Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

characteristics of design in virtual places, such as the organization of spatial elements, divisions
and elevations of interaction spaces and other design elements. At this point, I turn to another
approach that is closely related to the epistemological framework of social semiotics, while it offers
a whole new methodological perspective to study the actors, places and practices of multimodal
communication. I consider the context, motivations, tools and practices of co-designers as essential
resources for studying meaning-making as a social phenomenon. Therefore I revise the multimodal
perspective with a more socio-culturally aware ethnographic approach to support my own systemic
interpretations. In fact, what I integrate to my analytical framework by applying the MDA is not a
strictly defined methodological path to follow, but more of a socio-cultural perspective to support
the analysis of multimodal semiosis. Ultimately, the overall analytical framework that I described
in this section aims to apply and critically develop the multimodal social semiotic approach in
order to develop an operational model for studying the co-production of virtual places and artifacts
in SL as nexus of multimodal semiosis.
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