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This study aims to explore the visual social media (SM) (Instagram) communication and the visual characteristics of smart tourism destination (STD) communication from destination marketing/management organizations (DMOs) and user-generated content (UGC) perspectives, which refer to projected image and perceived image, respectively.

Three DMO official accounts of STDs (Helsinki, Gothenburg and Lyon) and corresponding official hashtags were selected for the sample and total 6,000 post data (1,000 × 6) were retrieved from Instagram. Visual communication content was examined with a netnographic design over a proposed four-level visual content framework using corresponding methodological approaches (thematic analysis, visual analysis, object detection and text mining) for each level.

Among the eight emerging themes dominating the images, communication of smart elements conveys far less than expected textual and visual signals from DMOs despite their smart status, and in turn, from UGC as well. UGC revealed three extra image themes regardless of smartness perception. DMOs tend to project and give voice to their standard metropolitan areas and neighborhoods while UGCs focus on food-related and emotional elements. The findings show a partial overlap between DMOs and UGCs, revealing discrepancies in objects contained in visuals, hashtags and emojis. Additionally, as a rare attempt, the proposed framework for visual content analysis showed the importance of integrated methods to investigate visual content effectively.

The number of attributes in visual analysis and focusing on the observed elements in text content (text, hashtags and emojis) are the limitations of the study in terms of methodology.

Apart from the multiple integrated methods used over a netnographic design, this study differs from existing SM and smart destinations intersection literature by attempting to fill a gap in focusing on and exploring visual SM communication, which is scarce in tourism context, for the contents generated by DMOs and users.

本研究旨在探讨从目的地营销管理组织（DMO）和用户生成的内容（UGC）获取的视觉社交网站传播（instagram）以及智慧旅游目的地的视觉特征。这两个角度在本文中分别命名为投射形象和感知形象。

本文收集了三个智慧旅游目的地（赫尔辛基、哥德堡、里昂）的DMO官方账号及其对应的官方标签数据, 其中从Instagram获取了一共6000个帖子（1000 x 6）。视觉传播内容是通过网络民族志设计进行分析的, 该设计采用四层视觉内容框架, 每一层使用相应的方法, 包括主题分析、视觉分析、目标检测、文本挖掘。

在8个新兴的主导形象中, 智慧元素, 尽管是智能的, 但其传达的信息远不如预期的来自DMO的文本和视觉信号, 同样, 也不如来自UGC的信息。无论智慧感知程度如何, UGC显示了3个额外的形象。DMO倾向于展现和表达目的地标准的大都会地区及其临近社区, 而UGC专注于与食物相关的和情感的元素。我们的研究显示了DMO和UGC内容的部分重叠, 但揭示了两者在图像、标签和表情符号中包含对象的差异。此外, 作为一个少有的尝试, 我们提出的视觉内容分析框架展示了集成方法对有效研究视觉内容的重要性。

从方法上来说, 视觉分析中属性的数量和在文本语境中对观察元素的关注是本研究的局限性

除了在网络民族志设计中使用多个集成方法,本文和以往社交媒体和智慧目的地交互文献的区别还体现在关注和探索DMO和UGC生成内容的视觉社交媒体沟通, 这类研究旅游研究情境下是少见的。

This paper aims to explore the role of records management in supporting the effective use of information visualisation and visual analytics (VA) to meet the challenges associated with the analysis of Big Data.

This exploratory research entailed conducting and analysing interviews with a convenience sample of visual analysts and VA tool developers, affiliated with a major VA institute, to gain a deeper understanding of data-related issues that constrain or prevent effective visual analysis of large data sets or the use of VA tools, and analysing key emergent themes related to data challenges to map them to records management controls that may be used to address them.

The authors identify key data-related issues that constrain or prevent effective visual analysis of large data sets or the use of VA tools, and identify records management controls that may be used to address these data-related issues.

This paper discusses a relatively new field, VA, which has emerged in response to meeting the challenge of analysing big, open data. It contributes a small exploratory research study aimed at helping records professionals understand the data challenges faced by visual analysts and, by extension, data scientists for the analysis of large and heterogeneous data sets. It further aims to help records professionals identify how records management controls may be used to address data issues in the context of VA.

The study's main objective is to evaluate the morphological developments in the characteristics of the spatial configurations of the residential layouts in Kerman, Iran, in examining the impact on the level of visual privacy through the spectrum of permeability and wayfinding in space syntax analysis.

In this paper, plan graph analysis is used to measure the syntactic properties of seven topological residential architecture plans in Kerman, Iran, built from the 1970s to 2010s. The methodology involves the development of mathematical measurements to signify permeability and simulation of visibility graph analysis (VGA) to indicate wayfinding.

The findings reveal the residential layouts of Iranian houses tend to be less integrated over decades of design development from the 1970s to 2010s. Reduction in spatial integration corresponds to increase segregation allowing for enhanced visual privacy. The study underpins that, even with the constraints in the scale of the house and reduction in the number of nodes, as evident in the design of the modern residential layout, the efficient level of visual privacy is still achievable with regards to the standards demanded by the local culture.

The study examines the development in residential spatial configuration and building scale on visual privacy through a proposed methodology based on the level of permeability and wayfinding measured as a combined effect using the space syntax analysis and visual accessibility.

This paper aims to propose a theoretically informed and analytically rigorous research framework that sustainability researchers could use or further develop to examine visually persuasive messages in photographs.

Drawing on the theoretical constructs of Peirce’s (1991) visual semiotic system of icon, index and symbol and Aristotle’s (1984) persuasive appeals of ethos, pathos and logos, the authors propose a research methodology that provides an explicit step-by-step guidance to examine visually persuasive messages in sustainability-related photographs. The sustainability-related photographs in The Coca-Cola Company’s 2018 Business and Sustainability Report are examined to illustrate the application of the framework.

This paper develops a research framework and provides empirical evidence of the use of the framework to enhance the understanding of visually persuasive messages depicted in photographs.

The proposed framework serves as a springboard for further research into visually persuasive messages.

The research framework of visual persuasion is novel and can be used by sustainability researchers to analyse photographs in corporate reports. It can be extended/modified to capture visual representations in different contexts and other disciplines as well.

Along with the ever growingWeb is the proliferation of objectionable content, such as sex, violence, racism, etc. We need efficient tools for classifying and filtering undesirable web content. In this paper, we investigate this problem through WebGuard, our automatic machine learning based pornographic website classification and filtering system. Facing the Internet more and more visual and multimedia as exemplified by pornographic websites, we focus here our attention on the use of skin color related visual content based analysis along with textual and structural content based analysis for improving pornographic website filtering. While the most commercial filtering products on the marketplace are mainly based on textual content‐based analysis such as indicative keywords detection or manually collected black list checking, the originality of our work resides on the addition of structural and visual content‐based analysis to the classical textual content‐based analysis along with several major‐data mining techniques for learning and classifying. Experimented on a testbed of 400 websites including 200 adult sites and 200 non pornographic ones, WebGuard, our Web filtering engine scored a 96.1% classification accuracy rate when only textual and structural content based analysis are used, and 97.4% classification accuracy rate when skin color related visual content based analysis is driven in addition. Further experiments on a black list of 12 311 adult websites manually collected and classified by the French Ministry of Education showed that WebGuard scored 87.82% classification accuracy rate when using only textual and structural content‐based analysis, and 95.62% classification accuracy rate when the visual content‐based analysis is driven in addition. The basic framework of WebGuard can apply to other categorization problems of websites which combine, as most of them do today, textual and visual content.

This paper aims to propose a critical multimodal framework to understanding pedagogical materials that focuses on not only the verbal or the visual components but also the interaction between the two semiotic resources that constructs power relations as a result of intermodal interaction, and it further provides an example of an in-depth analysis of one text using this approach.

The paper proposes a critical multimodal framework that draws from Serafini (2010) and Royce (1998). Details about how the two works complement to form a critical multimodal framework are discussed, after which the paper analyzes one example from an English-language textbook using the proposed framework to demonstrate its strengths.

The findings highlight the power relations constructed in texts as a result of the interaction between the verbal and visual components, specifically how the visual mode functions to rationalize the power relations constructed in the verbal mode. These findings also establish the significance for considering the larger context of materials production and reception identified in the ideological perspective to appreciate how texts reflect discourses in diverse locales.

This paper argues that even though critical multimodality has often been discussed conceptually in L1 literacy scholarship, how to put these conceptualizations into practice has not been addressed systematically. The paper also contends that critical perspectives to understanding multimodal texts are also important in L2 English-language teaching. The critical multimodal framework proposed thus serves as a conceptual and methodological framework for multimodal reading and interpretive practices in both L1 and L2 contexts.

This paper aims to investigate how and when visual referents in brand visual aesthetics (i.e. colours, shapes, patterns and materials) serve as design applications that enable consumer diasporic identity.

This paper uses an innovative methodology that triangulates 58 in-depth interviews with diasporic consumers, 9 interviews with brand managers and designers and a visual analysis of brands (food retailer, spices and nuts, skincare, hair and cosmetics, ice cream and wine) to provide a view of the phenomenon from multiple perspectives.

This study illustrates how and when particular applications and compositions of product and design referents support diasporic identity for Middle Eastern consumers living outside the Middle East. Specifically, it illustrates how the design applications of harmonising (applying separate ancestral homeland and culture of living product and design referents simultaneously), homaging (departing from the culture of living product and design referents with a subtle tribute to ancestral homeland culture) and heritaging (departing from the ancestral homeland culture product and design referents with slight updates to a culture of living style) can enable diasporic identity in particular social situations.

Although applied to the Middle Eastern diaspora, this research opens up interesting avenues for future research that assesses diasporic consumers’ responses to brands seeking to use visual design to engage with this market. Moreover, future research should explore these design applications in relation to issues of cultural appreciation and appropriation.

The hybrid design compositions identified in this study can provide brand managers with practical tools for navigating the design process when targeting a diasporic segment. The design applications and their consequences are discussed while visually demonstrating how they can be crafted.

While previous research mainly focused on how consumption from the ancestral homeland occurred, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine how hybrid design compositions that combine a diaspora’s ancestral homeland culture and their culture of living simultaneously and to varying degrees resonate with diasporic consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how visual aesthetic referents used in branding can help foster a transnational imagined community (TIC). The authors use brands embedded with Middle Eastern visual aesthetics as a research context. As such, the study aims to examine how Middle Eastern non-figurative art is used by non-Middle Eastern brands to foster an imagined Middle Easternness.

Through a critical visual analysis, the authors apply a visual social semiotic approach to Middle Eastern art canons to better understand the dimensions of transnational imagined communities.

The study finds and discusses six sub-dimensions of Middle Easternness, which compose two overarching dimensions of TIC, namely, temporal and spatial. These sub-dimensions provide brand managers and designers with six different ways to foster transnational imagined communities through the use of visual aesthetic referents in branding.

This research identifies the specific visual sub-dimensions of brands that enable transnational communities to be imagined.

Understanding the visual aesthetic sub-dimensions in this study provides brand managers with practical tools that can help develop referents that foster transnational imagined communities in brand building to achieve competitive advantage and reach a transnational segment.

Prior studies have primarily focussed on how visual aesthetics help in understanding issues related to national identity. In contrast, this paper examines the use of visual aesthetics in branding from a transnational perspective.

This paper explores how public audit institutions establish themselves as distinct actors on the public stage through communication practices. By focussing on the journey of the European Court of Auditors (ECA), this paper addresses the following research question: how does a transnational audit institution construct its actorhood through visual communication practices?

Using the theoretical framework of actorhood theory and inspired by the visual accounting methodology, this study explores the ECA actorhood journey through the visual analysis of front pages of its official journal (ECA Journal) from its inception in 2009 up to 2019. The visual analysis is conducted through content analysis and a two-step cluster analysis.

By showing how combinations of different visual artefacts have evolved over time, this study highlights the ways transnational public audit institutions, such as the ECA, construct their actorhood and position themselves on the public stage. It further reveals the underlying legitimacy mechanisms through which organisations such as the ECA position themselves in the public eye.

This study sheds light on the depiction of individuals and their contexts in interaction with each other and how this interaction reveals the development of the actorhood journey of the ECA over time.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the utilization of visual impression management techniques within sustainability reporting. Specifically, the study aims to determine whether Italian companies employ impression management tactics in the presentation of graphs within their sustainability reports and, thus, problematize visual data communication in corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The research adopts a multimodal content analysis of the 58 sustainability reports from Italian listed companies that are GRI-compliant. The analysis focused on three types of graphs: pie charts, line graphs and bar graphs. In total, 860 graphs have been examined.

The study found evidence of graphical distortion techniques being employed by companies in their sustainability reports to create a favorable impression. Specifically, graph distortions are found in column graphs and not in line or pie charts. In particular, selectivity, presentation enhancement and measurement distortion techniques seem to be extensively used when adopting column graphs in sustainability communication. Moreover, social sustainability–related topics tend to be more represented of other area of CSR reporting. This suggests that companies, whether consciously or unconsciously, engage in impression management techniques when using graphs in their sustainability reports.

The study findings suggest that more consciousness is needed for companies when engaging in the construction and selection of graphs in their sustainability reports and that decision-makers should develop a clear guide for ethical visual communication.

The paper systematically analyzes visual impression management techniques in communicating sustainability data and, in particular, advances literature on graphical distortion. The value lies in empirical evidence of distortion adoption in GRI-compliant reports as well as problematizing visual data communication as a fundamental challenge for sustainability communication management.