sharing the brand’s
content, generating one’s own content related to the brand, etc. The main
difference between the two is the user’s decision to share her opinion with
others or not. In regard to this, one of the biggest challenges for companies
is to inspire active engagement, as it can have an impact on the opinion and

behavior of the other prospects.
The most reputable research companies also conduct studies on cus-
tomer engagement and share some important conclusions and definitions.
Customer engagement is defined as the emotional bond between the com-
pany and its target audience, and has serious impact on the customer be-
havior (Gallup, 2014). According to the same study there are three types
of customers – fully engaged, neutral, and actively not engaged; who are
classified according to their answers to three main questions:
- The company always delivers what it promises;
- I am proud to be a customer of the brand;
- The brand is perfect for people like me.
In this regard, in order to motivate he customers to be actively engaged,
companies need to focus on meeting the customer’s expectations, on con-
necting with them on an emotional level, and on paying attention to the
social factor and the user’s need to belong to a group of people with shared
interests. Companies need to inspire meaningful and relevant conversa-
tions and to match and even predict the dynamically developing needs of
customers (SAP and Forbes, 2015). Customer engagement is the ongoing
meaningful dialog between the brand and the individual, and is based on
knowledge about the behavior and the needs of the target audience. The
main challenges for companies is to effectively use social media and to
meet customers’ needs. Facebook is seen as the most effective social net-
work which allows brands to connect with their customers, and therefore
is one of the main important communication channels through which
brands have the opportunity to communicate with the target audience and
increase its engagement in order to build a strong brand community. This
is accomplished through an ongoing process of delivering valuable and rel-
evant content (Pulizzi, 2012).
3.2. Brand communities

Building a strong brand community is one of the most powerful mar-
keting tools. Muniz and O’Guinn define the brand community as a special-
ized, non-geographically bound community based on a structured set of
social relations among admirers of a brand (Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001:412).
These are groups whose online interactions are based on shared enthusiasm
for and knowledge about consumption practices (Kozinets, 1999). They are
of different sizes and their members interact with each other in order to
achieve shared as well as personal goals (Dholakia et al., 2004). One of its
most important aspects is that the brand community creates subcultures

with its own myths, values, rituals, hierarchy, and tone of voice (Cova and
Pace, 2006). In modern society, different forms of subculture unite individ-
uals through shared experiences based on common beliefs, lifestyles and
consumer behaviors (Cova et al., 2012). Despite the possibility of different
motivations for participation, members of the group certainly share one
thing–the creation and negotiation of meaning (McAlexander et al., 2002).
Brands evolve in the digital space and increase their value in the ongoing
process of sharing meaning among individuals (Patterson and O’Malley,
2006). Customers who are members of the brand community feel more
connected with the brand compared to the others (Kim et al., 2008). Build-
ing a brand community in social media could have a positive impact on the
relationship between the brand and the target audience, as well as increase
the company’s sales (Kumar et al., 2016). In summary, users can create val-
ue for the brand by participating in the brand community as they:
- Contribute to the interaction between members and increase their en-
gagement;
- Create positive brand content;
- Improve the brand usage (Schau et al., 2009).
Some researchers consider brand communities and brand pages to be
similar things as they are both related to positive customers’ attitude (Des-
sart et al., 2015). “Since brand fan pages are organized around a single brand,
product, or company, they can be seen as a special kind of brand communi-
ty” (Kunz and Benedikt, 2012:347), though there is no scientific proof that
brand pages are equal to a brand community. The expert Melanie Zaglia
(2013) conducts a netnography research on the two ways to create a brand
community on Facebook – brand pages, and groups. She concludes that
the page is the weaker form of community, and differs significantly from
the group. Other research proves that a very small percentage of a brand
page’s fans are active on it (Kleine-Kalmer, 2016:53-54), which is opposed
to the idea of shared rituals and behavioral practices intrinsic to commu-
nity. Creating a Facebook brand page does not necessarily lead to building
a brand community, and the two concepts need to be distinguished. Com-
panies need to create and develop a successful communication strategy in
order to transform the group into a community. This success is based on
shared values and the brand culture, represented by the brand story. In or-
der to convey meaning in a comprehensible and effective way, the company
must explore and understand their behavior, which is related to their moti-
vation and emotions, which are both in turn affected by culture (de Mooij
and Hofstede, 2011:186).
3.3. Customers’ motivation

The relation between brand content and customers’ motivation leads
to engagement and positive attitude towards the brand (Van Doorn et al.,
2010). A great part of the research on brand communities aims at identi-
fying the customers’ motivation to participate in them. Motivation is an
intrinsic desire to satisfy a need or a desire (Deci and Ryan, 1985). From
the definition becomes clear that motivation is related to action. In brief,
there are several motivations for liking a Facebook brand page:
- Connecting with others, satisfying the need of belonging to a
group of like-minded people (Bosch, 2009; Sheldon, 2008);
- Building identity, self-realization (Joinson, 2008);
- Sharing and searching for information, learning new things
(Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008; Bosch, 2009; Pempek et al.,
2009);
- Entertainment, hedonistic motivation (Lewis and West, 2009;
Joinson, 2008; Sheldon, 2008).
In order to build a successful corporate communication strategy on
Facebook, companies need to understand not only users’ motivation for
liking the brand page but also the factors which influence their activity and
engagement. Although most studies focus on the reasons for joining the
brand group, some researchers study the motivations for interacting with
brand content. Kunz and Benedikt (2012), for example, study the impact of
brand pages on the relationship between users and the brand, and outline
some important conclusions (Kunz and Benedikt, 2012:354):
- The activity of the others motivates users in the group to be
active too;
- Shared values are one of the most important factors for build-
ing a relationship and increasing customer engagement;
- Interaction between the members of the page increases their
engagement;
- Companies must deliver value to their fans, or they will be pas-
sive and may even unlike the page–the more the brand page
satisfies the consumers’ needs and delivers value, the greater the
opportunity for its fans to be active.
Another study on the customers activity provides interesting findings
(Wirtz et al., 2013):
- Relationship with the brand: the more the individual recog-

nizes the values and identity of the brand, the more he feels
connected to its members.
- The value of participating in the brand community: it is related
to the relevance of the information and the special incentives
the company offers;
- The structure of the community: the size and the development
of the page affects the engagement of its fans.
In brief, researchers outline several reasons for users’ activity: liking the
brand, interaction, obtaining practical incentives, entertainment, and im-
age building.
On Facebook, customers use brands as symbols for certain meanings,
social status, interests, etc. On one hand they use Facebook as a tool to
build their desired image, and on the other they indicate whether other us-
ers have similar values and beliefs. The desire to connect and build an im-
age are the main reasons for active engagement (Dholakia et al., 2004:259).
Trust is another important factor which influences a user’s activity level.
That is why if the company publishes content which shows the individual
that it shares her values and corresponds to her lifestyle, it can decrease
feelings of insecurity and increase the feeling of community. If the compa-
ny helps the user to express herself, it increases her love and her willingness
to share it (Wallace et al., 2014). From a cognitive point of view, social
identity is related to the awareness of similarities between group members
and differentiation from others (Dholakia et al., 2004: 245). This is why
companies need to align every post with their brand culture and focus on
the shared values of customers in order to increase their activity and en-
gagement.
3.4. Limitations and opportunities

Although there is a growing body of research on brand communica-
tion and its impact on customers’ engagement, there is still an opportunity
to gain more knowledge on customers’ behavior. The main gap is a study
which shows how brand elements affect engagement. Most studies aim at
clarifying the motivation of users, as it impacts their decision to be ac-
tive or passive and is an important factor for building a brand community.
However, there is no research which studies how the brand culture affects
this motivation. “Motivation is an assumed force operating inside an indi-
vidual, inducing him or her to choose one action over another. Culture as
collective programming of the mind thus plays an obvious role in motiva-
tion. Culture influences not only our behaviors but also the explanations
we give for our behaviors ” (Hofstede et al., 2010: 327). In regard to this, a
typology which takes into account the willingness of different types of fans
to connect with the brand story and the impact of the values, rituals, brand
heroes and symbols on it, will deepen the knowledge about the customers’
behavior in Facebook. It answers important questions related to the moti-
vations of different users to engage with the brand mythology and the role
of the shared rituals, connecting the brand and the role of brand culture
with the purchase intent. The answers will help experts build corporate
communication which builds brand communities and actively engage their
fans.
4. Facebook brand page users’ typology

Individuals intuitively classify other people as “we” (part of their com-
munity) or “they” (not part of their community) (Hofstede et al., 2010:16).
They make this judgment based on their culture (values, beliefs) which
impact the way they create and interpret meaning. “Most people most of
the time are busy being good members of the groups to which they be-
long” (ibid:17). This logically determines their behavior. Hofstede believes
that technological developments and digital media are a mirror to the cus-
tomer’s behavior, but while they affect the outer cultural layers (symbols,
heroes, consumption practices) they do not have an influence upon the
values which remain more or less the same (ibid:19). Values are implicit,
which is why they are not affected by fashionable trends or by the dynamic
development of new media. This is the main reason they could be the core
of a successful communication strategy which brings value and powerful
meanings to customers. Nevertheless, cultural elements have a different
impact on the various types of users of brand pages in Facebook. That is
why marketers need to study their specific influence in order to create tar-
geted brand messages.
The typology of Facebook band page users proposed in this paper is
created after conducting various kinds of research – a brand page semiotic
analysis, a netnographic research, a qualitative study, and a quantitative
study.
The purpose of the typology is to classify Facebook fan page users
into categories which are valid for all brand pages; but in order to col-
lect the necessary primary data for the analysis, the study began with a
specific study – the brand page of Johnnie Walker www.facebook.com/
JohnnieWalkerBulgaria/). This page was chosen because the brand has a
powerful mythological story and a well-recognized hero, and the company
states that the culture of the brand and its customers is at the core of its
communication and success (Epstein, 2014). The Facebook page of John-

nie Walker is aligned with this marketing strategy and develops the brand
story. Every post is part of the coherent brand text and conveys the brand
meanings, thus creating the brand myth. The great myths are based on the
empathic understanding of the greatest human desires and fears because
they have an impact on the whole society (Holt, 2004:212). As a result,
companies can create cultural texts which reflect the existential concerns of
the society. The posts of Johnnie Walker can be classified into 5 main types:
- Company values: the brand posts motivational quotes on a
weekly basis related to the customers’ and brand’s values. They
reflect the personal desire to develop and self-realize. The brand
becomes a signifier of personal growth and inner strength.
These posts are the most engaging as they motivate users to be
active – to like, share, comment and express love with emoti-
cons, etc.
- Lifestyle symbols: the second level of meaning of some posts
creates the ideal lifestyle for the target audience by using sym-
bols such as an expensive watch (professional success), camera
(travel), skyscraper (high achievement), etc.
- Ritual of exchange: some of the brand posts initiate meaning
transfer and present the product as the perfect gift.
- Symbols of consumption: the most recognizable communica-
tion codes related to the whiskey category are ice and the specif-
ic glasses, which are aimed at increasing the desire to consume
the product.
- Symbols of heritage: other strong symbols used by the brand
are related to its historical heritage because consumers associ-
ated it with quality (for example the barrel).
After identifying the different brand posts based on its culture, a net-
nographic study was conducted in order to identify the behavior, motiva-
tions, culture, values and norms of the Johnnie Walker Facebook page fans.
Netnography is the use of ethnographic approach to study online culture
and societies (Kozinets 2010:6). It studies ideas, social practices, relations,
languages and symbol systems. In order to identify different types of fans
based on their reactions and attitudes towards the brand culture, all the
posts and actions on the Johnnie Walker Facebook page from the brand
and its users were studied. This analysis was followed by a qualitative study.
8 fans participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted to
find out more about their perceptions of the brand culture and its impact
on their passive or active behavior. The research questions were:
- What is the motivation of the users to like a Facebook brand

page?
- Is this motivation linked to the user’s expectations for the brand
content?
- Is this motivation linked to the user’s activity on the page af-
terwards?
- How the brand culture elements impact the user’s activity?
- Does the image on Facebook, built by the user, affect her activ
ity on the brand page?
- To what extent the motivation for active behavior is influenced
by the other brand page fans?
- Is there a correlation between the user’s activity on the brand
page and the intention to use the product/service?
Besides the questions, the respondents were shown different types of
brand posts in order to collect data about their reactions and perceptions.
Then a quantitative study with 100 respondents was conducted in order
to verify the primary data and the research hypothesis formulated during
the previous stages (see Appendix 1). The research questions were:
- To what extent the different types of users are willing to link
their personal story on Facebook to the brand story?
- To what extent are the users willing to participate in brand rit-
uals?
- To what extent do the users tend to learn the whole story of the
brand narrated in the various new media channels?
- Do the users identify with the brand and its values?
- Which elements of the brand culture (values, hero, symbols)
impact the user’s activity?
- What are the reasons for their active and passive behavior?
- What would motivate the different types of users to interact
with the other page fans and create brand community?
As a result, 4 types of
Facebook brand page us-
ers were identified based
on their willingness to
share the brand story and
their attitude towards the
brand:
Based on the impact that brand culture elements have on users’ will-
ingness to share and develop the brand story, 4 main types of users were
identified: seekers, influencers, supporters and detached storytellers.
- Seekers: their motivation to like the page is functional and re-
lated to the individual desire to win/to get an incentive: “If the
prize is attractive enough for me, I would like any kind of brand
page”. At the beginning they are active only if they see the op-
portunity to receive an incentive. However, if the brand values
appeal to their personal values, they are willing to follow the
brand story on other digital channels and even to share it.
- Influencers: they love the brand and want to be part of its digi-
tal life and story. They appreciate not only the functional bene-
fits of the brand but focus on the emotional connection: “I just
feel like receiving updates from a dear friend and I do not want
to miss anything”. They want to join and share not only the dig-
ital brand story but want to participate in offline events. The
influencers identify with the brand values and build their image
based on them.
- Supporters: the largest group of the brand page users. The brand
expresses their lifestyle, they like it and they use it to build their
online image: “I want the others to see that I have unique per-
sonality”. If the brand gives them value, they feel engaged and
they share and develop the brand story.
- Detached: they like the page because somebody has asked them
to, or Facebook has suggested a page for them. At the begin-
ning they are passive, they do not recognize the brand values
and culture: “I noticed that a lot of my friends with similar in-
terests have liked the page and I decided to give it a chance”. If
the brand succeeds in delivering value to this type of customer
and, most importantly, they identify with the brand values, they
could become supporters. Otherwise they are likely to unlike
the page or remain passive.
Below is a table with a brief summary of their profiles:
Seekers Influencers Supporters Detached
No prior expecta-
The incen- Love the brand tions – because a
Main reason
tives, of- and want to be Feel positive friend has asked
for liking the
fered by the part of its digital about the brand them or many
FB brand page
company story other friends
have liked it, etc.
Main motiva- Emotional and Emotional and

Pragmatic Emotional
tion pragmatic pragmatic
Want to share Relevant brand

their love. information Relevant and use-
Posts which Want to build (new products, ful information
appeal to and image of a interesting infor the brand‘s
Reasons for the users’ brand expert. formation, tips category.
active behav- identity. Use the brand on product us- Posts which ap-
ior Posts with as a symbol of age, etc.) peal to the users‘
brand am- their identity. Posts which identity.
bassadors. Seek appreci- appeal to their Posts with brand
ation from the identity and ambassadors.
brand. values
At first they are
not active be-
cause they do
Content
not know what
which is
to expect from
not inter-
Content which the brand, they
Reasons for esting and
does not appeal do not connect
passive behav- does not Advertisements.
to their identity. with the brand
ior bring ex-
Advertisements. story before they
citement.
get enough in-
Advertise-
formation about
ments.
its identity and
image.
Advertisements.
If they have met
them in per-
son on a brand
event.
Main mo-
To support Share their
tivation for The de-
them. knowledge.
interactions sire to
To connect with If they have met No motivation.
with the other share their
like-minded them personally
brand page knowledge
people. on an event.
fans
To share the
same values.
To feel part of a
group.
Impact of
their activity
on the willing- Medium High High Medium
ness to use the
product
Like almost ev-

Like
Like. ery brand post.
Share and com-
Share. Share and com-
ment.
Rate the ment.
Invite friends to
product. Express love Like.
a brand event or
Invite with emoticons. Share relevant
game.
Main actions friends to a Invite friends to information with
Rate and rec-
on the page brand event a brand event or a friend.
ommend.
or game. game. Join a brand
Write a personal
Join a Rate and recom- cause.
message to the
cause, sup- mend.
brand.
ported by Post on the wall.
Join a brand
the brand. Join a brand
cause.
cause.
Highly likely
to follow the
Highly likely
brand story on
to follow the
the other dig-
brand story on
ital channels:
the other dig-
the company’s
ital channels:
website, news
Follow a the company’s Follow a link to
Interest in related to the
link to the website, news the brand web-
following the brand, other
brand web- related to the site.
brand story on brand social
site, down- brand, other Read brand news.
other digital media pages,
load free brand social Download free
channels download free
content media pages, content.
content, down-
download free
load brand ap-
content, down-
plication, click
load brand ap-
on a banner, etc.
plication, click
Want to be part
on a banner, etc
of the offline life
of the brand.
React posi-
tively to posts
which show the Willing to par-
Impact of the product as part ticipate in the
No No
brand rituals of the rituals ritual of ex-
of exchange, change
possession and
even grooming
React very pos- React very
No, they Build their im-
itively to brand positively
prefer fa- age using the
ambassadors to brand
Impact of the mous peo- brand and want
and the brand ambassadors and
brand hero ple to be to be associated
hero if they brand hero if
brand am- with the brand
identify with they identify with
bassadors hero
them them
Recognize the
Recognize the
brand sym-
brand symbols
bols and they
Impact of the and they in-
No increase their No
brand symbols crease their will-
desire to share
ingness to use
value-creating
the product
practices
Partially
identify Strongly iden-
with the tify with the If they identify
The brand val-
brand brand values with the brand
Impact of the ues are the most
values, no and they react values, they are
brand values important ele-
emotional mostly to posts likely to become
ment
connection related to the supporters.
with the brand identity
brand
Willing to
participate in
Consumption almost every
No Yes No
practices consumption
practice related
to the brand
Willingness
to share and
Yes Yes Yes Yes
develop the
brand story
5. Conclusion
The cultural perspective offers great opportunities to the communica-
tion experts to understand individuals’ meaning creation, which drives
their motivation to feel engaged and to be active. Some of the main insights
from the study of the different types of Facebook brand page users are:
- Brands can motivate every type of user to develop and share
the brand myth if it helps them to build their own digital story;
- Values are the most important element which motivates action;
- People feel more engaged and as part of a brand community if
they experience the brand story offline, not just online;
- People want brands which help them to build their ideal iden-
tity;
- People want to follow the brand story on other digital channels,
etc.
Appendix 1
Questions for the quantitative study:
1. Which statement is the most relevant for you? I like a brand page
on Facebook if:
- the brand can offer me something useful: promotions/tips on product
use/interesting events/rewards, etc.
- I love the brand. I want to receive information about it and be part of
its Facebook community.
- I like the brand. I expect it to publish information that can be useful/
fun/interesting/valuable.
- my friend suggested it for me/ I saw that my friends have liked it/Face-
book offered me to like it.
2. How likely would you do the following things? Please give an an-
swer on each line on a scale of 1 (unlikely), 3 (neutral) to 5 (highly proba-
ble):
- join a group with other brand fans;
- publish results from a brand mobile app in your profile;
- write a personal message to the brand;
- like a brand post;
- comment on a brand post;
- mention your friend in a brand post;
- share a brand post;
- write on the brand wall;
- recommend or rate the brand;
- ask your friend to like the page;
- invite your friend to a brand event;
- invite your friend to participate in a brand game;
- mention the brand in a personal post;
- share a photo with/of the brand in your profile;
- use a photo with/of the brand for a cover photo;
- link your family status to the brand;
- use the brand name for your own;
- use a brand picture for your profile picture.
ble):
- send a post to your friend;
- send a greeting/photo with the brand logo to a friend;
- send a virtual product to a friend;

- participate in a game, regularly organized by the brand;
- participate in an event, regularly organized by the brand;
- use an emoticon created by the brand for personal communi-
cation.
ble):
- follow a link to the brand website;
- like/follow the brand on other social networks (eg. Instagram);
- subscribe to the YouTube channel of the brand;
- go directly to the brand website;
- subscribe to a brand newsletter;
- click on a brand banner;
- read a brand news;
- download free content created by the brand (e-book, white
paper, etc.);
- use an app created by the brand.
5. How would you describe the brand with one word? Please choose
one answer:
- creator: crafts something new;
- caregiver: cares for others;
- ruler: exerts control;
- jester: has a good time;
- regular guy: ok just as they are;
- lover: finds and gives love;
- hero: acts courageously;
- outlaw: breaks the rules;
- magician: affects transformation;
- innocent: retains or renews faith;
- explorer: maintains independence;
- sage: understands the world.
6. How would you describe yourself with one word? Please choose
one answer:
- creator: crafts something new;
- caregiver: cares for others;
- ruler: exerts control;
- jester: has a good time;
- regular guy: ok just as they are;

- lover: finds and gives love;
- hero: acts courageously;
- outlaw: breaks the rules;
- magician: affects transformation;
- innocent: retains or renews faith;
- explorer: maintains independence;
- sage: understands the world.
7. What could motivate you to be active. Please choose all the relevant
answers:
- the brand is like me (my identity);
- the hero (if any) is like me (eg. Johnnie Walker’s striding man,
Captain Morgain’s pirate, etc.);
- a post with a famous person using the brand;
- the people used for the brand visuals/video are like me and do
things which I like to do myself;
- the brand’s symbols give me positive feelings (Apple’s bite ap-
ple, Johnnie Walker’s bottle cut, Coca-Cola red color, etc.);
- something else.
8. What makes you passive? Please choose all the relevant answers:
- the post is not interesting;
- the post is not exciting;
- the post does not appeal to my identity;
- I do not want the others to see what I am doing on Facebook;
- something else.
9. What can motivate you to interact with the other brand page fans?
Please choose all the relevant answers:
- the desire to share my knowledge about the topic of the post/
question/comment;
- nothing can motivate me to interact with them;
- something else.
10. Does you activity on the brand page increase your willingness to
use the brand? Please choose all the relevant answers:
- yes, definitely;
- rather yes;
- rather not;
- no, definitely;
- I can not decide.
11. Your gender:

- female;
- male.
12. Your age:
- 18 or under;
- 18-24;
- 25-34;
- 35-44;
- 45-54;
- 55+
13. Your residence
14. Your educational level
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167
DIGITAL CULTURE OF THE REGULATED

INDUSTRIES. FOCUS: TOBACCO SECTOR
Sevim Asimova
[email protected]
Abstract
Today the world is connected more than ever before and expectation is
½ of the global population to be digitalized till 2020 year. This remarkable
development of internet technologies defines the way people live, includ-
ing our work experiences, shopping attitudes and entertainment modes.
Internet has defined corporate culture, as well. By tracking development
of past, dominant and emerging codes and in the search-reach of proper
consumer, companies nowadays have adopted digital marketing and trade
strategies as one of the efficient ways for doing business. But does digital
marketing work for all industries? There are sectors like pharmacy, alcohol
and tobacco that are regulated and subjected to control due to implied busi-
ness specifics. This article aims to review the digital culture of the regulated
industries. Particular concentration is given on tobacco – cigarette sector.
The paper will show a content analysis of the internet environment, by re-
168 Sevim Asimova
viewing pro-smoking and anti-smoking activities, players, communication

channels, level of marketing and most of all, the narrative and discourse
across social medias, official web sites of enterprise, institutions and etc.
Keywords: marketing semiotics, digital culture codes, smoking, mean-

ing
Understanding digital culture and context

Imagine that we search for associations representing today’s modern
living. Receiving in this search digitization and any forms composing it
such as internet, computer, smart phone, online banking and etc. as most
frequent top of mind answer, would not be a surprising result at all. Today,
people and businesses live and function digitally as a result of an almost
total global transformation brought about by digital technologies. It or-
ganizes and structures the lives of individuals and companies, making our
being and development dependent on digitization. We see digitization in
every aspect of the modern world (Gere 2008:13). This connection is pres-
ent to such an extent and is so indispensable that, if we consider Maslow’s
pyramid and its update according to today’s trends, many would not have
any doubts to position internet/computer/smart phone directly below in
the level of physiological needs.
Especially in economically developed countries, digitization is every-
where around us. Mass media, movies, music are produced and distributed
digitally. Most professions are absolutely impossible without computers,
internet and email, mobile phones, servers and rest forms of information
technologies providing the (immediate) connection, creation of file doc-
umentation and database management/storage. Manufacturing is digital-
ly organized, which is the means for mechanical control and monitoring.
The surroundings are the same when one is in a supermarket, bank office,
state institution, etc. All the job and service provisions go through digital
technologies. The case is interesting with money and bank institution de-
velopment. Its digital existence today is so changed and modernized that
physical and juridical persons use and manage their money with no physi-
cal contact, instead just seeing the number displayed on a computer, tablet,
smart phone. And there is no distrust or conflict with this in people’ minds
– digital technologies are incorporated in our lives to such a deep extent
that we accept their existence with no conditions and thus feel calm in
possessing our money by just seeing the number wrote out on the screen.
It also worth highlighting the digital way of information availability and
DIGITAL CULTURE... 169
flow–a pure sign of global transformation. In these contemporary times,

any kind of information is internet accessible, produced and searched for
digitally (Bankov 2010). This is valid for education, employment, real es-
tate, insurance, leisure and travel, entertainment and all other sectors we
can think of (Gere 2008:13-4).
The facts in numbers

“The world is more connected than ever before”, states Euromonitor In-
ternational. According to the research agency, the number of internet users
double during the last 7 years, reaching 3,2 billion globally in 2016. 43% of
the population use internet in 2016 and based on forecasts, ½ are expected
to be digitalized until 2020. This extreme development of internet services
strengthens generational shifts in the way people live, work, shop and en-
tertain today. Along with, it is observed a huge digital division between the
developed and developing countries. As of 2016, 79% of consumers from
the developed markets use internet against only 36% from the developing
ones. However, the difference of each 43% is expected to be smaller in 2020
due to the anticipation that internet users from developing countries will
augment 4 times more compared to developed countries.
More and more users connect to internet through devices from comput-
er to smart phones, smart watches, refrigerators, and automobiles, reports
the agency. This is the consumption leading to generational lifestyle shifts
today. Speaking more generally, the world faces another technological rev-
olution, called the Fourth industrial revolution. It is characterized with
merging technologies that blur the lines between the physical, digital and
biological spheres. Additional break-throughs in domains such as artificial
intelligence, robotics, “the internet of things”, 3D and self-driving automo-
biles will further accelerate the Fourth revolution.
“Between the geographies of the Sheffield City Region and Lancashire lies
a unique opportunity. One which the UK economy desperately needs. Here
lie the components required to
equip the UK to deliver the vi-
sion of the 4th industrial revolu-
tion, Industry 4.0”
Professor Sir Keith Burnett,

President & Vice-Chancellor,
The University of Sheffield
170 Sevim Asimova
„Increased connectivity transforms the commerce experience“, states

Euromonitor International. The internet connection brings a fundamental
change across all levels of commerce. Today’s digital consumers search for
and buy commodities and services in a different manner from past gener-
ations. Future consumers envisage brands to interact with them digitally
before, during and after purchase. As a result, online sales have been devel-
oping in various industries and this digital rupture won’t stop. Following
prognosis, 58% from all travel reservations will go over the digital trade
channel till 2020. This share to the retail will be 11%, and for foodservice
– 7%.
Based on this, the agency also infers that the “Unprecedented digital
shifts creates need for market prioritization”. The need for digital strategy
is no more in question. Companies should be clear with the digital attrac-
tiveness across markets and to offer the best perspective for future develop-
ment of digital marketing activities.
Historically speaking, the last 40 years have been times of globalization
and domination of free market capitalism. These are the times also of tech-
no-science influence, communication technologies and information pro-
liferation. Digital technologies form the basis for this new world set. Par-
ticularly, the computerization of bank institutions, international currency
exchange and trade has greatly supported the progress of globalization and
financial liberalization. An essential feature of these new developments is
the pace at which they occur. In combination with other achievements,
digital technologies produce outcomes in extremely short duration. Digital
technologies on the other hand, and digitization they result in, do not stop
progressing in a very fast pace which make us witness to the huge techno-
logical constant changes and novelties surrounding us (Gere 2008:14-5).
“This pervasion of digital technology through our lives is part of a broad-
er set of phenomena”, says Charlie Gere in his book “Digital Culture”. The
varied elements of digital culture we experience nowadays are a historical
response of the modern capitalism while demands of the Second World
War further brought these together. Experts define WWII as the catalyst
for the emergence of modern electronic binary computing, and the Cold
War as the context for its development. Technology has been a very impor-
tant driver of today’s digital cultural achievements, but not the only one.
Other influential literature mentions and emphasizes this way the complex
character of digitization is techno-scientific discourses about information
and systems, avant-garde art practice, counter-cultural utopianism, critical
theory and philosophy, and so on (Gere 2008:14-18-29).
If we try to generalize the result of digitization and created digital cul-

ture, then we could define it as:
“The annihilation of physical distance and the dissolution of materi-
al reality by virtual or telecommunication technologies, or the apparent
end of the human and the rise of the so called post-human as a result of
advances in cybernetics, robotics and research into consciousness and in-
telligence.”
(Gere 2008:15)
Meaning of the term “digital”

In the narrative so far, the word “digital” was frequently mentioned and
centered. Similarly, the importance of digitization to our lives should be-
came obvious too, which certainly requires an understanding of the term
“digital”. On a technical language, “digital” is employed to signify data in
the form of discrete elements. This determines the denotative meaning of
the term. Due to dramatic progress of digital technologies, over the last
70 years, the word has become synonymous with technology as a whole,
whereas it should mainly refer to computers. Because of this, other terms,
“computer technologies” and “digital technologies” have become synony-
mous, too. Computers are digital machines because they deal with digital
binary form, zeroes and ones. On the other hand, presuming all possible
connotations with “digital”, it signifies much more enriched meaning than
the one deriving from the specific technical language – namely, discrete data
or machines based on such data usage (Gere 2008:15; Oswald 2012:54-5).
“To speak of the digital is to call up, metonymically, the whole panoply
of virtual simulacra, instantaneous communication, ubiquitous media and
global connectivity that constitutes much of our contemporary experience.
It is to allude to the vast range of applications and media forms that dig-
ital technology has made possible, including virtual reality, digital special
effects, digital film, digital television, electronic music, computer games,
multimedia, the Internet, the World Wide Web, digital telephony and
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), as well as the various cultural and
artistic responses to the ubiquity of digital technology, such as Cyberpunk
novels and films, Techno and post-pop music, the ‘new typography’, net.art
and so on. It also evokes the whole world of wired capitalism dominated
by high-tech companies such as Microsoft and Sony and the so-called ‘dot.
coms’, companies based on the Internet, which, for a while, seemed to pres-
ent the ideal model for twenty-first-century business, as well as, more gen-
erally, the ungraspable complex of corporate business which, enabled by
high technology, operates on a global level and sometimes appears to wield
172 Sevim Asimova
more power than nation states. It also suggests other digital phenomena,
such as the new paradigms of computer-controlled and supposedly clean
‘virtual war’, or the computerization of genetic information as in endeavors
such as the Human Genome Project, in which the transmission of inher-
ited characteristics becomes a digital matter in itself. Thus the apparently
simple term digital defines a complex set of phenomena.”
(Gere 2008:15-6)
This definition allows us to think of the development of a distinctive
digital culture. Peculiar for this culture is the use of high technology and
virtual communication by group/s of people at a certain period in history,
distinguishing them by earlier periods in which technology had not made
for an up-to-date form of living (Gere 2008:16; Oswald 2012:54-5).
The scientific discourse about digital culture

According to Charlie Gere, the discourse of digital culture is motivated
by two interconnected beliefs. The one claims that such a culture represents
a decisive rupture with the earlier period, while the other advocates that
digital culture derives from digital technology which is also a condition
of its existence. Both viewpoints could be reckoned as true. Thus, the ex-
istence of a distinctive digital culture can be differentiated in parallel to
previous cultures and has also been constructed purely by means of digital
technologies. However, a more profound analysis and journey through the
history of digitization would reveal that digital culture is neither new, nor
its developments reliant on technological progress. In this light, Charlie
Gere further suggests that digital technology is a product of the same cul-
ture rather than the opposite. This comes to infer that digitization encom-
passes a certain way of thinking and that any kind of technology and ma-
chinery is firstly a social achievement based on human mind, and after that
a technical one as well. In the digital sense, this mode of thinking results in
abstraction, codification, self-regulation, virtualization and programming
that lead to digitization. These skills can be applied through writing by us-
ing the specific languages of programming. And “…inasmuch as language,
written or spoken, is digital in that it deals with discrete elements, then
almost all human culture may be said to be digital”, concludes Gere (Gere
2008:17-8).
Digital communication of regulated industries

Creating attractive and innovative marketing campaigns is a challeng-
ing job. It requires a combination of science and art, while digital market-
ing and blooming social media in particular make it even more challeng-
ing. This is especially significant for highly regulated industries that should
follow rules and bans in the varied processes of doing business, including
trade and marketing communications. Marketers have to be familiar with
respective regulative requirements in order to know what and how to com-
municate. They need to confront and deal with strong guidance coming
from government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and industry
associations when deciding on the possible communication approaches.
This market environment assumes professionals from regulated businesses
to be more creative, keen and game to venture into new marketing areas,
the better to remain competitive and attractive to consumers. “Highly reg-
ulated brands must play by the rules when crafting marketing and adver-
tising campaigns, but that doesn‘t mean they can‘t have fun while doing so”,
says Matthew Schwartz, a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP (Schwartz
2016; Muehlenhaupt 2015)
To follow requirements is important, because the cost of non-compli-
ance can be harmful not only to the corporate and brand image but can
be expressed financially, too. Failure to comply with defined regulations
can result in heavy fines and sanctions. For example, the tobacco company
R.J. Reynolds was fined $20 million for marketing to young audiences, and
advertisers not respecting the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could end
up paying a fine of $16,000 per day/ per commercial (Cannon 2014).
Defining regulated industries

In fact, there are regulations in all businesses in order to ensure that cer-
tain standards are followed for the good of people and nature. The differ-
ence, however, is that some sectors are much more controlled than others,
and some are so new that regulations have been still establishing. Accord-
ing to Regulation Nation, the mostly controlled industries are those which
have the deepest impact on people’s lives and could cause the most po-
tential harm. This suggests that health care and concomitant industries in
this context like alcohol and tobacco should be the most heavily governed
(Livini 2016).
Besides the aforementioned, other sectors under high regulation dis-
cussed in the literature are finance, public companies, petroleum and coal
products manufacture, electric power generation, transmission and distri-
bution, motor vehicle manufacture, scheduled air transportation, fishing,
oil and gas extraction, and others. Based on a number of restrictions, the
McLaughlin-Sherouse List ranks petroleum and coal products manufac-
ture the first mostly regulated industry for 2014. In TOP 10 of the same list,
tobacco industry does not present (Hatwal 2016).
174 Sevim Asimova
So, according to the Cambridge Dictionary definition, a regulated in-

dustry is “a type of business that is controlled by government rules: This
applies to workers in regulated industries, such as teaching or financial
services”. Another source, dictionary of All Business, defines the regulat-
ed industry as “industry that is regulated by government to a significant
extent. Utility industries are excellent examples; their pricing, profits, and,
sometimes, production methods are regulated by both federal and state
governments.”
Focus: Tobacco sector

Going further and narrowing the discourse to digital communication
and business sector of regulation, rules and bans vary from industry to in-
dustry. In this regard, one may have digital marketing restrictions imposed
while others may not (Schaefer 2016).
Concerning the tobacco industry and cigarettes in particular, restric-
tions span from product manufacture to product sale and marketing.
Tobacco is regulated by governments, the World Health Organization
(WHO), the European Union (EU), the US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) and others. One of the most important international conventions in
the area is the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC),
developed in response to the globalization of tobacco and in force since
February 2005. To fight the demand for tobacco and encourage its reduc-
tion, FCTC controls price and tax measures, exposure to tobacco smoke,
packaging and labelling of tobacco products, tobacco advertising, promo-
tion and sponsorship, illicit trade, sales to and by minors, and other sensi-
tive topics. The agreement has 168 signatories, among which the European
Community, as well. This makes it one of the most widely spread treaties
in the United Nations (UN) (WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control).
Article 13 from the FCTC scrutinize the Tobacco advertising, promo-
tion and sponsorship. Point 2 states that:
“Each Party shall, in accordance with its constitution or constitutional
principles, undertake a comprehensive ban of all tobacco advertising, pro-
motion and sponsorship. This shall include, subject to the legal environ-
ment and technical means available to that Party, a comprehensive ban on
cross-border advertising, promotion and sponsorship originating from its
territory.’’
In the case of a party that is not in a position to undertake a comprehen-

sive ban, it has to apply restrictions on all tobacco advertising, promotions
and sponsorship. Besides, there is a minimum that each party has to assure,
according to the article. A portion of it concerns digital communication,
namely that parties should: “undertake a comprehensive ban or, in the case
of a Party that is not in a position to undertake a comprehensive ban due
to its constitution or constitutional principles, restrict tobacco advertising,
promotion and sponsorship on radio, television, print media and, as appro-
priate, other media, such as the internet, within a period of five years”.
The EU itself has two directives dedicated to tobacco control – the To-
bacco Products Directive (TPD) and the Tobacco Advertising Directive
(TAD). TPD governs the manufacture, presentation, and sale of tobacco
and related products. In terms of cigarettes, it prohibits production of fla-
vored cigarettes, small packages, limits ingredients (maximum of 10 mg.
tar, 1 mg. nicotine and 10 mg. carbon monoxide per cigarette) and pro-
hibits their labeling, requires 65% health warnings of the front and back
of packages that combines picture, text and information on how to stop,
allows EU countries to prohibit internet sales and others. TAD on the other
hand, bans the cross-border tobacco advertising and sponsorship in all me-
dia except television (the latter had already been prohibited). Particularly,
TAD bans print media, radio, internet and sponsorship of events involving
several Member States, such as the Olympic Games and Formula One (EU
European Commission Tobacco). In order to realize even stronger restric-
tions on tobacco, we could also mention plain packaging, which refers to a
totally unbranded pack with only mentioned manufacturer of the product.
Australia was the first country in the world that adopted the plain pack-
aging. And following during this year have been France, United Kingdom
and Ireland (Framework Convention Alliance).
Tobacco companies have very strict marketing regulations. Regarding
internet, Google and Microsoft have policies that restrict or outlaw the pro-
motion of tobacco products on their advertising networks, as does Face-
book. Same applies to alcohol marketing, too (Cannon 2014).
Hence, discussing tobacco we determine that digital marketing is a for-
bidden territory. It is meaningful on the other hand law and other decrees
interpretation, scope and depth of bans and existence of possible excep-
tions. In this regard hypothesis of the following content analysis of the cig-
arette sector in internet is that digital space is not a marketing tool for cig-
arettes. Below, it is upcoming to understand whether the given hypothesis
would be passed or traversed.
176 Sevim Asimova
Content analysis of the cigarette sector in internet
Methodological notes
This content-analysis is based on a Desk research of the internet space.
Its major sources are the websites of corporate, state and non-governmen-
tal organizations, social media companies, K-Message1 research findings
and online shops information. In more details, it reviewed content of:
- 10 corporate websites;
- 15 governmental and non-governmental organizations;
- 3 social media companies: Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia;
- Brand dedicated information of 40 global and strong local players:
web site, Wikipedia or Facebook page;
- 30 online shops;
- Reached a number of pro-smoking as well as anti-smoking Face-
book communities (only a few were reviewed due to joining being
required).
The content-analysis was implemented in November 2016.
Content analysis findings

There are two established branches of activities: pro-smoking and an-
ti-smoking activities. Actors in the pro-smoking branch are the business
world, smokers, and pro-tobacco communities. Those in the anti-smok-
ing branches are state institutions, NGOs, non-smokers, and anti-tobacco
communities. The internet has been popularizing across all age groups, but
youths still remain the most active users. Because of this, and speaking for
digital marketing in particular, young people appear to be the main target
group for both pro-smoking and anti-smoking activities. For doing busi-
ness in general, youths are attractive because they are trendsetters, idea cre-
ators, the source of dominant and emerging codes, and contribute to future
market success. While for the institutions in this context, youths are the
most vulnerable consumer group to prevent from the health risk of tobacco
products, supposing this will impact the future consumption, as well.
What are the most popular digital communication means?
As methodological notes suggest, the pro-smoking branch mainly em-
ploys corporate web sites, online shops, and social media. And for the an-
ti-smoking one, web sites of state institutions and NGOs, and social medias
once again. Keeping in mind this article’s subject, we should focus on the
1
K-Message is an independent personal initiation of a digital marketing professional,
dealing with regulated industries.
further development in content created across the so-called pro-smoking

branch.
Graph 1. Digital marketing of cigarette sector: pro-smoking and anti-smok-

ing branches
Corporate websites
Analysis of the global tobacco manufacturers, as well as regional and lo-
cal players, uncovers two main codes that corporate digital communication
is built upon. These are:
1. Responsibility
2. Sustainability
This communication is very typical for multinational companies that
actively participate in debates and decisions concerning the whole ciga-
rette industry. For instance, the corporate motto of Reynolds American is
“Transforming Tobacco”.
Concerning Responsibility, the discourse gravitates towards the follow-
ing live questions:
- Regulations & Requirements
- Marketing
- Health
- Quitting smoking
- Youth prevention & informed choice of adults
- Illicit trade fights
- Research & Development (R&D)
We understand that corporations announce industry regulations and
control imposed by institutions, state their respect and need in reducing
harm effect of the tobacco products. For example, the position of Philip
Morris International (PMI) is that the company supports the evidence for
tobacco product regulation, following the principle of harm reduction.
These companies share their principles and standards for marketing com-
munications, conformable to regulative norms. According to this, minors
cannot smoke and must be properly informed for the harm effects ciga-
rettes cause. This is why cigarette and other tobacco products have health
178 Sevim Asimova
warnings on their packages. Health warnings have become more and more
rigorous by occupying more package space, adding pictures along with the
textual warning or initiation of the total plain packaging. Advertisement
itself has a lot of bans related to the place and mode of advertising. Because
of this, we no longer see tobacco commercials broadcasted on TV, nor the
faces of sportsmen or people under 25 advertising tobacco products.
Responsibility is also communicated through information sections
about the chemical content of cigarettes, health consequences, addiction,
and support of quit smoking, as well as links to organizations like WHO.
In today’s consumer culture environment, R&D should be more impor-
tant to the tobacco business than ever before. Manufactures are investing
in new technologies and a new generation of products aimed at reducing
the harmful effects of tobacco. Electronic cigarettes exemplify this develop-
ment as an alternative solution to traditional cigarettes in this context. Part
of R&D efforts is the support of medical researches, as well.
Concerning Sustainability, the discourse gravitates towards the follow-
ing live questions:
- Nature & natural resources
- Climate changes
- Agriculture
- Corporate behavior
- Society & consumers
Sustainability is related directly to the above analyzed code, since it is
another form of responsibility. Part of corporate culture is doing business
in a way that protects and supports the preservation of nature, natural re-
sources and the climate. Multinational manufacturers interact with farm-
ers in order to establish proper practices, guarantee qualitative tobacco cul-
tivation, control child’s labor, etc. Corporate behavior manifested through
transparency and followed highest standards of business leadership should
be a typical feature of sustainability, as well. All these practices bring con-
sumer care to society.
With respect to the commercial opportunities from which corporate
sites from various product categories generally benefit, we find that digital
reality differs for cigarettes. Graph 2, a visualization of the present con-
tent analysis, marks “Without advertising activities” as particular adver-
tisements or product promotions were not found across web sites. With
regards to age control, local and regional companies request user age in
order to prohibit minors from entering the site. In this regard, and involv-
ing brand discourse, two groups are formed – the global/ big companies,
and the regional/ local companies. Global companies lack overall brand
marketing introduction. Permitted information is limited and concerns

market results, product categories, product characteristics, brand logos.
The websites of regional/ local players, on the other hand, appear to aim for
commercial success. In this group, product portfolios display pack designs,
logos, imagery, and emotional messages.
According to the 2015 Merrill Lynch Global Tobacco report, the vol-
ume share for global companies (PMI, BAT, JTI and IMT) is 83% excluding
China. And since these corporations dominate the market, the main con-
clusion from this sub-section reflects their digital behavior. Thus, digital
marketing across corporate websites performs responsibility and harm re-
duction in particular. Companies with stronger performance in this direc-
tion would enhance consumer trust and loyalty to their products.
Graph 2. Pro-smoking branch communications

180 Sevim Asimova
Social medias
K-Message traces the presentation of 70 popular cigarette brands on
Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia, which include Dunhill, Davidoff,
Marlboro, L&M, Pall Mall, Camel, etc. According to research data collect-
ed in 2014, 43 brands out of 70 have a FB page, 61 have a YouTube channel,
and 46 have a Wikipedia page. The assumption is that these are amateur
activities. The narrative on Facebook relates to brand history, cultural con-
text, and the main brand varieties.2 Historical and cultural brand features
prevail on Wikipedia, while YouTube content has a commercial purpose
stemming from product and trade reviews.
It is interesting to know whether or not specific brands have dedicated
web sites. Desk research shows that this is not a practice among cigarette
brands, though a few exceptions that were detected. Marlboro, L&M, Par-
liament, Virginia Slims, and Gauloises and Winston have own official web
sites in the USA, to which access is strictly controlled. Pall Mall and Camel
also appear to have web sites but their access has been deactivated.
According to K-Message, pro-smoking groups have been more active
than anti-smoking groups in digital space. This should be true assuming
the nature of the two groups – the first is related to entertainment while
the other is dedicated to fight and denial. There are a great number of
pro-smoking communities in Facebook. Discourse there includes amuse-
ment (shared experience, photos of favorite brands, smoking moments,
with a sexual context detected), smoker defense and support (smokers
think that they have their rights, too) as well as commercial activity direct-
ing to online sales.
Internet sales
With key words “Cigarette online” and “Cigarette online sales”, a Google
Search finds over 30 internet shops selling cigarettes. There are almost no
any shops with age control. This finding was not expected, bearing in mind
the above specifics about regulations.
Across the shops there is brand presenting, and the scope in some out-
lets is richer while narrower in others. The richer brand narratives include
typical marketing information, namely brand heritage, logo, motto, arche-
type, rhetoric, images, consumer interest, and global position. This analysis
also includes commercial offers which are, however, not supported by cer-
tain marketing activities. Some sites are enriched by sections dedicated to
industrial news. Expectedly, there is a detailed product presentation telling
about cigarette format, strength, flavor, origin, and more. In contrast to the
2
For the online consumer rituals see Bankov 2014
corporate web sites, there is no “Responsibility” menu here. These findings

allow us to say that internet shops are sites for primary marketing insofar
as they present the brand, but do not engage in advertising campaigns.
Conclusion
Relying on the statements from digital culture and context described
above, we infer that digital communications are a distinguishing feature
of and condition for doing successful business in the present. This is due
to the almost total global transformation of ways of life and business func-
tioning by the digital technologies. With regards to regulated industries,
and the tobacco sector in particular, there are strong marketing restric-
tions prohibiting almost all types of advertising channels, including the
internet. The content analysis we performed, however, confirmed that cig-
arettes have not been advertised digitally in the way consumers know ad-
vertisement – namely, campaigns dedicated to new and existing products,
supported by emotional visuals and promotions. This environment makes
the communication of cigarettes sparing and very challenging. This is why,
along with following the defined restrictions, marketers from the examined
business sector should be more inventive in the way they communicate,
and venture into new marketing areas in order to remain competitive and
attractive to consumers.
182 Sevim Asimova
References
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Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_advertising
PART IV Digital Age form
Philosophical Perspective
187
THE EFFETENESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Reni Yankova
[email protected]
Abstract
Social media are a new phenomenon attracting the interest of research-
ers from different fields–marketing experts, sociologists, anthropologists,
even philosophers and semioticians. The problems related to them vary
and many remain unanswered. The current paper analyzes the level of so-
cial media habituation, taking Charles Peirce`s evolutionary cosmology,
and more specifically the concept of effete mind, as its milestones. Other
important studies considered here are from the fields of anthropology and
media studies.
Communication and the transfer of information have always been vital
for living creatures, not only humans but animals, plants and even micro-
organisms. During the centuries of our existence and evolution we have
developed complicated sign systems to satisfy the need for knowledge
transfer among the members of our social groups. In the digital era many
188 Reni Yankova
questions about the new forms of communication arise. Here I will ana-
lyze one of them: are these new media something totally new or do they
follow some kind of universal tendency and predisposition? To answer this
question I will consider Charles Peirce`s ideas of habit and habit-taking
tendency, his concepts of living and effete mind, together with the studies
of Robin Dunbar and Tom Standage
In his book Writing on the wall. Social media–the first 2, 000 years (2013)
Standage examines the question of writing on the walls as one of the oldest
methods of communication and knowledge transfer. It dates back to the
age of cavemen, long before any of society’s modern tools were even con-
sidered possible. Over the centuries these methods evolved and became
more sophisticated but it kept their essence and main function–to transfer
information for the well-being of the group and its members. Centuries
ago at the dawn of human kind, the necessity of survival shaped our pre-
disposition for communication. Since then, the tools have changed but the
necessity and the reasons for it remain the same. As such, the current state
of well-developed digital social media could be considered a manifestation
of the Peircean concept of habit-taking tendency, combined with human
natural need of communication and information sharing stated by Stand-
age and also by the evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar.
Keywords: effete mind, habit, social media, Peirce, knowledge
Habit-taking as an evolutionary process

The problem of habit and habit-taking as an active force in the universe
are vital to Peirce`s philosophical system. To be profoundly understood
these concepts should be discussed in the context of his evolutionary cos-
mology, and in relation to his categories, sign model, and method of prag-
matism. But considering the limitations of the current paper I will present
them only in their function of evolutionary elements.
Mentioned in many texts, the problem of habit is presented in-depth
in the late metaphysical essays of Peirce. His project is to unite them into
a book entitled A Guess at the Riddle (1887–1888), but this never happens.
The metaphysical essays are often neglected by researchers because of their
high degree of abstraction. But the idea of evolution of the universe from
chaos to determinacy, with the function of habit and habit-taking tenden-
cy, is fundamental for current research and could bring light to the ques-
tion of the nature of social media.
THE EFFETENESS... 189
In Peirce, the function of habit is not restricted solely to the organization

of human life, but has a much wider meaning. It is a property of everything
in the universe – a universe that is governed by laws and represents a
boundless, developing mind. In A Guess at the Riddle Peirce considers its
evolution and makes the following generalization: “(...) three elements are
active in the world: first, chance; second, the rule; and third, habit-tak-
ing” (W6: 208). These elements bear the names of tychism, synechism and
agapism. The first, pure chance, is defined as follows:
(...) an element of pure chance survives and will remain until the world
becomes an absolutely perfect, rational, and symmetrical system, in which
mind is at last crystallized in the infinitely distant future. (W8: 110)
The second element, synechism, denotes the tendency of phenomena
to have duration and to exist together, while agapism is the creative love
and compassion in the universe. The last term is devoid of metaphoricity
and is to be understood literally, since for Peirce the universe is an evolving
mind and love is its building element, a characteristic of the movement
from living to effete mind. The development from chance to determinacy
is normal both for the universe and the separate phenomenon. This is how
he recognizes two other evolutionary elements called “living mind” and
“effete mind”:
The general laws of thought are the deep traces of the effete mind. Origi-
nality is provided by the living mind when it meets the patterns of the effete
one. Very soon the searching thought (the supervenient self) falls into the
track of the effete mind and takes the route of the cliché. (Mladenov 2006:
94)
According to Peirce, even before the existence of time, space and the
objects, in its first phase of development, the universe was formless and
indeterminate, an absolute chaos. Then, by the principle of pure chance
and spontaneity, something emerges that we may call a “flash.” This is a
“completely undetermined and dimensionless potentiality” (CP 6.193).
The flash happens simply because it is possible – it is a manifestation of
tychism. After that, second and third flashes are generated, establishing a
rule (law). The duration in time and the co-existence of the phenomena in
the universe is a manifestation of synechism. “The tendency to form habits,
or tendency to generalize, is something that grows by its own action, by the
habit of taking habits itself growing”. (W8: 387)
This generalization is valid for the whole universe, and habits are rules
that grow and obey “their own action” (ibid). Thus the universe develops
from absolute chaos to absolute order, becoming increasingly determinate
190 Reni Yankova
with time. Peirce calls the final point of this evolution ‘crystalized mind’.
This is the stage at which logical hypotheses for the understanding of
everything will be created. But this last phase will not be reached in the
foreseeable future, therefore the habit-taking tendency continues to work.
Obviously the living mind and the effete mind can be taken as the two
endpoints in the development of the universe. Then why is the effete mind
named as the final point of the movement rather than crystallized mind?
The view of reaching a stage of absolutely logical knowledge of the universe
is too idealistic, and puts an end to evolution where spontaneity or habit
formation is no longer possible. Although Peirce does not say it explicitly,
in his philosophical system achieving a crystallized mind is the end of the
universe as we know it. This is why, when we speak of evolutionary pro-
cesses, the living mind and the effete mind will be used as the two extreme
points. Between them Peirce sees the active elements – tychism, synechism
and agapism, which build up the line of habit formation and determine the
evolution of mind. The habit is a final goal, or a necessary link in evolution.
Peirce describes the process of movement from living to effete mind as
a process which begins with a situation of hesitation when we are to decide
how to act. After that, some actions are repeated, some are not. Gradual
repetitions become habits that eliminate the irritation in further situations
of hesitation. This direction, followed by all processes in the universe, is
called the habit-taking tendency: “The tendency to obey laws has always
been and always will be growing. (…) all things have a tendency to take
habits” (W6: 208). Thus their number grows incessantly until, in the inde-
terminate future, it reaches the stage of complete determinacy. Turley points
out that for Peirce, the habit-taking tendency is an evolutionary principle
from which stems the formation of time, space, substance, and natural laws
(Turley 1977: 75). As part the universe’s evolution, habits create a ring of
strong gravity which retains the achieved knowledge and orders the world
of the separate human beings and their social groups. Habits are necessary
because they establish models of behavior and save mental energy in every-
day life. But despite striving towards establishing rules and laws, evolution
itself is a growing process that can be found in all aspects of being.
Considering Peirce’s evolutionary cosmology and his concept of hab-
it-taking tendency, we can define digital social media as manifestations of
our society’s living mind, though they already show certain traces of effete-
ness. In his research on social media Standage tracks their development
through the centuries, proving that they have existed in different forms
since the beginning of human societies. It means that they represent a vital
habit for the living creatures–to communicate in terms to satisfy the need
to transfer knowledge and information. This urge of communication first

appeared as a spontaneous flash of the primitive mind, but fast obeyed the
habit-taking tendency and became the beginning of social interaction and
the development of social networks. If the act of communication was not
habitual by nature it would be difficult for it to survive. Habit is the highest
manifestation of synechism, or the ability of phenomena to last. Without
the active force of habit and synechism, the knowledge in social groups
would not have been able to grow, and the evolution of both human beings
and the universe would be impossible.
Communication is a complex phenomenon and can be analyzed with
different perspectives and semiotic approaches. Here I choose to analyze it
from a Peircean point of view, as a manifestation of habit-taking tendency
and also as an evolutionary element. This approach allows me to focus my
attention on the new forms of communication (a.k.a. social media) and ex-
amine the question: what is new and what is already established and known
in their structure and functions. The following parts of that paper will also
focus on the question: can we consider social media to be living mind fol-
lowing Peirce`s concepts and terminology? And if we can, what does this
mean for their future development?
Tendencies and forms

Studies on communication and its principles have been conducted since
the beginning of the XXth century. Not only semioticians but biologists, so-
ciologist and even journalists have discussed them. It is impossible to apply
here all the contributions made on that question, so I choose to focus on
research conducted by Dunbar and Standage.
In his book Neocortex Size as a Constraint on Group Size in Primates
(1992), Dunbar describes the correlation between the size of a primate’s
neocortex and its communicational needs and skills. One of the most im-
portant contributions of his study is the “Dunbar number,” which points
out the average group size for the human beings according to the size of the
brain. The number Dunbar specifies is 148, which he rounded to 150–this
is the maximum number of people with whom it is possible for us to have
reciprocal relationship. Groups of under 150 people are also considered by
Dunbar to be self-regulated, which means that everyone knows everyone
else personally, which naturally regulates relationships inside the group by
decreasing the social deviations and the possibility of crimes or other mis-
behaviors. The Dunbar number is also considered by the military forces
when groups do not exceed 180 people.
192 Reni Yankova
The research made by Dunbar stresses that people usually have up to

five intimate friends and up to ten close friends. These numbers are very
similar to the numbers we could find in the so called “grooming coalitions”
in ape societies. More than twenty years after Dunbar`s research was pub-
lished, in the era of digital communication, Standage decided to verify
whether his contribution is also valid for social media and human behavior
there. After analyzing users’ habits on Facebook Standage discovered a lot
of similarities with the numbers already drawn by Dunbar:
Interaction on Facebook (in the form of regular comments and messag-
es) is similarly concentrated within a core group of intimates, with an av-
erage of seven other people for male users and ten people for female users.
This core group is the digital equivalent of a grooming coalition (Standage,
2013: 14).
He also concludes that in digital environments human beings had to
switch from physical “grooming” to virtual grooming using messages, likes,
comments, tags and other new forms of communication. But the more im-
portant development is that even subconsciously they try to keep the ha-
bitual size of their intimate and close friend groups. It seems that social
media facilitates interaction among the closest members of a social group,
allowing them to express their positive intention for “grooming” others
not only one by one but also by keeping the group together in shared chats
or in multiple picture and event tags. Such kinds of online group “groom-
ing” saves a lot of time and also allows the group to “stay together” if one or
several of the members are physically far away from each other. Standage
points out the advantages of online interaction as follows:
But speech has three big advantages over physical forms of grooming.
It allows grooming of more than one person at a time, while chatting in a
small group. Grooming can also be carried out while performing another
activity, such as eating, foraging for food, or resting. And grooming via
speech, in the form of the exchange of gossip, enables people to find out
about events within their social circle that they did not witness directly.
This provides more information on which to base judgments about wheth-
er someone is trustworthy or not (Standage, 2013: 15).
Considering the research conducted by Dunbar and Standage we can
conclude that social media keep the habitual functions of offline communi-
cation on a social level, but expand the possibilities for the group to stay to-
gether longer and to exchange bigger amounts of information in a quicker
and more efficacious manner. Social media guarantee the survival of these
social groups in a dynamic environment where travel is faster and easier,
living abroad is more and more common, and social and personal changes
(like loss of job, money, personal belongings and properties, etc.) can hap-
pen unpredictably. In the fast-changing offline reality human beings need
to stay connected with the closest members of their social groups in order
to deal with the insecure and more and more “unfriendly” environment.
It is a significant fact that since 2011 The American Red Cross start-
ed active work with social media channels to inform and educate users
on how to act more efficiently during emergencies, social crisis, or natural
disasters. Besides informing users on how to engage social media to pro-
tect others during crises, the organization also conducted studies to gather
statistical data about the real usage of the digital technologies during such
events. Figure 1 shows the results which prove that nearly half of users will
post on social media to send their closest social group members informa-
tion about their well-being. This example proves the statement above, that
the insecurity of the offline world and the technical characteristics of digi-
tal media provide social groups with new and more efficient tools for com-
munication, helping them to stay together despite these events.
Figure 1: How likely would you be to use social media channels to let your
friends and family know you are safe?1
1
http://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/publications
194 Reni Yankova
These social media represent two old, evolutionary habits of the hu-
mans–to exchange information inside their social groups, and to “groom”
each other, not only to show a friendly attitude but to prove their own be-
longing to the group. It seems that a more dynamic and insecure offline
reality also helps for the quick development of social media to preserve the
evolutionary and survival habit of communication.
The effeteness of the social media–is it possible?

To consider social media as living mind in the terms of Peircean evolu-
tionary cosmology does not seem problematic. Even being a stable digital
environment, they participate in sign creation and sign exchange process-
es, meaning that they also allow the meanings of some signs to change and
develop compared with their offline usage. An example of such expansion
of meaning in social media is the word “like”. The sign still keeps the tra-
ditional and already effete linguistic meaning; but in its transition into the
social media context it is widened. Offline, “to like” merely signifies mental
activity related to sympathy and approval of some phenomenon. But when
used in the digital environment the sign supplements its meaning with the
physical activity of pressing the specific button on the web site and displays
an iconic sign for the other users. This visualization of the sign is an impor-
tant transformation in social media because it is quite different in offline
reality. In order for a sign which operates only on a mental level in the
offline word to be manifested, a transition into other signs like smile, voice
timber, etc. is needed. In digital media “to like” brings iconicity and trans-
fers its meaning through it. These sign changes in social media are signifi-
cant proof that they still operate in the state of living and developing mind.
But we already mentioned above that certain traces of effeteness
could be recognized in social media. How can we explain this fact? If the
effeteness means to follow a certain pattern and to bring the characteristics
of well-established cliché, then social media certainly show a tendency to
get more and more effete over time. Analyzing them as an overall phenom-
enon we notice that they become more and more habituated in time, mean-
ing that their level of effeteness increases. For example, at the beginning of
Facebook users` generated content was more heterogeneous and was dom-
inated by discussions, shares of personal thoughts and experience, person-
al pictures and videos. Today these forms of communication still exist but
are dominated by marketing content, political and social discussions, cor-
porate profiles and advertising-oriented content. These types of messages
are similar in their purpose, form, and language, and generate similar re-
sponses from the audience. They explicitly show social media’s effeteness
on structural and functional levels. Even the time schedule of publication

of corporate messages is similar (concentrated in two time ranges–in the
morning around 9 a.m. and in the afternoon around 5 p.m.) due to users`
habits and behavior online.
The rising number of corporate messages in social media, created and
distributed according to commercial goals, turns them into cliché. Even if
the topics and the content of these messages vary, the level of their struc-
tural similarity is high–their creation follows certain rules which guarantee
success. For example, we can find specific formulations of the titles (Top
10; How to; Breaking news; etc.), few predominant formulations of the
opening lines (personal stories; unexpected news; not very well-known
fact; etc.), as well as some requirements on visual level–these messages are
always accompanied with attention grabbing pictures or galleries. Video
content is also recommended. All these specifics of corporate messaging
on social media are easy to trace, and we can find many online sources
providing directions for creating successful business content.
The facts above prove the statement that social media are developing in
terms of the growing cliché. Following Peircean terminology and evolu-
tionary cosmology we can conclude that social media are still in the phase
of developing living mind, but the tendency of habituation and growing
effeteness is visible, and we can expect this effeteness to expand in future.
What will happen to social media if they become totally effete–and is such
a state possible for them? These questions are still open for discussion–we
can only speculate about these topics, as a single hypothesis is difficult to
formulate and prove. So I leave these questions unanswered with the ex-
pectation that only time will provide the correct answer.
196
References
Dunbar, Robin (1992) Neocortex Size as a Constraint on Group Size in
Primates, In: Journal of Human Evolution, Volume 22, Issue 6, p. 469-493.
Mladenov, Ivan (2006) Conceptualizing Metaphors. On Charles Peirce’s
Marginalia, London and New York: Routledge.
Peirce, Charles S. (1931–1958) Collected Papers of Charles Sanders
Peirce. Vols. 1–6, ed. by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931–1935; vols. 7–8, ed. by Arthur W.
Burks. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958.
(1982–) Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition. Vols.
1–6 and 8 (of projected 30), ed. by the Peirce Edition Project, Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Standage, Tom (2013) Writing on the wall. Social media–the first 2, 000
years, Bloomsbery: New York, London, New Delhi, Sydney
Turley, Peter T. (1977) Peirce’s Cosmology, New York: Philosophical Li-
brary Inc.
197
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telletualismo bergsoniano. Bologna: Bologna University MA thesis.
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triotica. p. 142-159
Leone, Massimo. 2017b. Fundamentalism, Anomie, Conspiracy: Um-
berto Eco’s Semiotics against Interpretive Irrationality in Thellefsen, Tork-
ild and Bent Sørensen (eds.). 2017. Umberto Eco in his Own Words. Berlin
& New York: Mouton de Gruyter, p. 221–9.
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Bankov, Kristian. 2011. Technology, the Imaginary and the Transfer of
Experience: between the Market and Social Networks. in Leone, Massimo
(ed.) Lexia 07/08 2011 Immaginari. Prospettive disciplinari. Rome: Aracne
editrice S.r.l., p. 255-278, http://bankov.net/Statia_08_ENG.pdf (last ac-
cessed: 19 March 2018).
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The World’s Most Valuable Brands (2017) https://www.forbes.com/
powerful-brands/list/#tab:rank (last accessed: 19 March 2018)
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Volume I, Issue 1, Spring 2018

Digital Age in Semiotics & Communication

Editor-in-chief: Kristian Bankov

ISSN (Print) 2603-3585

© New Bulgarian University, 2018

Design by Tanya Yordanova

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

International advisory board:

Volume I, Issue 1, Spring 2018 has been published in April, 2018.

The magazine is supported and reviewed by our International advisory

For more information and submission of papers: [email protected]

FROM TEXT TO INTERACTION (INTRO)

PART I Knowledge and Identity in Digital Age

PERSONALIZATION ALGORITHMS – LIMITING THE SCOPE OF

THE IMAGINED COMMUNITY REVISITED THROUGH A

A SHIFT FROM “ME” TO “WE” IN SOCIAL MEDIA

PART II Aesthetic and Interactive Practices in Digital Culture

POSTCARD FROM ISTANBUL: DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION OF

’IT’S OVER 9000.’ APEIRON NARRATIVE CONFIGURATIONS IN

CONSTRUCTING THE CORPORATE INSTAGRAM DISCOURSE – A

ENCHANTED OBJECT: INDIAN SARI, NEGOTIATING THE

PART III Digital Age in Corporate Communication

ENGAGING BRAND COMMUNICATION IN FACEBOOK – A

DIGITAL CULTURE OF THE REGULATED INDUSTRIES. FOCUS:

PART IV Digital Age form Philosophical Perspective

THE EFFETENESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Notes For Contributors................................................................................197

FROM TEXT TO INTERACTION (INTRO)

own sometimes. He put in circulation another mythical textualist slogan:

Further examples proliferate. Our proposal is to place interactivity as

life, and suggest us what to do in future in order to be more predictable as

Another paper is about “Constructing the Corporate Instagram Dis-

PART I Knowledge and

Keywords: Social media, algorithms, suggestion, discovery, encyclopedia

mation (including news, research, finances); shopping (for products and

2009, Google launched the personalized search to all users, logged-in or

to match figures from different user sessions and, subsequently, aggregate

Algorithms and Data

Structure and Control

view) pursuit of optimization and market domination, which, however,

way people react to accidents (rubbernecking), then roads would have to

User Experience Design and the Text

information from the Internet became rather a matter of navigational com-

[We] could try the experiment of projecting the three inten-

Figure 2: The above image represents a “normal” text, with a

THE IMAGINED COMMUNITY REVISITED

Keywords: imagined community; YouTube; Tiranos Temblad; post-na-

1. The bountiful archive of YouTube as a digital Wunderkammer

An overview of Uruguayan Events’ – henceforth TT), a weekly YouTube

1.1 YouTube as the launching site for a post-nationalist & postdocu-

given historical situation”. Taking a qualitative approach to the meaning

2. Towards a “new fangled” representation of one’s cherished (?) na-

It is fitting to describe the disorderly collage of TT with the rhetorical

On other occasions, several nominees are crowned simultaneously for

3. Peircean phaneroscopic categories to analyze the categories of TT

Figure 2. The logo of the series

Although most of the edited videos that make up TT show anonymous

4. Concluding signs: the semiotic virtual antidote to nationalism Ti-

in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed