Distributed semiosis: algorithms, affordances and the multi-agent ecosystem of meaning across platfospheres

Abstract This paper argues that meaning-making in the digital age has undergone a fundamental shift, no longer confined to the province of human actors. In today’s complex digital environments, semiosis – the core mechanism of signification – has become a distributed process, emerging from dynamic interactions among human users, algorithmic agents, and technological affordances. This shift challenges traditional anthropocentric models of semiosis and underscores the necessity for a reconceptualization of semiosis that can account for the heterogeneous actors shaping the contemporary semiotic landscape. To this end, this study advances a framework of distributed semiosis that integrates the roles of diverse human and non-human factors, with particular attention given to social media platforms – here conceptualized as platfospheres – as complex digital communicative environments. The paper draws on Peirce’s processual and relational model of semiosis, reframing signs as ephemeral relational dynamics (rather than static entities) unfolding within broader networks of distributed semiotic processes that are fundamentally inferential. It explores how Interpretants , as outcomes of relational sign dynamics, are increasingly becoming distributed within the hybrid ecosystems of contemporary digital environments. It thus offers a fine-grained framework for understanding the dynamics of semiosis in the digital age.