Digital Semiopoetics offers a philosophical reflection on the status of technology, its impact on the sphere of aesthetics and on the creation of meaning. This open access book updates the classical theory of sign formulated by de Saussure and Pearce to account for interactive, variable and hybrid character of digital signs.
Close readings of works of electronic literature reveal how new semiotic codes that emerge in interaction with electronic text inscribe the reader into the work. Embodied in the text the reader then projects her/his input into a broader artistic and social discourses. Drawing from the connection between the digital sign, text and discourse, the book demonstrates that the semiotics and poetics of any contemporary text are closely interrelated and together form semiopoetics.
By analysing the sphere of social discourse, Digital Semiopoetics highlights mechanics of persuasion, which is in use, for example, in teaching on academic educational platforms. The trope of paraphrase comes to the foreground as a major discursive strategy of hybrid textuality (of iconic, aural, animated and interactive nature) which leads to emergence of new textual and discursive forms. Several of them, such as digital animation, concrete and linguistic poetry are discussed.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on Bloomsbury Collections.