Oh, You Just Semioticized Memes? You Must Know Everything. Un punto (e accapo) sulla semiotica della viralità

The article aims at outlining the path traced by the semiotic group revolving around CIRCe (the Interdepartmental Centre for Research on Communication at the University of Turin, Italy) in regard of the study of contemporary, online viral phenomena. The first paragraph is dedicated to the research areas touched by the group that eventually led to virality: first, the efficacy of images (virality is a contemporary form of media efficacy) and, then, conspiracy theories (which spread virally over the social media). The second paragraph aims at framing the semiotic study of virality in the wider context of the scientific studies and the mainstream media interest in the topic, paying particular attention to misinformation and to what has been called the “post–truth” and the “fake news” phenomena. The third paragraph aims at summarizing the basic elements of the typological, hermeneutic, and analytical effort produced by the main Italian semiotic studies on the topic, published between 2014 and 2017. The fourth and last paragraph presents the summary of the five sections into which the present monographic number of “Lexia”, dedicated to the semiotics of virality, has been articulated into, and of the 24 included scientific contributions.