Visual semiotics: Key concepts and new directions

This chapter is divided into four parts. First, I briefly outline the main traditions, concepts, and contributions of semiotics as a theoretical and methodological framework. While semiotics is a complex field with multiple schools and strands, I focus specifically on key contributions by Charles S. Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure, who are widely considered as the main founders of semiotics’ two main lineages. I then move on to discussing the work of Roland Barthes and Jean-Marie Floch; in different ways, their respective bodies of work have shaped the development of visual semiotics as we know it today.Next, I introduce social semiotics as a lead-ing contemporary framework for visual analysis. I discuss how social semiotics has refined and further developed some of the key instruments for visual analysis developed by Barthes and, to a lesser extent, Floch, while also introduc-ing important considerations about the signifi-cance of both context and practice for a semiotic understanding of the visual. Finally, I offer a practical example of how imagery can be exam-ined from a social semiotic standpoint through an original analysis of a stock photograph from the world-leading visual content provider Getty Images. Overall, the chapter aims to offer a general introduction to visual semiotics together with conceptual and methodological tools for visual analysis.