Elaborate the binary real and virtual from the perspective of CDA?

CDA provide a social critique of society through the analysis of its corresponding socio-semiotic elements. (Fairclough, 2003) Language is considered the main source of communication in the contemporary social setups of the world and in the last two decades most of the scholars in the domain of CDA have investigated language as to reveal discursive and discourse practices characteristic of mystifying power relations and productive of social injustices. The scope of CDA may simply not be confined to the analysis of language in social contexts, because the primary agenda of CDA is to provide a social critique on a broader level. Language may be regarded as a one of the sign systems which operate in a historically transformative way in the contemporary world.

Communication and communicative systems have transformed historically in the world with the advent of new technologies and social practices. Historically, communication was simply confined to verbal and written texts, such as verbal interaction in the same setting, and writing letters. However, in the contemporary world, the advent of new technologies and information has transformed and invented new modes of communication and communicative systems. The advent of the virtual world in this regard exhibits such transformative and innovative mode of communicative systems, which is utilized by people in the contemporary world.

The study of signs and the way the meaning of signs are culturally shared by people have been an area of recent investigation in CDA. The study of signs may reveal ideas, values and discourses represented via people, objects and places in all the domains of visual, verbal and virtual communication. This phenomenon is known as iconography. (Barthes, 1977) The iconographic associations of virtual signs, such as, people, objects and places especially in videogames and in other domain of the virtual world are inter-related to the ideas, values and discourses of the programmers, who are part of the social world.

The signs in the virtual world may describe two levels of meanings i.e. denotation and connotation. The first level of meaning/ denotation account for what the sign actually documents (genre), such as, a soldier, a place, and an event in a particular arcade game. The second level of meaning or connotation accounts for what representation of the social world (discourses) in a virtual sign and ways in which the virtual sign is represented (styles). (Barthes, 1977)

In analyzing virtual signs such as, a soldier, a place, an event etc, in a particular military tactical arcade videogame it is important to explore the ideas and values the virtual signs connote. In this regard, we can analyze the virtual signs for features which facilitate transportation of meaning from other domains. The inter-play of metaphorical associations in virtual signs may connote particular world views, world models, and scripts of similar activity sequences in videogames and other areas of the virtual world. These connotative meanings associated with virtual signs may be called as myths. (Barthes, 1973)

The concept of myth stands for the mystified association that might be represented in a virtual sign. The concept of myth is illustrated in the shape of combat soldiers mostly belonging to American and British armies in videogames, or the representation of places like Karachi, where lawlessness is every where in arcade military videogames. The investigation myth is important because myths tend to mobilize people, and legitimize particular kind of social organization.

The term myth, as described by Barthes, can be considered simply as a discourse. The way connotative meanings are utilized in the virtual world in videogames and other domains of the virtual world may promote particular world views, which facilitate specific power interests locally and globally. Barthes asserts that any type of sign, such as, virtual, verbal, textual, or visual contain connotative power. The model of Barthes can be effectively applied in investigating virtual signs from the perspective of CDA.

The notions of metaphorical association proposed by Van Leeuwen (2005), connotative association proposed by Barthes (1973), and iconographic symbolism proposed by Panofsky (1973) present the view that there is a dialectal relationship between society and the sign system. We can conclude that the virtual world and real world are not independent but inter-connected in a complex way. In this regard, there is a dialectical relationship between the real and the virtual.

References
Barthes, R. (1977) Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana. Barthes, R. (1973) Mythologies. London: Paladin. Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge Panofsky, E. (1972) Studies in Iconography: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance. Oxford: Westview Press. Van Leeuwen, T. (2005) Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge.