Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

Caitlyns’s research schedule had priority. On the other hand, PAL’s time schedule and division of
tasks within the project were more flexible, and each participant was given more freedom to create
their own working styles. Workshop students had limited time to learn and perform contentcreation
in SL, thus they used what was in their reach to utilize their existing collective potentials;
they organized their tasks according to their individual interests and the ways in which they
believed they could contribute most efficiently 6 . Their interests were also led by their prior
experiences with similar software –either 3D modeling or VWs – and their capacities to employ
these tools/platforms to their group activities. The three cases showed that the environment in
which design activities take place affect designers’ sense-makings of the affordances and
limitations of the platform, and the final products of designing. At this level, the effects of
professional experience with creative tools, or personal interest in digital content creation, becomes
more apparent, as the co-designers begin to question the affordances and constraints in reference
to their existing relevant knowledge.
7.2. The mediational means and their affordances for virtual place-making
In the second part of the analysis, the analytical focus shifts to the mediational means, by which
collaborative design activities take place as digitally mediated social actions. Here, the analysis
foregrounds the co-designers’ experiences with the affordances and constraints of semiotic
resources within a multiplicity of places/platforms. Here, the focus is on SL and other digital media
platforms, as well as the physical places involved in the collaborative processes 7 . One purpose of
this second level of analytical unit is to question the role and effects of place semiotics (Scollon and
Scollon 2003) on the meaning-making processes, and attempt to frame places as semiotic
resources for generation of ideas and new knowledge in the form of digital content. In Scollon and
Scollon’s terminology, place semiotics deals with “the meaning systems by which language is
located in the material world” (2003: x). I consider places in relation to the social practices that
take place within them, and describe the virtual places of SL as particular nexus of practice (Scollon
and Scollon 2004) in which semiotic cohesion of avatar-mediated interaction depends on certain
affordances and constraints of the environment. In this respect, this focus of this chapter can be
framed as the analysis of the ‘non-human’ factors in organization of collaborative practices. My
purpose in this part of the analysis is to inquire how the co-designers interpret and use these
affordances and construct multimodal discourses upon various semiotic and material resources
that are socially available in this convergent multimedia nexus. With the help of in-depth
6
Naturally, this suggestion bears the assumption that students participated fully and willingly to the assignments in the
course, and they were honest about their reflections in the interviews. However, it was also observed that some students
were more willing to participate than others, and they have contributed more to the design than those who were hesitant.
7
This focus will shift in the following chapter, where I will analyze the virtual places that are produced by the project
members as multimodal products of design.
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