Beyond immediacy and transparency. A semiotic approach to discursive and rhetorical strategies in media visualization and data visualization

Media visualization based on big cultural data, as “visualization without reduction” (Manovich 2010) is supposed to make data immediately and completely available, in contrast to classic data visualization, which visually translates information by means of “graphical primitives.” On the other hand, from a pure functionalist point of view, also the visual form of diagrams, charts, and graphs, being fully proportional to the data values it conveys, is transparent with respect to its object (cf. Tufte 1990, 1997, 2001, and Card, Mackinlay, Shneiderman 1999). In this paper we will try to consider both media visualization and data visualization (across several examples, including some Manovich’s and Accurat’s projects and New York Times graphics) as complex visual communication artifacts, not only from a purely informational point of view but from a semiotic point of view, by introducing a semiotic reflection on what we have proposed to call “discourse of data” (Manchia 2020a). From our perspective, situated in the methodological framework of visual semiotics, and of the semiotics of scientific discourse, it might be interesting to pay attention to the whole process of constructing knowledge (and visual information) from data, understood as a chain of “devices of visualization” (Bastide 1985a, 1990 [1985b], 2001), investigating data as a channelled result, and also visualization strategies of specific–and oriented–discourses across data

Dati mancanti, dati mancati. Cancel culture, data bias e data gap nell’era dei big data

In a media landscape increasingly impregnated with cancel culture, it is extremely urgent to deal with the way in which sign destructure and erasure is itself the establishment of a regime of signification. The specific examples of erasure that we would like to discuss in this article, however, propose to broaden the reflection from the practices and strategies of erasure, replacement, obliteration and substitution of already given cultural units to the practices that make possible the emergence of these cultural units as given, in fact preventing the emergence of other cultural units, as shown by recent studies on data gaps and data bias. More specifically, what we would like to point out in these pages is the complicated relationship between data (statistical data but also big data) and cancel culture. As we shall see, the discourses that, implicitly or explicitly, open a reflection on how data are not given at all but, on the contrary, are in fact objects of continuous negotiation, on the one hand inaugurate a new way of looking at data, very different from the classic functionalist and positivist approach, and on the other hand offer new insights into the dynamics of cancellation itself, when they are no longer exercised over types and tokens, but over the conditions of possibility of such types and tokens

Reactions to Brexit in images : a multimodal content analysis of shared visual content on Flickr

In this article, the authors analyze citizens’ reactions to Brexit on social media after the referendum results by performing a content analysis of 5877 posts collected from the social media platform Flickr, written in English, German, French, Spanish or Italian. Their research aims to answer the three following questions: What multimodal practices are adopted by citizens when they react to societal events like Brexit? To what extent do these practices illustrate types of citizenship that are specific to social networks? Can we observe different reactions to Brexit according to the languages used by the citizens? The authors focus on the types of visual content the citizens used to react to Brexit, as well as on what types of social relations this content can particularly create between their authors and the other members of the Flick community. Their article also highlights to what extent these posts shared on Flickr show content that is in favour of, or against, Brexit

Association of polygenic score for major depression with response to lithium in patients with bipolar disorder

Lithium is a first-line medication for bipolar disorder (BD), but only one in three patients respond optimally to the drug. Since evidence shows a strong clinical and genetic overlap between depression and bipolar disorder, we investigated whether a polygenic susceptibility to major depression is associated with response to lithium treatment in patients with BD. Weighted polygenic scores (PGSs) were computed for major depression (MD) at different GWAS p value thresholds using genetic data obtained from 2586 bipolar patients who received lithium treatment and took part in the Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLi+Gen) study. Summary statistics from genome-wide association studies in MD (135,458 cases and 344,901 controls) from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) were used for PGS weighting. Response to lithium treatment was defined by continuous scores and categorical outcome (responders versus non-responders) using measurements on the Alda scale. Associations between PGSs of MD and lithium treatment response were assessed using a linear and binary logistic regression modeling for the continuous and categorical outcomes, respectively. The analysis was performed for the entire cohort, and for European and Asian sub-samples. The PGSs for MD were significantly associated with lithium treatment response in multi-ethnic, European or Asian populations, at various p value thresholds. Bipolar patients with a low polygenic load for MD were more likely to respond well to lithium, compared to those patients with high polygenic load [lowest vs highest PGS quartiles, multi-ethnic sample: OR = 1.54 (95% CI: 1.18–2.01) and European sample: OR = 1.75 (95% CI: 1.30–2.36)]. While our analysis in the Asian sample found equivalent effect size in the same direction: OR = 1.71 (95% CI: 0.61–4.90), this was not statistically significant. Using PGS decile comparison, we found a similar trend of association between a high genetic loading for MD and lower response to lithium. Our findings underscore the genetic contribution to lithium response in BD and support the emerging concept of a lithium-responsive biotype in BD

Mappare il virus. Strategie e pratiche di visualizzazione dei dati legate al fenomeno COVID-19

Mai come in questi mesi di emergenza pandemica globale si è assistito a una vera e propria esplosione di dati, numeri, statistiche e visualizzazioni nel tentativo di rendere visibile l’invisibile: il virus COVID-19. Questo saggio propone di esplorare, con gli strumenti della semiotica, le diverse strategie comunicative e retoriche messe in opera da alcuni artefatti visivi per cercare di indagare il fenomeno attraverso la visualizzazione dei dati

Immagini che fanno segno. Modi e pratiche di rappresentazione diagrammatica nelle informational images

Diagrammi, mappe e grafici sono sempre più presenti, sulla scena mediale e nella vita quotidiana, sull’onda della necessità di dominare la complessità del mondo contemporaneo. Oggetti visivi diversi ma accomunati dall’essere informational images, per dirla con James Elkins, ovvero capaci di veicolare dati e concetti. Pur essendo molto diverse dalle rappresentazioni classiche di stampo figurativo, queste immagini hanno comunque un grande potere: quello di rendere visibile l’invisibile. Un tema, questo, su cui si interrogano la teoria delle immagini, i media studies, gli studi di cultura visuale e la semiotica, interessati al rapporto tra rappresentazione e linguaggio e allo statuto della rappresentazione diagrammatica nei confronti di quella pittorica. I contributi qui raccolti ruotano intorno a questo dibattito, a partire da approcci disciplinari diversi e da più oggetti di analisi – dalle interfacce videoludiche all’arte contemporanea, dal mapping nel cinema alle immagini scientifiche, dalle pratiche progettuali in architettura alla rappresentazione del territorio. Senza dimenticare la lezione di Guattari e di Deleuze sul diagramma, su cui Fabbri si sofferma nel suo saggio, e le riflessioni di Manovich su cosa significa, oggi, visualization