Visual Communication 

About: Visual Communication is an academic journal published by SAGE Publishing. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Semiotics & Social semiotics. It has an ISSN identifier of 1470-3572. Over the lifetime, 620 publications have been published receiving 12221 citations.

Multimodality, resemiotization: extending the analysis of discourse as multi-semiotic practice

Abstract: This article has the following two overarching aims First, it traces the development of multimodal discourse analysis and sets out its main descriptive and analytical parameters; in doing so, the article highlights the specific advantages which the multimodal approach has to offer and exemplifies its application The article also argues that the hierarchical arrangement of different semiotics (in the way common sense construes this) should not be lost from sight Second, and related to this last point, the article will advance a complementary perspective to that of multimodality: resemiotization Resemiotization is meant to provide the analytical means for (1) tracing how semiotics are translated from one into the other as social processes unfold, as well as for (2) asking why these semiotics (rather than others) are mobilized to do certain things at certain times The article draws on a variety of empirical data to exemplify these two perspectives on visual communication and analysis

Colour as a semiotic mode: notes for a grammar of colour:

Abstract: This article presents a brief review of several approaches of ‘grammar’, as the basis for a discussion of culturally produced regularities in the uses of colour; that is, the possibility of extending the use of ‘grammar’ to colour as a communicational resource. Colour is discussed as a semiotic resource - a mode, which, like other modes, is multifunctional in its uses in the culturally located making of signs. The authors make some use of the Jakobson/Halle theory of ‘distinctive features’, highlighting as signifier-resources those of differentiation, saturation, purity, modulation, value and hue. These are treated as features of a grammar of colour rather than as features of colour itself. The article demonstrates its theoretical points through the analysis of several examples and links notions of ‘colour schemes’ and ‘colour harmony’ into the social and cultural concept of grammar in the more traditional sense.

Digital Photography: Communication, Identity, Memory.

Abstract: Taking photographs seems no longer primarily an act of memory intended to safeguard a family's pictorial heritage, but is increasingly becoming a tool for an individual's identity formation and communication. Digital cameras, cameraphones, photoblogs and other multipurpose devices are used to promote the use of images as the preferred idiom of a new generation of users. The aim of this article is to explore how technical changes (digitization) combined with growing insights in cognitive science and socio-cultural transformations have affected personal photography. The increased manipulation of photographic images may suit the individual's need for continuous self-remodelling and instant communication and bonding. However, that same manipulability may also lessen our grip on our images' future repurposing and reframing. Memory is not eradicated from digital multipurpose tools. Instead, the function of memory reappears in the networked, distributed nature of digital photographs, as most images are sent over the internet and stored in virtual space.

Travels in hypermodality

Abstract: The power of visual communication is multiplied when it is co-deployed with language in multimodal texts. In hypertexts, such as websites, the interaction of these two semiotic resources affords new forms of informational and design complexity and presents us with some new political choices. This article offers a semiotic scheme for the analysis of composite verbal-visual meanings and some discussions of the semiotic politics of visual communication in hypermedia design.

A system for image-text relations in new (and old) media

Abstract: This article presents a generalized system of image–text relations which applies to different genres of multimodal discourse in which images and texts co-occur. It combines two kinds of relations – the relative status of images and text, and how they relate to one another in terms of logico–semantics. Every instance of an image–text combination in the data sample is described by a selection of features from the system. The units of images and text between which the relations obtain are identified and the realizations of the logico–semantic and status relations are specified, both for the human analyst and a machine. Two application scenarios are discussed. The system should be useful for distinguishing between image–text relations for (genuinely) new and old media.