Unravelling semiotics in 2022: A year in review

Unravelling semiotics in 2022: A year in revie

Semiotics of threats: Discourse on the vulnerability of the Estonian identity card

This article analyses various e-threats that were expressed in media texts that focused on e-threat discourses concerning the Estonian identity card’s security risk in 2017. The discourse of cyberthreats contains strong and controversial meanings because the peculiarities of cyberspace remain intangible for average readers who do not possess expert knowledge regarding ICT. The wider aim of the paper is to suggest how the topic of e-threats could be given public coverage without fuelling irrational anxiety and unwarranted threat scenarios. Our theoretical basis combines the frameworks of the Copenhagen School of security studies and ideas of cultural semiotics. We explain the semiotic logic of phobophobia (i.e. the abstract concern with the devastating impacts of the collective feeling of fear) and the discourse of fear that is characterized by a significant reliance on analogies, drawing vague demarcation line between reference objects and the dominance of negative emotional tonality. Our study demonstrates that the main actors of threat and the consequences of the identity card’s security problems were associated with unknown hackers and the damaging of the reputation of Estonia as an e-state

Autocommunicative meaning-making in online communication of the Estonian extreme right

This article analyses the online communication of the Estonian extreme right that appears to be characterized by an echo-chamber effect as well as enclosed and hermetic meaning-making. The discussion mainly relies on the theoretical frameworks offered by semiotics of culture.One of the aims of the article is to widen the scope of understanding of autocommunicative processes that are usually related to learning, insight and innovation. The article shows the conditions in which autocommunicative processes result in closed interactions, based on reproducing stereotypes and redundant content. We detect antithetical meaning-making, an orientation towards normative (“correct”) texts and the prevalence of phatic communication as the main dominants that guide closed autocommunication. Such communication leads to polarization of dissimilar views and hinders dialogue. Our case study focuses on the discussion that arose in the context of the European Refugee Crisis that started in spring 2015

Paremäärmuslik sõnavabadus eesti rahvusradikaalide veebisuhtluses

The article focuses on the processes of identification in hypermedia, trying to explicate the strategies of self-description that prevail on the websites of the activists of the Estonian extreme rights. The extreme right movements tend to use generally accepted discourses for the purpose of legitimising their own ethnocentric media practices. Extreme nationalist ideas form equivalences with concepts from the discourse of multiculturalism (‘justice’, ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, ‘freedom of speech’), though at first sight they are incompatible. To explain this paradoxical situation, the authors employ the concepts of the hegemonic logic of signification and the empty signifier, as elaborated by Laclau, as well as the theoretical framework of cultural semiotics. The case-study is based on the extraordinarily forceful public feedback that followed the discussions about ACTA ratification in Estonia. ‘Information-freedom’ became an ambiguous core signifier: it played an important part in public discussions, but it also had a central role in the self-descriptions of Estonian radical nationalists. NO ACTA functioned in this case as an empty signifier, which united into a discursive whole these contradictory signifiers and self-models. The concept of a self-model is useful for explaining why some signifiers have a greater potential to become discursive dominants. It seems that in Estonian extreme-right meaning creation there are certain relations of equivalence between signifiers that are more likely to aggregate the discourse than the others, and these depend on the abstract level of the self-model

Mütoloogilisest mõtlemisest kahe-jalaga-maa-peal-seletustes. On mythological thinking in the representation of the concept two-feet-on-the-ground

This article focuses on the simultaneous co-existence of mythological and descriptive thinking in common sense discourse. Specifically, it concentrates on the synthesis of types of thought in those understandings that are characterized by the well-known expression having (one’s) two-feet-on-the-ground. In order to provide concreteness for the meaning of the expression, I investigated Estonian cyberspace as one of the most prevalent arenas of common sense discourse, and it appeared that two-feet-on-the-ground is used to refer to rationality, sanity and practicality as opposed to, for example, dreamers, bohemians and people who talk about karma or believe in UFOs. People who use having (one’s) two-feet-on-the-ground as a key element in their self-description assume that the way they understand the world is more rational and closer to reality than that of bohemians and spiritualists. Behind the above-mentioned two notions, which in themselves are not easy to define, there is a gleam of a more general tendency of Western thought. This is the conclusion reached by Rein Vihalemm, who has argued that what is accepted as truthful knowledge on the level of common sense is usually understood as being synonymous with scientific knowledge; in turn, the notion of the scientific is usually connected with inductive-empirical science. This article argues that the understandings that are posited as having two-feet-on-the-ground are mixed with categories that cannot be considered as belonging to inductive-empirical logic. The question of values, metaphysics and teleology is always (at least implicitly) present in those representations. That idea seems to be natural in academic discourse but is not as self-evident on the common-sense level. Those who describe themselves as standing with their two-feet-on-the-ground usually think of metaphysics and teleology as being subjective, useless and distant. In describing the specificity of the logic of two-feet-on-the-ground representations, it is fruitful to use the meta-language of cultural semiotics. This allows for the explication of two fundamental and fundamentally different ways of constructing knowledge: mythological and descriptive logics of signification. The general parameters of mythological thinking are that objects belong in the same class and they cannot be organized in intersections or categories. The other aspect that is characteristic of mythological thinking is that the world is structured according to a binary logic – it is divided into Good and Evil, right and wrong, order and chaos. Non-mythological thinking is based on creating abstractions and organizing objects according to the principles of logic. The main structural operation of mythological thinking is the creation of analogies. Descriptive thinking focuses on the relations of chronology, particular-general and cause-effect. Two-feet-on-the-ground understandings have a tendency to create a holistic approach that connects mythological and descriptive thinking. If a statement is recognized as having (one’s) two-feet-on-theground, i.e. if it contains schemes, calculations, formulae or other items that indicate scientificity (=inductive- empirical) etc., then it is likely that at the common-sense level it is perceived as something good=valuable=rational. Some radical two-feet-on-the-ground representations can even use the apparatus of scientific discourse to explain the purpose of life or the way God connects with his addressees during mystical experiences. I do not mean to imply that the presence of mythological thinking in those understandings is bad or dangerous. I agree with Lotman's idea that it is, instead, unavoidable because in contemporary culture pure forms of mythological or descriptive thinking do not exist: they are always entangled to some extent. However, I do think that not acknowledging a high concentration of mythological thinking in understandings that posit themselves as two-feet-on-the-ground can be a bit tricky because resorting to a purely practical interpretation of the phrase (and the understanding) can result in its manipulative use by demagogues who act under the aegis of science

Identiteetide semiootiline konstrueerimine hüpermeedia keskkonnas: Eesti paremäärmuslaste online-kommunikatsiooni analüüs

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsioone.Väitekiri keskendub paremäärmusliku võrgusuhtluse ning selle vahendusel toimuvate identiteediloomeprotsesside semiootilisele uurimisele. Nii julgeolekuorganisatsioonid kui ka mitmed akadeemilised tööd on välja toonud, et tänapäevases vähemuste õigusi tunnustavas maailmas toimub kõige aktiivsem ksenofoobsete ja rassistlike ideede koondumine ning paremäärmuslike kogukondade moodustumine eelkõige internetis. Semiootika metakeel võimaldab paremäärmusliku suhtluse relatsioonilist mõtestamist, mis võtab arvesse rahvusradikaalsete sõlmekeste omavahelistes interaktsioonides kujunenud tähendushierarhiaid kui ka nende dünaamilist suhestumist laiema sotsiokultuurilise kontekstiga. Tuginedes eesti paremäärmuslikus võrgustikus läbi viidud mitteosalevale vaatlusele, teiste uurimuste tulemustele ning kultuurisemiootika kontseptuaalsetele alustele, keskendub siinne doktoritöö neljale allteemale, mis aitavad avada rassistliku ja ksenofoobse tähendusloome võtmeaspekte. Esiteks selgitan paremäärmuslikku tähendusloomet organiseerivad dominantseid seosteraamistikke, mis suunavad nii konkreetsete sündmuste tõlgendusi kui ka nende seostamist kogukondliku mäluga. Teiseks avan semiootilisi mehhanisme, mis võimaldavad pealtnäha paradoksaalseid paremäärmuslikke enesekirjeldusi, kus põimitakse rassistlikke ja ksenofoobseid vaated ühiskonnas üldaktsepteeritud liberaaldemokraatia ja multikulturalismi diskursustesse kuuluvate tähistajatega, nagu õigus võrdsele kohtlemisele, vähemuste kaitse, sõnavabadus jne. Kolmandaks näitan, millised paremäärmuslikku tähendusloomet määravad ja suunavad dominandid viivad polariseeruva ja olemasolevaid stereotüüpe taastootva kajakambrisuhtluseni. Neljandaks avan uue maailmakorra (NWO) vandenõuteooriate rolli paremäärmuslaste enesekirjeldustes kui ka ühiskondlike sündmuste ja nähtuste mõtestamisel. Lisaks osutatud fookustele keskendub käeolev doktoritöö ka üldise teoreetilise raamistiku väljaarendamisele, mis lubab avada vandenõuteooriate semiootilist tähistamisloogikat ka väljaspool paremäärmuslikku suhtlust. Samuti selgitan e-Eesti identiteedidiskursust, mis seob tänapäevased info-ja kommunikatsioonitehnoloogiad tugevalt konkreetsete väärtuste ning ühiskonnavisioonidega. E-Eesti diskursusel on tähtis roll nii riigi ametlikes enesekirjeldustes kui ka mitmesuguste perifeersemate sfääride identiteediloomes.This dissertation presents a semiotic study of the processes of identity-creation, which prevail in online interactions of the extreme right. Security authorities, as well as the academic studies, have indicated that in contemporary societies, which generally respect the rights of minorities, the most active formation and exchange of racist and xenophobic ideas takes place by virtue of online communities. The meta-language of semiotics allows the relational conceptualization of the extreme right communication. It enables to take into account the meaning-hierarchies, which form the interactions of different extreme right nodes but also to comprehend the dynamic relations between radical nationalist sphere and the wider socio-cultural context. Based on non-participatory observation in the Estonian extreme right networks, the findings of the previous studies and conceptual frameworks of cultural semiotics, this dissertation concentrates of four topics, which disclose the key-aspects of contemporary racist and nativistic meaning-making. Firstly, I explain the dominant frameworks which organize the extreme right interpretations of particular events but also generate the associations with communal memory. Secondly, I reveal the semiotic mechanisms which enable seemingly paradoxical self-descriptions, which unite racist and xenophobic understandings with signifiers form generally accepted discourses of liberal democracy and multiculturalism. Thirdly, I demonstrate what kind of dominants of meaning-making lead to the echo chamber communication, which facilitates the reproduction of pre-existing stereotypes and directs towards polarized understandings. Fourthly, I make known the functions, which New World Order (NWO) conspiracy theories have in the extreme right interpretations and self-understandings. Besides aforementioned emphases, this dissertation develops a general theoretical framework, which enables to expose the semiotic logic of the signification of conspiracy theories that are articulated outside of the extreme right sphere of communication. In addition, I also explain the identity-discourse of e-Estonia, which connects contemporary information and communication technologies with particular values and visions of Estonian society. The discourse of e-Estonia has a significant role in the dominant self-descriptions of Estonia but it also influences the identity-creation of peripheral spheres

FOBOFOOBIA: KÜBEROHTUDE JA INFOSÕJA DISKURSUS SUURÕPPUSE ZAPAD 2017 MEEDIAKAJASTUSES: Phobophobia: The Discourse of Cyber Threats and Information Warfare in the Media Coverage of Zapad 2017

This article analyses various cyber threats that were discussed in media texts that focused on Russia’s military exercise Zapad 2017. The discourse of cyber threats is full of loaded and controversial meanings because, on the one hand, the domains of electronic and information warfare remain intangible for average readers who do not have expert knowledge in ICTs. On the other hand, these issues presume deliberate deception and clandestine activities executed by the Kremlin. The wider aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the topic of Russia’s electronic and informational warfare capabilities can be covered by the media without fuelling unsubstantiated anxiety and unwarranted threat scenarios or supporting Russia’s strategic narratives about the growth of its high-tech military might. The theoretical basis combines the frameworks of the Copenhagen School of security studies and notions of cultural semiotics. We explain the logic of phobophobia (i.e. the abstract concern about the devastating impacts of the collective feeling of fear and vulnerability that is often related with biased usages of new ICTs) that is characterized by a significant reliance on analogies, drawing vague demarcation of reference objects and the dominance of negative emotional tonality. The resulting analysis demonstrates that during the Zapad 2017 exercise the media discourse depicted Russia as an advanced military power that has gained a lot of practical skills and experience in previous incidents of electronic and informational warfare. At the same time, the West was portrayed as a rather passive victim that was often anxious and unnerved by unanticipated attacks coming from Russia. The main sources of threat were associated with: 1) Russia´s electronic and informational warfare capabilities; 2) the low capability of NATO´s experts to foresee electronic and informational attacks, 3) the vulnerability of everyday technology, particularly smartphones

COVID-19-TEEMALISTE VANDENÕUDE JA VANDENÕUTEOORIATE KUJUTAMISEST STRATEEGILISTES NARRATIIVIDES: RT JA SPUTNIKU LUGUDE SEMIOOTILINE ANALÜÜS: A PROJECTION OF CONSPIRACIES AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT COVID-19 IN STRATEGIC NARRATIVES: A SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENT OF RT AND SPUTNIK

In spring of 2020, a study was published on conspiracies/conspiracy theories regarding the projection of the coronavirus in Russian state-financed Anglophone media outlets RT and Sputnik. In our analysis, we outlined five major motifs regarding the narration of conspiracies and conspiracy theories in RT and Sputnik. Russian outlets generally express explicitly negative attitudes towards conspiracy theories. However, we detected two peculiarities of strategic narration in such representations: (a) criticism towards conspiracy theories and (b) conspiracy-based explanation of the circulation of conspiracy theories. We identified three motifs regarding the criticism on conspiracy theories. First, the viral dissemination of conspiracy theories that blame 5G for the rapid spreading of COVID-19 was fiercely condemned in RT and Sputnik for being an expression of irrational fear and weakness of the Western people. The growing popularity of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories was denounced in a similar, sometimes even ridiculing manner. Conspiracy theories that refer to the coronavirus as a bioweapon were treated as a particularly dangerous form of COVID-19 infodemic and the USA leaders were severely condemned for spreading them. These three motifs enabled RT and Sputnik to position themselves as media-literate and critical channels. In relation with these three motifs, we distinguished two dominant ways in which RT and Sputnik are using a strategic depiction of conspiracy theories. Firstly, an anti-conspiracy discourse was used to support the strategic narrative of the Russian Federation in their general resentfulness towards the West, i.e. a story about a morally corrupt elite and frightened, easily manipulative people. Such a narrative enables to strengthen the anti-Western attitudes and present the Russian Federation and the people who consume Russian media as insightful and moral agents. Secondly, the Russian Anglophone media outlets presented selective criticism on conspiracy theories. The USA, EU, and the Western mainstream media were blamed for voicing and circulating COVID-19 plots

Grupuskulaarne identiteediloome paremäärmuslaste võrgusuhtluses / The Formation of Groupuscular Identity in the Web Communication of the Estonian Extreme Right

Teesid: Artikli eesmärgiks on avada eesti paremäärmuslaste tähendusloomet hüpermeedias. Roger Griffini teooria järgi iseloomustab paremäärmuslaste võrgusuhtluse väikeste mitteparteiliste üksuste – grupuskulite (nt veebilehed, blogid) paljusus ja suhteline marginaalsus, rahulolematus praeguse maailmakorraga, ideede revolutsioonilisus ning risoomne ehk mitte-hierarhiline kommunikatsioonistruktuur. Täiendame Griffini teooriat kultuurisemiootika ideedega. Semiosfääri kontseptsioon võimaldab paremini analüüsida grupuskulite kommunikatsiooni eripära ja seal tekkivaid tähendushierarhiaid. Koodteksti mõiste selgitab aga, miks, vaatamata hüpermeedias kättesaadavale arvamuste paljususele, domineerivad grupuskulaarses kommunikatsioonis väga kindlad tähendusloome viisid.    S U M M A R Y The purpose of this article is to create a conceptual framework which would aid in the understanding of the characteristic ways the Estonian extreme right has created the prevalent identities and meanings that are currently in circulation in the media. The analysis is based on non-participant observation, by means of which we have attempted to isolate the main foci and dominant practices of self-description found in web communications among members of the Estonian extreme right. Based on the number of visitors to sites, the concentration of topics posted and frequency of citation, we take the following as representatives of extreme right positions: the blogs „The Nationalist“ („Rahvuslane“), „NS“, and „Nationalist“ („Rahvuslik“), and the alternative web pages „Be Aware“ („Ole Teadlik“) and „BHR Ruzzland“. Markers of the extreme right were present in the pages we examined at different levels of intensity; in fact, not every post to these pages clearly, not every page could be labelled as extreme right. Yet the general tonality of the webpages we examined included the following: an urgent need to conserve „core Estonianness“ and protect it from foreign influences; the belief that the world order (including Estonian power structures) are controlled by a secret alliance between Zionists and Masonic orders; the danger of mixing races and cultures; the need to exert strong state control over a range of areas of life; euroskepticism.  According to the authors of this article non-institutionalized extreme right movements operating in hypermedia have been most extensively examined by Roger Griffin’s research. Griffin has developed the concept of the groupuscule, which can be defined as small, political, (though almost never directly partypolitical) unit in the context of contemporary extreme right-wing politics, and which strive toward revolutionary, ideological, organizational, and activist goals, the overall purpose of which is to overcome the decadence of the liberal democratic system.  Groupuscules can have diverse physical manifestations: webpages, magazines, and why not also underground meetings of extreme-right cell groups. Indeed, according to Griffin, groupuscules can be treated as non-nuclear cellular networks without a leader. The communication of groupuscules reflects the characteristics of hypermedia itself: nonhierarchical or network-like structure, internal multiplicity, the lack of a centre or a central axis of organization, fluidity, and temporariness, all of which are most often connected with the abstract textuality of the hypermedia environment.  In our view, the main limitation of Griffin’s account of groupuscules is the undertheorization of communication both within and among groupuscules. Too little attention has been directed to the primary mechanisms of meaning-creation, which organize navigation on the groupuscular information field and the development of hierarchies. In this article we aim to supplement Griffin’s theory of the groupsucule by means of a cultural-semiotic approach, particularly through the concepts of the semiosphere and the code text.  Focusing on meaning-creation by the groupuscular extreme right, one can examine groupuscules communicating in the internet environments as different semiotic wholes, or semiospheres: these can be specific posts, popular discussion topics, or the network as a whole. The semiotic wholeness of a groupuscule is guaranteed by a boundary. By means of the boundary, a groupuscule can distinguish itself from its semiotic other, filter information from outside, and restate this in its own language. Groupuscules of the extreme right bring those people together who use the web medium both for the formation and the confirmation of their personal racial/ethnic identity. Their relatively marginal status as a „public voice“ can be explained by the fact that on the webpages we examined, a dominant strategy for identity formation was creating the image of an extreme rightist as a sufferer or victim. They often presented themselves as persecuted and unjustly excluded from public discussions. In the communications of the Estonian extreme right, the designated antagonists are the mainstream media, the European Union, and its corrupt politicians.  In terms of its internal structure, the groupuscular extreme right is heterogeneous. When a specific groupuscule enters interaction with other extreme right cells, it is no longer identical with itself, since its identity is largely determined by connecting with other groupuscules; that is, its particularity only emerges through communication with other groupuscules. The Estonian extreme right groupuscules we studied are relatively well known publicly in the so-called local counterculture; some of their articles are frequently commented and cited (on the pages we studied, reciprocal reference and quotation was frequent).  However, in every semiotic whole, dominants or nuclei develop, which, compared to more marginal semiotic units are usually more rigidly structured. Similar nuclear structures also play an important role in groupuscular identity formation, where, in the course of communication, certain topics become major themes that unify many groupuscules, and begin to determine the meaning-formation of the semiotic units that belong to it. For example, in the case of the topic of ratification of ACTA (The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), a reference to extensive corruption among various administrative units of the European Union percolates through the Estonian groupuscules (on a broader level, a reference to the decadence of liberalism and the new world order).  On another level, opinion leaders emerge on the groupuscular field; their postings are read most often, and their ideas are referenced most often. On the Estonian groupuscular field, the most cited sources are the blogs „DeCivitate“ and „The Nationalist“. It seems that if Griffin points out that groupuscular information networks lack a „center-periphery“ relation, then he bases that claim on 1) the technological characteristics that structure the web environment. However, he does not take into account 2) the relativity of the centre-periphery opposition and 3) the hierarchical nature of the processes of signification themselves and their role in organizing groupuscules. We attempt to explain groupuscules’ relatively hermetic meaning-creation by using the cultural-semiotic term code text, which is an invariant system of connections originating in the shared memory of a community, the role of which is conceptualizing specific fragments of information and locating them in habitual patterns of meaning.  The self-descriptions of right-wing groupuscules are largely built around the code text of a conspiracy theory, which allows the representation of one’s ideological opponents as extremely ill-intentioned or ignorant, and themselves, by contrast, as moral and heroic. The code text that narrates the decline of the liberal-democratic world constellates narratives of a conspiratorial world system, in which the cause of every event can be explained by the „evil“ intent of the conspirators. Groupuscules do not limit themselves to passive complaining about the decadence of the prevailing world order; often ideas are expressed of radically reforming this decadent world order, which should in turn lead to the rebirth of nation-states. The specificity of the code text leads participants in the extreme right to perceive causal connections between events that have occurred in different places at different times, and which seem totally unconnectable in the eyes of outsiders. Those phenomena that do not fit the code text, and which could make way for other explanations for sociocultural realities are virtually invisible in the self-descriptions of gropusucules, and are relegated to the periphery as unimportant