Discussion of outline research proposal to create development, design and production methods for digital media founded on semiotic theory

Digital media are being used by artists, media professionals and marketers worldwide to communicate – with variable success – and to experiment and innovate in communication techniques. Some work has been done to analyse the grammar of communication peculiar to these media, but it is not at the same maturity as that relating to media such as film.

Semiotics is the study of how people make sense of information that they receive and process, as language – the study of signification. It posits models of how meaning is made. As an academic discipline, it deconstructs ‘texts’ and factors out elements according to these models.

Digital media afford a factor more laying, combination and mass customisation than their analogue forebears, theoretically permitting media to be permuted or selected on-the-fly to more coherent with the conceptual models of each user. The simulacra of the underlying information thereby created could enable users to make better sense, more easily and more enjoyably.

To achieve this, a better understanding of how meaning is created using the unique properties of digital media is required. Whilst many schools of critical theory and analysis can be applied to these media, semiotics is uniquely placed to create new grammars and morphologies of content and meaning.

The research proposed would not stop at identifying, customising or in some cases creating theoretical models. It would look at practically implementable ideation, design and production methods which would instantiate such models.

The questions we need to answer are:

• To what extent is this a new idea?
  
• Is something similar happening now or planned? (Brenda Dervin’s sensemaking, for example)
  
• Is there homologous work done in different disciplines under different labels?
• Does this proposal have the potential to generate new knowledge of utility?
• How best to undertake the work?
• It is cross-disciplinary – who from which disciplines needs to be involved?
• Is the research method outlined in the objectives sufficient?
• How do we configure the ‘action research’?
• What to do in order for it not just to be a ‘think piece’…
• What are our super-objectives beyond the research?
• What are our criteria for:
• Partners for evaluation and real-world application;
• Partners for dissemination and influencing?