Page 21 - Demo

1Introduction19The noticing of the connotative level of visualisations is based on an approach to the study of visualisations’ meaning-making which attends to different layers of meaning. Taking inspiration from Barthes’ (1977) visual semiotics theory of denoted and connoted messages in visualisations, authors of this approach recognise different possible readings of a visualisation, at different visualisation layers. These readings lead to the decoding of multiple meanings in visualisations, ranging from explicit meanings, derived from noticing what is visually represented, to hidden meanings that are based on the interpretation of underlying ideas and values. For example, Van Leeuwen (2001) attends to layers of meaningmaking by relying on the visual semiotics theory of Barthes and on Panofsky’s (1970) iconography. In an analysis based on iconography, Van Leeuwen makes a distinction between different ‘layers of pictorial meaning’. Similarly, Rodriguez and Dimitrova (2011) introduce a layer model to study visualisations’ meanings, and they associate it with visual framing. Both Van Leeuwen’s three-layer model of pictorial meaning and Rodriguez and Dimitrova’s four-layer model of visual framing first reveal meanings derived from a straightforward visual representation, followed by meanings derived from widely accepted conventions. The last layer in both models reveals meanings derived from underlying principles or ideology. However, when revealing meanings derived from conventions, Rodriguez and Dimitrova distinguish between stylistic conventions and ideas or concepts attached to what is being depicted.Authors who study visualisations while attending to layers of meaning-making may consider the context in which a visualisation is produced and read. For example, when analysing an artwork, iconography considers the period in which it was made (Van Leeuwen, 2001, pp. 101–102). However, this approach to the study of meaning-making from visualisations is limited in the attention it pays to – borrowing Rose’s framework terminology – sites other than the site of the image itself. It ignores the meaning made, for example, when producing or selecting a visualisation or when circulating it.In my conceptual framework, narratives of two types are noted: storylines and frames, sometimes combined with an analysis of sentiments (tone of voice). A storyline is a narrative with ‘a beginning, middle, and an end’ (Hajer, 2006, p. 69). Based on this notion of storylines in a discourse (Hajer, 1995, 2006), I developed a new concept: visual storyline. This new concept focusses on how visual content, Efrat.indd 19 19-09-2023 09:47