No allo smartphone. Condizioni di significazione di un oggetto attraverso le sanzioni negative che lo investono

Abstract

Today smartphones are everywhere. Being involved in a wide range of practices, they are object of a large attention from social science scholars of all fields. Here I deal with the idea that also legal bans which focus on smartphones should receive attention. In the Italian contemporary law there are seven different kinds of offence involving information that can be exchanged thanks to such devices. I’ll analyze a notion of ‘separateness’ that smartphones affect in different ways. Then, I’ll extend the problem to some cultural contemporary sanctions about the uses of smartphones. This is how I’ll propose to think about four semiotic roles – all involving actors ‘made of the objects plus the subjects’ - the spy, the cheater, the uncaring person, the boor – which represent attitudes legally or morally punished in our contemporary culture. It will also bring me to discuss if and how the greimasian notion of “modalities” is a useful analytical tool; to the difference between legal and social normativity, to the idea of a fundamental point of view on culture always provided by judgements.