Inventorizing, situating, transforming: Social semiotics and data visualization

This chapter is an overview of social semiotics as a productive framework for research on data visualization. It provides conceptual instruments that can be used to explore the relationship between the formal properties of data visualization and the meanings and practices that these may promote or hinder among users. In particular, the chapter argues that a social semiotic framework can be used to inventorize, situate, and transform visualization resources. Overall, it links descriptive, interpretive, and critical objectives to generate a framework aimed at understanding how data visualization ‘works’ from a formal standpoint, what meanings are consistently associated with particular semiotic resources, and how both key semiotic ‘rules’ and dominant meanings may be questioned and changed.