Artefacts as Signs, Signs as Artefacts

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-475
Author(s):  
Giorgio Borrelli
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Marxian Theory ◽  
Sign Theory ◽  
Starting Point

AbstractThe category of “artefact” has been analyzed by different semiotic theories and methods. Starting from the Marxian theory of the dialectical relation between production and use (or consumption), Ferruccio Rossi-Landi (1921–1985) maintained the possibility of considering every “artefact” – or use-value – as a crossroads between material and linguistic production, i.e., as a crossroads between labor and language. This paper proposes a comparison – and a dialogue – between Rossi-Landi’s materialistic sign-theory and other semiotic approaches. From such a perspective, the concept of “artefact” could be considered as an analytical starting point for the study of further social and economic meaning-making processes.

Parental Alienation Syndrome of contactbreuk : Waarom uit het oog niet uit het hart is. Kinderen verst(r)ikt in verbinding.

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Claire Wiewauters ◽  
Kathleen Emmery
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Online Service ◽  
Parental Alienation ◽  
Parental Alienation Syndrome ◽  
Welfare Work ◽  
Developmental Age ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Kinderen En Jongeren

In dit artikel nemen we als focus de kwetsbare positie van het kind in de context rondom PAS (Parental Alienation Syndrome). We vertrekken vanuit een postmoderne visie op de werkelijkheid waarbij de betekenisgeving binnen een relationeel kader een belangrijke plaats inneemt. Ook de ontwikkelingsleeftijd van kinderen vergt onze aandacht. We toetsen ons conceptueel kader aan een analyse van 60 chatgesprekken van kinderen en jongeren met de hulplijn Awel over de scheiding van hun ouders en het leven in een samengesteld gezin. We formuleren een aantal concrete voorstellen die ervoor moeten zorgen dat de ontwikkeling en het welzijn van kinderen en jongeren zoveel mogelijk gewaarborgd blijft wanneer contactbreuk bij en na scheiding optreedt. Hiermee bieden we een antwoord op de draaglast en het isolement van kinderen. We houden een pleidooi om het actorschap van kinderen te verhogen. We pleiten voor meer samenwerking tussen de betrokkenen bij welzijn en justitie. Abstract :  This article focuses on the vulnerable position of the child in the context of PAS (Parental Alienation Syndrome).  Our starting point is a postmodern vision on reality in which meaning making plays an important role in relations.  We also pay attention to the developmental age of children. We test our conceptual framework with an analysis of 60 chat conversations of children and youngsters with the online service of the Flemish Child Helpline (‘Awel’) about the divorce of their parents and life in a newly composed family. We formulate several specific suggestions to make sure that the development and well‐being of children and youngsters is guaranteed as much as possible when contact is broken during and after the divorce. With this we offer a response to the burden and isolation of children. We make a plea to strengthen the agency of children and for more cooperation between the welfare work and legal actors that are involved.

scholarly journals The search-ification of everyday life and the mundane-ification of search

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olof Sundin ◽  
Jutta Haider ◽  
Cecilia Andersson ◽  
Hanna Carlsson ◽  
Sara Kjellberg
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Online Searching ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand how meaning is assigned to online searching by viewing it as a mundane, yet often invisible, activity of everyday life and an integrated part of various social practices. Design/methodology/approach Searching is investigated with a sociomaterial approach with a starting point in information searching as entangled across practices and material arrangements and as a mundane part of everyday life. In total, 21 focus groups with 127 participants have been carried out. The study focusses particularly on peoples’ experiences and meaning-making and on how these experiences and the making of meaning could be understood in the light of algorithmic shaping. Findings An often-invisible activity such as searching is made visible with the help of focus group discussions. An understanding of the relationship between searching and everyday life through two interrelated narratives is proposed: a search-ification of everyday life and a mundane-ification of search. Originality/value The study broadens the often narrow focus on searching in order to open up for a research-based discussion in information science on the role of online searching in society and everyday life.

Unmaking the Arab/Muslim Child

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisrine Mansour
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Multifaceted Approach ◽  
Arab Region ◽  
Screen Media ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
Arab Muslim ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Palestinian Children ◽  
Micro Analysis

Abstract Recent interest in Arab child audiences is mostly related to the penetration of digital media to the Arab region and the rise of discourses on ‘counterterrorism’, Islamic radicalization and Islamophobia. More often than not, audience-focused inquiry has adopted, as a starting point, the uniform default category of ‘Arab/Muslim’. As these analytical categories are conflated, the implications of such teleological epistemologies cannot be missed. In this article, I dislocate these ontological and epistemological assumptions about Arab child audiences by refocusing the inquiry on children’s own processes of meaning-making amid their negotiations of socioeconomic, political, migratory and media ecologies. This inquiry, conducted between 2013 and 2015, explores these spaces by zooming into the findings of ethnographic research and playful interventions with two Syrian and Palestinian children living in the two contrastive migratory settings of Beirut and London. This micro-analysis questions dominant understandings of Arab childhood and screen media use today, and discusses the potential for adopting a multifaceted approach to the inquiry.

scholarly journals Pigeon-Human Negotiations through Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 56-80
Author(s):  
Dawn M Gaietto
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Use Value ◽  
World War ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Recycling System ◽  
Starting Point

This is an exploration of the (un)common worlds of the pigeon and the human in London, through the lens of anthrodecentric art and the installation of a pigeon loft. To engage with this encounter is look, see, and be with another. Human-pigeon ties of relation are long-standing, as from 10,000 years ago the pigeon has lived cooperatively with the human species. More recently, the pigeon was the starting point of contemporary mail systems and messenger pigeons were active serving members of the armed forces in World War II, ablpie to carry out missions when humans were unfit and incapable. Given developments in mechanical and digital technologies, the pigeon has been deprived of its use-value as technology. The project Pigeon-Human Negotiations presents a diagrammatic model that affords the pigeon a use-value in contemporary London – their scavenging behaviours are recognised for their utility as a bio-recycling system. Here I present this arts practice-led research project under three lenses of analysis: the space of function, the space of re-presentation, and the sphere of translation. Herein lies the intersection of pigeon/art/human, within the bio-recycling capacities of the pigeon, the functions of art as re-purposer and subsequently assigner of value, the human can consume this art work predicated on the active presence of the non-human, and their agency through the artwork, which allows the rubbish produced by the human to be bio-recycled into the realm of value.

scholarly journals Fanon and the Underside of Commodity Fetishism

PhaenEx ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-45
Author(s):  
Dan Wood
Keyword(s):  
Use Value ◽  
Marxian Theory ◽  
Commodity Fetishism ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
The Veil ◽  
The Way

In the present essay, I argue that portions of Frantz Fanon’s L’an V de la révolution algérienne (A Dying Colonialism) significantly contribute to, develop, and advance the Marxian theory of commodity fetishism.  First, I describe and chart Fanon’s theorization of the transformations of the veil, the radio, and medicine in revolutionary Algeria, and map the homologous moments of each of these studies. Next, I give a brief synopsis of Marx’s account of commodity fetishism and argue that this theory leaves open questions about the way in which use-value plays a role in commodity fetishization in colonial contexts, and, by extension, in actual anticolonial political revolutions. The foregoing then paves the way for a re-evaluation of the central insights of Fanon’s studies of the veil, the radio, and medicine.

Beyond prosody and infant-directed speech: Affective, social construction of meaning in the origins of language

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara J. King ◽  
Stuart Shanker
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Gestural Interaction ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Construction Of Meaning ◽  
African Great Apes

Our starting point for the origins of language goes beyond prosody or infant-directed speech to highlight the affective, multimodal, and co-constructed nature of meaning-making that was likely present before the split between African great apes and hominins. Analysis of vocal and gestural caregiving practices in hominins, and of meaning-making via gestural interaction in African great apes, supports our thesis.

scholarly journals Correlation between Class Evaluation of University Students and Procrastination

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
Miki Adachi ◽  
Keisuke Adachi
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
The Other ◽  
Target Person ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Evaluation Questionnaire ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Future

The purpose of this study is to clarify how the characteristics of class evaluation are related to the time of submission of the assignments by university students. Specifically, this paper considered class evaluation based on the three interactions of value of use, value of interest, and expectation and examined the correlation between each factor and the interaction of the factors and the submission time of the assignments. 47 (22 boys and 25 girls) who received responses to the class evaluation questionnaire and agreed to use the data were analyzed. As a result, it was shown that the value of interest and the interaction of value of use and value of interest influenced the timing of submission of the assignments. On the other hand, when the value of interest was low even if it was useful, there was a tendency to delay the submission of the assignments. Interestingly, the assignments were submitted faster when they were less useful and less interest. Using this result as a starting point for clarifying the mechanism of procrastination and pre-crastination and demonstrate the reproducibility of whether the same tendency can be seen even if the scene or target person is changed in the future.

scholarly journals An economic valuation of access to cultural institutions: museums, theatres, and cinemas

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-587
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Wiśniewska ◽  
Wiktor Budziński ◽  
Mikołaj Czajkowski
Keyword(s):  
Economic Valuation ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Consumer Surplus ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Use Values ◽  
Non Market Valuation ◽  
Embedding Effect

Abstract Cultural institutions are the main beneficiaries of public funds for culture. However, cultural policies suffer from ‘adhocism’ in the administration of institutions, which are often publicly owned and receive little recognition of the benefits that society gains from their use. The aim of this study is to provide the measurement of the use value of access to cultural institutions. Based on the observed individual attendances and their costs, a two-stage budgeting model is employed to estimate the change in consumer surplus related to the loss of access to cinemas, museums, and theatres in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first non-market valuation of cinemas in the existing literature. The inclusion of institutions’ entire markets helps to overcome the bias caused by the embedding effect and the availability of substitutes, which affects many single-site valuations. The estimated use values are compared with the subsidies received by the three groups of cultural institutions. Results reveal substantial benefits provided by cinemas, although cinemas are nearly excluded from the circulation of public support. The estimated use value is enough to justify subsidies for both highly subsidised sectors of museums and theatres. The estimation of use values serves as a starting point for the evaluation of the use of public resources.

A dialogic account of reader–text interactions

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis S. Davis ◽  
Dot McElhone ◽  
F. Blake Tenore
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Moment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptualization of reading comprehension that extends beyond the traditional cognitive viewpoint on comprehension common in the field. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on literature and theory from various perspectives (cognitive, sociocultural and critical), the authors propose a conceptual heuristic that can inform future scholarship. Findings – Using four foundational principles of reader–text interactions as a starting point (non-neutrality, tethered polysemy, variable agency and unruliness), the authors describe reader–text interactions in terms of the tethers/resources that are brought into the interaction, the moment-to-moment improvisation that occurs when readers meet a text and the changes at the intra- and interpersonal levels that result from and influence future reader–text interactions. Originality/value – The conceptualization can inform future research and practice in literacy by situating meaning making within a broader understanding of the processes and consequences of textual interaction.

scholarly journals Meaningful Activities Among Vulnerable Older Adults Living With Dementia

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 838-838
Author(s):  
Theresa Allison ◽  
Jennie Gubner ◽  
Alexander Smith
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cigarette Smoking ◽  
Tai Chi ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
The People ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Ethnographic Observation ◽  
Hymn Singing

Abstract This paper examines self-identified meaningful activities in the daily lives of 21 vulnerable older adults living with dementia and the people who care for them at home (dyads). Using ethnographic observation and interviews, we asked the dyads to identify which aspects of daily life were most meaningful and how these activities changed as dementia progressed. Results ranged from pleasure-seeking activities like cigarette smoking and eating, to spiritual or mindfulness activities like hymn-singing, prayer and tai chi. Dyads identified specific examples of the ways in which meaningful activities and meaning-making both persisted and adapted throughout the progression of dementia. Using these identifiable moments of meaning-making as a starting point for inquiry, we explore underlying questions of how to adapt to dementia progression while retaining meaning in relationships.

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