Jean Umiker-Sebeok

Visiting Scholar
School of Library and Information Science
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana 47405

Associate Director
Center for Applied Semiotics
Indiana University - Bloomington
Coulter Hall 267

Email: umikerse@indiana.edu

Recent Teaching

L503 - User Needs and Behavior - Fall 1998

W325/L597 - Gender, Technology, and Information Society - Spring 1998

L597 - Community Networks - Fall 1998

Recent Research and Publications

I'm interested in the semiotics of social computing, investigating the processes of representation and communication that underlie the dialogical creation of social identity. Within this area, I am particularly interested in community networks for older adults, sense-making in virtual and real museum environments, communication practices within mentoring relationships, and the socio-semiotics of Internet discourse.

Samples of Recent Publications:

1994
"Behavior in a museum: A semio-cognitive approach to museum consumption experiences," Signifying Behavior. Journal of Research in Semiotics, Communication Theory, and Cognitive Science 1 (1): 52-100.
"La costruzione di significato in un museo: implicazioni per una semiotica delle pratiche di consumo," in Semiotica al marketing. Le tendenze della ricerca nel marketing, nel consumo, nella pubblicita, Roberto Grandi (ed.), pp. 31-55. Milan: FrancoAngeli.
Advances in Visual Semiotics. The Semiotic Web 1992, ed. with Thomas A. Sebeok. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Din Nou Pe Urmele Lui Sherlock Holmes (with Thomas A. Sebeok). Cluj: Editura Echinox. [Romanian translation of `You Know My Method.' A Juxtaposition of Sherlock Holmes and C.S. Peirce]
"La construction du sens dans une galerie: Une etude socio-semiotique de la consommation des experiences dans un musee," in Figures architecturales, formes urbaines, ed. Pierre Pellegrino, pp. 697-717. Paris: Economica.
1996
"Power and the Construction of Gendered Spaces," International Review of Sociology/Revue Internationale de Sociologie Vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 389-403.
1997
"The Semiotic Swarm of Cyberspace: Cybergluttony and Internet Addiction in the Global Village", in The Semiotics of the Seven Deadly Sins, J. Umiker-Sebeok and J.D. Johansen (eds) Semiotica.
The Semiotics of the Seven Deadly Sins, ed. with J. D. Johansen, special issue of Semiotica. Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
1998 and Beyond
"Browsing Visual Information in Virtual Environments: Multiresolutional Sign Interpretation and Domain Knowledge," in Computational Semiotics (= Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computational Semiotics), Claude Vogel & Suzanne Bertrand-Gastaldy (eds.). Paris: Vendome (in press).
"Semiotics and the Information Sciences: The Case of Computer Semiotics," in Semiotics and the Sciences. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter (in press).

Full list of publications

Recent Consulting

My consulting has focused on marketing, including advertising, consumer behavior, and museum exhibit development. Recently, I have added to these interests consultations on the impact of the Internet on local communities, especially on family life, and the role of semiotics in computer science.

Full list of consulting

Recent Community Service

Since the Fall of 1997, I have been helping to found and coordinate a community network for older adults in Monroe County, Monroe County Senior Net (http://www-slis.lib.indiana.edu/mcsn/).

Last updated: 10/07/2000