Visual semiotics

Studies of meaning evolve from semiotics, a philosophical approach that seeks to interpret messages in terms of signs and patterns of symbolism.

The broadening concept of text and discourse encourages additional research into how visual communication operates to create meaning.

Deely explains that "at the heart of semiotics is the realization that the whole of human experience, without exception, is an interpretive structure mediated and sustained by signs".

[3] Semiotics now considers a variety of texts, using Eco's terms, to investigate such diverse areas as movies, art, advertisements, and fashion, as well as visuals.

Anthropologists like Grant McCracken and marketing experts like Sydney Levy have even used semiotic interpretations to analyze the rich cultural meanings of products and consumer consumption behaviors as texts.

Linda Scott has deconstructed the images in perfume advertising as well as in Apple's "1984" commercial using close readings of the various messages that can be interpreted from the ads.

Also using semiotics, Arthur Asa Berger has deconstructed the meaning of the "1984" commercial as well as programs such as Cheers and films such as Murder on the Orient Express.

Represented participants are elements of a visual image, and are either narrative ("present unfolding actions and events or... processes of change") or conceptual ("show abstract, comparative or generalized categories") (Scollon and Wong 86).

With modality, it is often found "that truth, veracity, or sincerity might be expressed in very different ways from one society to another," with Western cultures favoring naturalistic representation, or as true to seeing it in person as possible (Scollon and Wong 89-90).

[6] Previous Presidents: Jean-Marie Klinkenberg (2001-2012), Paolo Fabbri (1998-2001), Ana Claudia de Oliveira (1996-1998), Jacques Fontanille (1994-1996), Fernande Saint-Martin (1990-1994), Michel Costantini (1989-1990).