The principal research question of this study is framed as: Do prevailing, industrially and politically sourced definitions of Digital Exhibition faithfully represent the phenomenon's position within the contemporary media theory framework? Within this work Digital Exhibition is defined as: The practice of presenting moving images, either live or pre-recorded, to paying audiences, in public spaces, by means of digital distribution and projection. The majority of established literatures concerning Digital Exhibition are aimed at producing categorical definitions of the phenomenon. These 'meaning making' discourses commonly stem from potentially ideologically affected sources. To address this issue, the author has investigated the political economy of key commentators, and Digital Exhibition has been impartially researched following a 'case studies' methodology; with an analytical framework based upon a series of 'plausible rival hypotheses'. These hypotheses include that Digital Exhibitionism is: • a form of the cinema • a form of television • a new (new media) medium • multiple media • not a medium. It is presented that each investigated hypothesis can be argued to be legitimate when employing established media theories as the means of rationalisation. Nevertheless, the author concludes that individual industrially/politically charged definitions still do not provide an adequately comprehensive account as to the wealth of interpretations that can be drawn for Digital Exhibition. The author also presents his own perspective as to the subjective nature of contemporary media taxonomies, and ultimately proposes that Digital Exhibition is not a medium, but is a designation offered to a subjectively defined collection of events made possible through the transmission of computational binary pulse signals.

The principal research question of this study is framed as: Do prevailing, industrially and politically sourced definitions of Digital Exhibition faithfully represent the phenomenon¿s position within the contemporary media theory framework? Within this work Digital Exhibition is defined as: The practice of presenting moving images, either live or pre-recorded, to paying audiences, in public spaces, by means of digital distribution and projection. The majority of established literatures concerning Digital Exhibition are aimed at producing categorical definitions of the phenomenon. These ¿meaning making¿ discourses commonly stem from potentially ideologically affected sources. To address this issue, the author has investigated the political economy of key commentators, and Digital Exhibition has been impartially researched following a ¿case studies¿ methodology; with an analytical framework based upon a series of ¿plausible rival hypotheses¿. These hypotheses include that Digital Exhibition isM ¿ a form of the cinema ¿ a form of television ¿ a new (new media) medium ¿ multiple media ¿ not a medium It is presented that each investigated hypothesis can be argued to be legitimate when employing established media theories as the means of rationalisation. Nevertheless, the author concludes that individual industrially / politically charged definitions still do not provide an adequately comprehensive account as to the wealth of interpretations that can be drawn for Digital Exhibition. The author also presents his own perspective as to the subjective nature of contemporary media taxonomies, and ultimately proposes that Digital Exhibition is not a medium, but is a designation offered to a subjectively defined collection of events made possible through the transmission of computational binary pulse signals.

Comment les formes et les figures d’un catalogue d’exposition numérique ou d’un récit de fiction enrichi pour tablette, cadrées dans des pages-écrans et ancrées dans un dispositif numérique, modélisent-elles des lecteurs et des pratiques de réception ? Comment les concepteurs imaginent-ils ces modélisations de pratiques et comment celles-ci s’actualisent-elles de diverses manières dans une situation de réception précise en fonction des attentes des lecteurs ? Il n’existe pas encore de travaux sur le livre numérique enrichi confrontant les pratiques réelles ou imaginées de communautés de producteurs et de récepteurs aux pratiques modélisées par l’artefact, ses formes graphiques, ses signes alphabétiques et ses relations rhétoriques entre pages-écrans. Cette thèse retrace la genèse d’une méthodologie d’analyse socio-sémiotique, alliant en profondeur l’étude empirique des contextes de production et de réception du livre numérique enrichi avec l’analyse des stratégies sémiotiques et rhétoriques de ses interfaces. Souhaitant favoriser l’émergence d’une culture critique du design numérique, la méthodologie propose d’identifier les rapports de pouvoir qui traversent les pratiques en conception pour se loger dans la matérialité des artefacts. À travers un croisement expérimental d’approches sémiotique, sociologique et économique, nous faisons émerger un vocabulaire original des « figures de la lecture » du livre numérique enrichi. Indexé sur les pratiques des concepteurs, celui-ci met en avant le rôle des représentations, habitudes et normes sociales dans la sémiose. Il est enrichi par une étude en réception sur l’un des artefacts du corpus. / How will an exhibition catalog or a fictional story, enhanced for digital tablets, translate the visitor’s reading habits and expectations into pages-screens? How do the e-books’ designers understand and conceive these reading practices? How will concrete readers’ expectations meet the implicit reader of the text? This thesis is based on a social semiotic methodology, deeply intertwining the empirical study of the current e-books creative and consumption practices with a methodical analysis of the semiotic and rhetorical strategies of their editorial interfaces. Empirically merging semiotic, sociological and economical research, we bring to light a new original vocabulary of “reading features” of enhanced e-books. Combining it with the designers’ practices, this vocabulary exhibits the role played by usages and social standards in semiosis. It is also enriched with a reception study on a specific artifact.