Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

9. Conclusions and discussions
9.1. Synthesis of the conclusions
In order to provide a socio-cultural semiotic perspective to virtual place-making in SL, I analyzed
the social actors of collaborative design projects, the mediational means that they use to coproduce
their multimodal messages as places, the processes through which they co-design and coproduce,
and the multimodal semiotics of the products of their design processes, the virtual places
and artifacts. This section will synthesize the empirical findings to answer the study’s main
research question:
How do the VW users co-produce multimodal meaning potentials in virtual places
and artifacts through collaborative design, as exemplified by the social semiotic
analysis of the three case studies in SL
I discussed the social actors in relation to power relations in groups, the mediational means in
relation their affordances and constraints, and the collaborative design processes in relation the
various nexuses of social practices that they generate. Finally, the analysis turned towards the three
meta-functions in virtual places and artifacts, and the ways in which they present multimodal
semiotic potentials. Therefore, the synthesis of the analysis in this chapter will focus on four
central issues:
The social actors and power relations in groups, which explains the ways in which
individual SL users form small teams to co-design places and artifacts, and the roles and
relations among various co-designers.
The mediational means and affordances for co-design, which explains the tools and
resources that are provided by the platform, as well as other means of collaboration and
content generation that are socially available to the co-designers.
The collaborative processes in and with SL, which presents the data from both participant
observations and interviews to explain how the collaboration practices unfold in time via
digitally mediated relationships.
Multimodal semiotics and the design of virtual places, which constitutes the central
analytical focus of multimodal analysis, and explains how the experiential, interpersonal
and textual meta-functions are realized within the different ranks-of-scale in a design.
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