Who’s talking? Cognitive semiotics in the (new media) wild

Abstract

An axiom of Per Aage Brandt’s approach to conceptual blending, known colloquially as the “Aarhus model”, is that semiosis only makes sense when grounded in communicative interaction. Here we adopt that approach in relation to the reality of current, daily communication which is increasingly mediated by digital audio-visual technology platforms. We pursue this goal via a small set of case studies that explore how this technology changes and challenges social interaction and how participants exploit and adapt cognitive, embodied, technological, and semiotic resources in creating meaningful, collective, virtual spaces of joint social activity. In so doing, we expand the horizon of inquiry and contribute insights that have relevance for the new media ecology. This application of cognitive semiotic analyses of video meetings confronts the nature of “mediation” and its accomplishment, the status of “virtual spaces”, and “social presence.”