‘Exploring strategies of semiotic mediation – Making sense of COVID-19’

Abstract

Human meaning-making becomes particularly dramatic at times of social or biological calamities. COVID-19 appeared in the winter of 2020 and had an immense catalytic influence on peoples' lives worldwide. New coronavirus was a new object for many people and they needed the challenge to make sense of it. The meaning of new coronavirus influenceed an individual’s self-positioning in relation to the new threat in the context of related developments. This manuscript reveals the diversity in mediating new coronavirus among discussants representing the same ethnocultural community. Taking the perspective of cultural psychology of semiotic dynamics, we assume that people would make sense of the new coronavirus sourcing semiotic resources from the socio-cultural context; however, simultaneously it is argued that there are no hegemonic ways of reacting to COVID-19. Individuals are considered not passive recipients of external guidance but rather proactive agents whose interpretants serve as regulators of internal and hetero dialogues. Through our exploration, we identified the variety of semiotic techniques which are used by individuals whilst making sense of new signs and developments through various ways of their schematisation and pleromatization. The online-ethnographic research approach was taken to explore various forms of COVID-19 mediation.