Communication of Social Agents and the Digital City - A Semiotic Perspective

TL;DR

This paper explores digital cities through a semiotic lens, analyzing their function as self-organizing systems that facilitate social and spatial navigation, and compares virtual and urban constructions.

Contribution

It introduces a semiotic framework for understanding digital cities as meaning-producing systems, providing a new perspective on their structure and function.

Findings

Digital cities are similar to urban spaces in their construction.

A semiotic approach effectively models digital cities as self-organizing systems.

The paper offers a formal definition of digital cities based on semiotic principles.

Abstract

This paper investigates the concept of digital city. First, a functional analysis of a digital city is made in the light of the modern study of urbanism; similarities between the virtual and urban constructions are pointed out. Next, a semiotic perspective on the subject matter is elaborated, and a terminological basis is introduced to treat a digital city as a self-organizing meaning-producing system intended to support social or spatial navigation. An explicit definition of a digital city is formulated. Finally, the proposed approach is discussed, conclusions are given, and future work is outlined.