Social Semiotics - Visual Communication Online

     Social Semiotics is a methodology of communication created by Michael Holiday in his 1978 book, Language as Social Semiotics. This methodology has to do with meaning, meaning makers, and signs. Also, it connects meaning and how it is made by humans using semiotic resources, which are different signs. The three different functions every sign has are explained in the Handbook of Pragmatics by Jeff Bezemer where he says, "they express something about the world ('ideational metafunction'), position people in relation to each other ('interpersonal metafunction') and form connections with other signs to produce coherent text ('textual metafunction).". Social Semiotics are very important to the topic of communication since it focuses on context. Another reason that it is helpful is that it helps to show that verbal communication is not the most dominant form of communication. 

connections with other signs to produce coherent text (‘textual metafunction’)

position people in relation to each other (interpersonal metafunction) and form

connections with other signs to produce coherent text (‘textual metafunction’).

    One of the rules of Social Semiotics is using a set of criteria to determine the context of an image. The way I will analyze the pictures below is by looking at their representational, interactive meaning, and compositional. The representation of a photo is if it is narrative or conceptual based on what events happen around the photos. The interactive meaning of this image can be described by finding three different aspects of it, contact, distance, and point of view. The contact is the relationship between the viewer and the person/people in the photo, the distance is how far away the person/people in the photo are, and the composition is what parts of the photos have meaning. The top of a photo is the ideal information, the bottom has the real information, the right has the new information, the left has already known information, and the center puts it all together. 

    The representation part of this image is a narrative. This is due to the image referring to a larger context of Muhammed Ali winning a fight. The contact of this image is a demand, the distance is medium, and the point of view is Ali being in the middle of the frame, which shows his strength. The composition of this image is in the center, and it brings the whole meaning of the image together. 

    The representation part of this image is narrative as it is part of a larger story of people protesting the Vietnam War. The interactive meaning of this photo has a contact of demand, the distance is medium, and the point of view is from up above. This point of view is important since it shows the soldiers and protestors and how the protestors are standing up to them. The composition of this image is all put together in the center. The left section of the photo shows the known information on how soldiers would resist protests. The right side of the photo shows new information on how the protestors used flowers to get their point across. 

Sources:

Bezemer, Jeff. (PDF) Social Semiotics, Jan. 2009, www.researchgate.net/publication/286459229_Social_Semiotics.

Karlie, et al. “8 Famous Photos from History.” The Odyssey Online, 17 Oct. 2019, www.theodysseyonline.com/8-famous-photos-history.

Pescod, Adam. “Famous Photos That Changed the World.” Fleximize, 14 Nov. 2017, fleximize.com/articles/006450/famous-photos.

“Semiotics Lesson.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Nov. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3XvJDxjIpU.

“Visual Social Semiotics.” Theories of Visual Communication., 2 Sept. 2016, theoriesofviscomblog.wordpress.com/visual-social-semiotics/#:~:text=Definition.,meanings%20that%20visual%20material%20contains.