Distributed semiosis: algorithms, affordances and the multi-agent ecosystem of meaning across platfospheres
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Arash Ghazvineh
Arash Ghazvineh is a Ph.D. student in Arts Research at Tarbiat Modares University. His research focuses on multimodal semiotics, the semiotics of digital cultures and the interplay between semiotics and artificial intelligence.
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Reza Afhami
Reza Afhami is an Associate Professor of Art Studies at Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. He is interested in the Psychology of Art, Experimental Aesthetics, and History of Art. His current projects use and combine a number of empirical methods to examine contemporary cultural phenomena.
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John A. Bateman
John A. Bateman received his PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1986 and is currently a research professor in multimodality at Bremen University, Germany. His research interests include the semiotic foundations of multimodality and how these can support empirical methods. Recent book-length publications include ‘Multimodality: Foundations, Research and Analysis – A Problem-Oriented Introduction’ (2017, De Gruyter).
Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari is an Associate Professor of linguistics at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran. His research includes Iranian dialectology and linguistics, and linguistic/semiotic approaches to drama and film.
Abstract
This paper argues that meaning-making in the digital age has undergone a fundamental shift, no longer confined to the province of human actors. In today’s complex digital environments, semiosis – the core mechanism of signification – has become a distributed process, emerging from dynamic interactions among human users, algorithmic agents, and technological affordances. This shift challenges traditional anthropocentric models of semiosis and underscores the necessity for a reconceptualization of semiosis that can account for the heterogeneous actors shaping the contemporary semiotic landscape. To this end, this study advances a framework of distributed semiosis that integrates the roles of diverse human and non-human factors, with particular attention given to social media platforms – here conceptualized as platfospheres – as complex digital communicative environments. The paper draws on Peirce’s processual and relational model of semiosis, reframing signs as ephemeral relational dynamics (rather than static entities) unfolding within broader networks of distributed semiotic processes that are fundamentally inferential. It explores how Interpretants, as outcomes of relational sign dynamics, are increasingly becoming distributed within the hybrid ecosystems of contemporary digital environments. It thus offers a fine-grained framework for understanding the dynamics of semiosis in the digital age.
About the authors
Arash Ghazvineh is a Ph.D. student in Arts Research at Tarbiat Modares University. His research focuses on multimodal semiotics, the semiotics of digital cultures and the interplay between semiotics and artificial intelligence.
Reza Afhami is an Associate Professor of Art Studies at Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. He is interested in the Psychology of Art, Experimental Aesthetics, and History of Art. His current projects use and combine a number of empirical methods to examine contemporary cultural phenomena.
John A. Bateman received his PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1986 and is currently a research professor in multimodality at Bremen University, Germany. His research interests include the semiotic foundations of multimodality and how these can support empirical methods. Recent book-length publications include ‘Multimodality: Foundations, Research and Analysis – A Problem-Oriented Introduction’ (2017, De Gruyter).
Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari is an Associate Professor of linguistics at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran. His research includes Iranian dialectology and linguistics, and linguistic/semiotic approaches to drama and film.
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