Keywords

Traces: Some Theoretical Premises

The concept of trace belongs to the same semantic field as footprint or index. The question of the differences and distinctions between these concepts is part of the discussion on the classification of signs or, as pointed out by Umberto Eco, the classification of the different ways of producing signs (Eco, 1975). The footprint as described by the Italian semiotician shares many of the characteristics of the index, the second in the typology of three types proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce, along with the symbol and the icon. Both footprints and indexes are based on a relation of contiguity between the sign and the corresponding object, meaning a supposed direct and causal connection. The complicated issues, which arise around the definition of indexicality and, more generally, around the problem of classifying the types of signs, will not, however, be taken into account here. What is relevant for the present analysis is rather to consider the meaning of contiguity in terms of a metaphysics of the relation between the sign and the object. This is where discussion of the trace first appears, entailing how traces have traditionally been conceived.

In his De la grammatologie, Derrida conducts a long examination of the “blame” attributed to writing compared to the “innocence” of the spoken word, from the famous accusation of Plato to the anthropological essays of Claude Lévi-Strauss, reading in these denunciations the specter of a metaphysics based on the privilege of the phonè on the graphein (Derrida, 1967). The voice, and by extension the oral expression, which Plato dignified above all in the form of the dialogue, based on the presence (the présence) of the interlocutors, was indeed considered to be closer to the Truth. In a philosophical system centered on the quest for authentic being, of which the matter is supposed to be merely a reflection, oral communication was considered to be a better vehicle for reaching the “essence” of reality. By its very nature, the phonè is founded on the principle of proximity, between the interlocutors but primarily in terms of a presence with oneself, or self-identity; as Derrida puts it, this phono-logocentric regime of truth is based on presence grounded in the voice. Like the effect of naturalness induced by indexes, the spoken word promises to reveal a definitive presence in the form of an origin to which it is closer than the written record. A similar effect is produced by the enunciation in the text.

Paola Sozzi (2015) considers a possible association between indexes and what semiotics calls enunciation, the mechanism of producing a text or a discourse. In her article, the author distinguishes between three types of enunciations, even if the one proposed by the semiotician Greimas, partly derived from the works of the linguist Émile Benveniste, seems to be the richest in terms of its theoretical consequences. According to Greimas, a text/discourse is produced through an operation that he defines as débrayage, whose result is a projection of another time/space from that of the “original” act supposedly lying at its basis. The latter can potentially “re-appear” in the text, fictionally, through some traces which barely play the role of a simulacrum of the original act of producing the text/discourse (an operation the semiotician defines as embrayage). These traces/marks inscribed in the text are what the supposedly original enunciation has left of that founding act, a fictitious source of the text that carries on the narrative play. As Sozzi outlines, the Greimasian theory states that there is an unbridgeable distance between the act of enunciation and the final statement, the first one being even beyond the domain of semiotics. Any possibility of an ultimate reference to the origin of the text, i.e., the enunciation, is thus denied except as a simulacrum. This understanding is nevertheless comprehensible considering that Greimas was almost exclusively interested in written rather than oral texts; his theory of enunciation shares the same rejection of an alleged source of the text/discourse De la grammatologie is based on. Derrida underlines how the same fallacy was at the core of the privilege of the letter as phonè over the letter as graphein, as the second has long been perceived to be a mere copy of the first, in turn already a duplication - but a degree closer to a desired “origin.” Demystifying the metaphysics implied by the values of presence and proximity, the notion of trace in Derrida reactivates the consciousness of the artificial (i.e., cultural) nature of any text/discourse produced. In his theory, the trace does not point toward some imagined lost unity or ultimate truth; instead, it activates that process the philosopher calls différance. Untranslatable into English, différance means both difference (différence) and deferment, the latter implying a process considered by Derrida as potentially infinite, a regression to an origin which is never reached because ultimately it does not exist. Following this theoretical reasoning, the distinction between phonè and graphein loses its relevance - since if there is no possible ultimate origin, no sign can claim a closer relation to the Truth.

Derridean différance reflects the complex notion of unlimited semiosis derived from the semiotics of Peirce, offering a particularly fruitful theoretical basis for a further elaboration of the semantic potential the notion of trace can disclose. Derrida’s understanding of the latter in fact implies the issue of the reception and interpretation of the text, as well as calling into question the alleged role played by the author as its “authentic producer.” Similar to unlimited semiosis, différance thus opens up a dialogue between text and reader, somehow releasing the former from the exclusive property of the author and reinserting it into what can be called the community’s work of interpretation. To understand the concept of trace within this theoretical framework means taking a fundamental step toward the weakening of the author’s intention, a text no longer being read as the exclusive result of the unique meanings imposed by the producer or the source of a “truth” to be revealed.

Intention and Intentionality

To conceive the trace as not strictly dependent on a specific intention is a crucial point. Traces can work as significant elements if they are caught by someone and thus firstly recognized. Following the suggestions of Umberto Eco, three kinds of signs are liable to a process of recognition, to be understood as the act instituting them as signs, as actually significant: these are the footprint, the clue, and the symptom. Because of its isomorphism, meaning that the object shares the shape of its imprinter, traces have mainly been considered a kind of footprint, and specifically a footprint already recognized as a sign, or eventually a kind of clue in some particular cases (Mazzucchelli, 2015; Sozzi, 2015; Violi, 2016). This act of recognition is defined by Eco as an example of abductionFootnote 1; only after the sign has been recognized as such is it eventually possible to name it trace, as Patrizia Violi (2016) suggests. This means that whoever leaves the footprint/clue is moved by an unintentional force; yet, when observed, the footprint/clue seems to retain a certain degree of intentionality for a receiver who would eventually be able to impose on it a meaning or function. Nevertheless, the question remains problematic - as the distinction between the sign emitted and the sign received is technically possible only on a theoretical basis. By contrast, the specific processes of signification and communication work in a different way. The relationship between the emission and the reception of the sign can be rethought in terms of a potential significance that the act of recognition then turns into an actual sign. Usually conceived as unintentional, footprints and clues reveal in this way a virtual intentionality.

The meaning of intentionality here should be understood according to the definition by Greimas and Courtés in their Sémiotique: dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, where the concept is compared to that of intention (Greimas & Courtés, 1979). If the latter entails a certain degree of voluntariness or consciousness, the concept of intentionality is, in contrast, more nuanced, yet preferred by the authors as the condition of possibility for the enunciation. Not entirely identifiable with the notion of motivation nor with that of purpose, intentionality eventually subsumes both, inscribing the act in a tension between the potentiality and the realization thereof. The concept of intentionality can thus be adopted as a preferred foundation of the significant potential triggered by the trace. Based on the considerations made in the previous paragraphs, the trace can then be regarded as the actual realization of the semantic potential of a footprint/clue, i.e., a genuine sign. Still maintaining a causal and “physical” relation to the object it denotes, the trace, like footprints and clues, can be regarded as an example of index, or, better said, of a predominately indexical sign.Footnote 2

Traces, and more generally indexes, have mainly been studied in relation to the spatial dimension, as outlined by Sozzi (2015), since it seems that space is directly involved in their processes of signification. Nevertheless, the theory of trace in Derrida, insisting on the ghost of an origin or source, embraces the dimension of time along with that of space, as the idea of différance involves a complete rethinking of an entire tradition centered on imagining time as a linear progression. The redefinition of temporality compared to the previous strict separation of past, present, and future has been instrumental in the development of the semiotics of memory, where traces as present remains of the past problematize the notion of temporality. The trace points in fact to another time as well as another space, both playing a central role in establishing and triggering memories or practices of remembrance. The promise of revealing a lost past or an ideal totality with which the trace is charged has thus been dismissed as the remains of that metaphysics of presence which privileges the ideas of origin and truth over those of absence and finitude. It seems to find confirmation in Umberto Eco’s provocative definition of semiotics as the theory of what can be used to lie (Eco, 1975), with all its implications for a semiotic approach to the trace in relation to its supposed values of authenticity and credibility.

Meaninglessness Vs Insignificance

The definition of intentionality given by Greimas and Courtés (1979), a communication driver that does not imply actual consciousness, will be here assumed as the basis of the processes of signification. Even signs which are not recognized as such in previous theories, because of their lack of a proper intention, are in this view virtually motivated by a different sort of intentionality. Eco’s A theory of semiotics (Eco, 1975) offers the distinction between intentional and unintentional signs, the former constituting signs in the strict sense and the latter bare signals. These include specifically the aforementioned footprints, clues, and symptoms, whose significance is dependent on the receivers’ willingness to recognize them as signs. Even if not driven by a proper intention, a certain amount of meaningfulness lies virtually in them, ready to be activated at any time. Otherwise, it would be necessary to imagine the trace as a thing turning into a sign after having been recognized as such by the community, thus drastically changing its status. Eventually, what the real processes of signification reveal about the trace is its promising significance lying “suspended,” waiting for someone to interpret it. This virtual “suspension” of sense can last indefinitely, thereby keeping the trace semiotically “inactive.”

Such an eventuality constitutes the core of Massimo Leone’s recent book on insignificance in our post-material society (Leone, 2020). The author imagines the case when, mainly due to a lack of cultural knowledge or experience, someone fails to recognize the meaningfulness of an object/act, thus interpreting it as simply meaningless. Usually, the gaining from experience or the correct interpretation of previously unknown habits leads to their status as signs being acknowledged, turning them into meaningful elements. Specifically, the author identifies three different types of meaninglessness: undecipherability, incomprehension, and uncanniness. The first type is realized when the receiver apprehends the object/act as a sign, but cannot decipher it; the second type occurs when he/she guesses its significant character despite feeling a certain alienation (normally because of a lack of deep knowledge of the local culture or habits); finally, the last case happens when the object/act is not immediately recognized as a sign, and only after repeated exposures is the receiver eventually able to grasp its sense.

After listing a series of examples of meaninglessness, Leone suggests yet another possible experience of the lack of sense in our lives, something rooted in the daily routine of our existences. It is the more radical feeling of insignificance, not just mere meaninglessness:

Insignificance is something else. A sign can be meaningless because one fails to access its semantic content, pragmatic functioning, or both. But a sign cannot be insignificant. That would be a contradiction in terms. In order for a sign to be insignificant, it should deny itself, that is, it should deny its own nature of sign. […] An insignificant sign is a sign that stands for nothing, to nobody, in no respect or capacity. It is a non-sign. It is a thing (ibid.: 12).

Given that the question of intentionality/unintentionality is an important variable in the classification of signs and the way they are “produced,” the issue of their possible insignificance is extremely relevant, especially when it comes to indexical signs like traces, usually perceived as “closer to things” when compared to icons and symbols. In fact, the concept of insignificance is described by Leone in terms of second nature, or a set of habits already solidified, and consequently no longer recognized as meaningful by a growing portion of mankind. This state of existence characterizes in particular what the author calls the post-material age, the contemporary and mainly digital era in which Western countries are immersed. However, the question that arises here concerns the actual possibility of imagining a “pure” insignificance in the terms stated by Leone. Namely, can a sign really deny itself in any respect or capacity, standing indefinitely for nothing and to nobody? Obviously, it is not the purpose of this article to give a definitive answer to the problematic suggestions offered by Leone, and the following analysis will be limited to a single case study among the different ones examined by the author.

From a semiotic perspective, the notion of a “pure” insignificance presents a paradoxical scenario where signs are no longer significant entities, but are instead things, predictable gestures, missing acts, persisting in their lack of sense despite any attempts to interpret them differently. It has been assumed that signs are the product of a process which implies their recognition from a hypothetical receiver; their significance is not automatically given by the act of emission or production thereof. On a theoretical basis, it is possible to imagine a sort of hiatus between the latter and the moment in which the significance of something is grasped by someone: the prolongation of the hiatus has the effect of meaninglessness as a temporary state, while its virtual persistence has a more radical effect of insignificance. The latter is a permanent condition of existence, unsolvable by any alternative interpretations or imaginary scenarios, where the sense is turned into a thing persisting as a thing: a drastic lack of sense, where the process of signification is interrupted and the act/gesture/signal “falls into the void” of a muted existence. This same schema can alternatively work when imagining the potential significance of the sign unable to turn into an actual one, the sense lying persistently suspended or inactive; in this scenario, the trace remains just a simple remainder, an unacknowledged mark randomly left by an invisible agent, and thus powerless to undermine the apathy triggered by the emptiness and absence it stands for.

This self-denial of the sign proposed by Leone is a strong position, even when applied to certain situations characteristic of the post-material societies the author describes, where feelings of loss and privation are increasing. Leone’s proposal is however extremely interesting - as it raises the question of the possibility of a paradoxical semiotics not centered on the sense, but, on the contrary, on the lack of sense, or even, more radically, on a possible semiotics of “nothing.” This scenario will be tested only through a very limited example from the digital arena, arguably the sphere most affected by that sense of existential emptiness on which insignificance is grounded. In fact, the realm of digital traces represents the perfect case study for an analysis of the possible emergence of a sense of insignificance - but more generally, it is the very notion of trace, with its fragility, that is suitable for a reflection on the threat of insignificance.

Something similar to a paradoxical semiotics of nothing has been suggested by Susie Scott in a recent work which elaborates a possible sociology of nothing, meaning a sociology not interested in understanding human acts of doings and beings but, on the contrary, states of non-doings and non-beings (Scott, 2018). The main purpose of the article is to show how even what is deemed to be nothing produces, often despite itself, some recognized meaning, at least for an unexpected receiver. In particular, Scott analyzes two different situations in which a sense of nothingness can arise on a social level: through what she calls acts of commission or through acts of omission. The first are not particularly interesting for the purpose of this paper, as they refer to acts done consciously, such as when someone decides not to do or not to be something; consequently, they are the product of a precise choice, i.e., intrinsically meaningful. More interesting are the acts of omission, not driven by a specific choice or by consciousness; they also include failures, both in acting and in properly assessing a certain phenomenon. These acts can appear as intrinsically insignificant to the person who unconsciously commits them, someone who, unaware of the possible relevance of his/her own gestures, is not even pushed to search for this relevance. This is what distinguishes the state of meaninglessness from the state of insignificance, as described by Leone. Scott, however, suggests that even acts of omission imply the formation of more or less imaginary alternatives, i.e., other possible courses of action, again unintentionally arising in opposition to the actual state derived from not having done or been something.

More precisely, what Scott underlines is that our acts always fall into a social dimension, since people and their behavior are read and interpreted just like any other texts (to be understood in semiotic terms). Even the most radical eventuality of a lack of sense unable to trigger the creation of alternative scenarios could always potentially be forced into being interpreted by someone as a significant act. Silences, the absence, the void, all are open to being converted into traces of something which was or may have been there, testifying to the difficulty of avoiding the dimension of sense. Scott recalls how the concept of nothingness has always intrigued philosophers, scientists, and artists, not to mention mathematicians. Nothingness has traditionally been associated with the idea of zero, not known as a number until its introduction into mathematics by the Arabs, despite being already in use among Indian mathematicians. From a semiotic perspective, zero has been described by Brian Rotman (1987) as the equivalent of nothing. Specifically, “the semiotic formula given of zero, that is a sign for the absence of other signs, […] more importantly explicitly invokes and indeed constitutes itself in terms of the logocentrically tainted opposition of absence/presence” (ivi: 104; author italics). Absence cannot but be traced through the convention of zero and, more importantly, all the other numbers come to life as a consequence of zero: they exist precisely because they are not zero, they mean something instead. This fact, as the author remarks, has led to an understanding of zero as the origin, even if a relative one: not only the origin of the other numbers, but also the origin of sense. Zero is thus not a simple sign, but a meta-sign, as it is the sign stating the absence/presence of other signs. It is therefore possible to conclude that even absence and nothingness leave traces, to the extent that they can be detected, read, and interpreted as such - since some sense may always arise from them.

The case study presented in the following paragraphs will offer an opportunity to reflect on another possible manifestation of insignificance in the digital arena, where a different sense of nothingness is expressed.

Case Study. Digital Traces: Trolling

Described as what is left behind on the Internet after digital activities, actions, and searches (but also after deliberate acts of interaction with other users), digital traces can be intentional as well as unintentional (Hepp, Breiter, & Friemel, 2018). According to the distinction made in the previous paragraphs between intention and intentionality, it is preferred here to distinguish between traces left consciously and those left unconsciously, thus never being properly unintentional. As Alexandre Serres (2012) notes, the trace numérique is always intentional, in the sense that it is already expected, pre-inscribed in the digital apparatus. This is true for both interactional systems like social media, where the freedom to express our ideas and feelings is inscribed in a pattern which has not been designed by ourselves, as well as for more complex systems, like those behind the collection of cookies when surfing online, considering that these data are collected and stored for specific purposes by a preordained system of traceability. This remark is important in order to reinforce the concept of intentionality introduced above.

In the frame of the conventional opposition between intentional and unintentional digital traces, trolling is usually read as an intentional decision to leave traces of one’s own online activities, mainly on social platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Leone has underlined how this phenomenon shares some characteristics with other genres of discourse like provocation and joke. Just as these latter need a “victim,” trolling is all about provoking someone, on any possible subject. The difference with provocation lies in the fact that trolling does not really concern the topic being discussed. Trolling is largely indifferent to content, as its real goal lies precisely in the act of provoking the victim, so that the purpose of trolling is accomplished when “the emotional tone of conversation becomes the main focus of conversation itself” (Leone, 2020: 23). This also marks the difference with jokes, as the latter acquire their sense only after being revealed as jokes, meaning that they can be played up to a certain limit, beyond which they fail to be perceived as such. Trolling, however, is totally indifferent to this limit: it appears as an almost endless joke, with no other purpose than, as Leone states, to “make fun of someone” (ivi.: 24; author italics).

Sharing the same need of digital traces on social media for a public space to appear, i.e., the digital arena, trolling also requires anonymity in order to function; however, the question of identity in this case remains problematic. In fact, it is true that trolls behave as anonymous actors when engaged in a public discourse on a digital platform, but this does not mean that it is impossible to detect some kind of identity, at least a social one, through which they can be categorized. Recently, research on trolling has been developing new methods for understanding the role and behavior of trolls. In a paper dedicated to the analysis of the digital activity of Russian trolls on Twitter, the authors demonstrate how comments and tweets left by trolls can lead to different troll identities being categorized, and then profiled accordingly (Kim, Graham, Wan, & Rizoiu, 2019). Their idea is based on the thesis developed by Latour and other scholars, known as the actor-network theory (ANT), stating that the identity of an actor can be described in terms of his/her network; when applied to the digital environment, this amounts to the collection of traces left behind by the online activities of that actor (Latour, Jensen, Venturini, Grauwin, & Boullier, 2012). The individuality of a single identity comes from the sum of the attributes or items that are possible to add to it; the more numerous these are, the more that identity can consequently be shaped in detail.

More precisely, the very act of searching for someone or something on the Internet “creates” the identity of the actor, as the digital traces available online can be combined through the searches, despite the fact that a total, definitive identity is, according to the authors, never achievable. Even if the actor-network theory has been mainly formulated with consideration to online profiles, whose data are deliberately made available and public to other users, its approach can also be applied to trolling. As shown in the aforementioned study analyzing the behavior of Russian trolls, even fake or anonymous profiles can be categorized and identified by users by means of the tweets left behind, namely their digital traces. This way of understanding the phenomenon implies the treatment of the traces as meaningful signs and not just the effect of a very complex system. They are viewed as semantic information by the large companies, which are highly interested in them (Breiter & Hepp, 2018); these companies collect this information in order to model identities, to be meant mainly as social and public identities, which are then adopted in a commercial and marketing context. In this case, and probably the same can be said about the traces left by trolls, the concept of identity is related only to a public dimension, not to a singular one. A similar process happens within particular places that, in some respects, can be regarded as the precursors of the digital platform, which are the so-called non-places (non-lieux) already described by Marc Augé in the 1990s (Augé, 1992). The non-places are specific spaces, like airports, supermarkets, shopping malls, or highways, characterized by the fact of being devoid of any historical extent, as they are only places of transition (and transactions). Unable to integrate preexisting spaces, non-places tend, nonetheless, to point to an elsewhere, specifically in the form of advertisements, following the logic of the marketing. Moreover, they are intrinsically meta-descriptive, as they tend to turn themselves into texts, to produce a textual and visual apparatus that talks about them. Exactly like digital traces, non-places can be described as a network; if every trace is a remainder of its producer and consequently always points to it, the same happens inside a non-place. Nevertheless, the crucial issue is how identity is conceived and handled in these spaces. In order to access the non-places, a person is required to give his/her particulars, in the forms of passports, identity cards, or payment transactions, which can all be read as traces left behind, more or less related to the personal data of the passenger/customer of the service offered/requested. These traces are what is needed to “grant” and pay for entering the subsequent state of anonymity that marks these spaces, where the person finds himself/herself lost in the crowd. Traces are there given both consciously (in the case of passports, for example) and semi-unconsciously (payments, data accessed through Wi-Fi connection), similarly to what happens in cyberspace. It should be noted that the kind of identity the non-places require is not an intimate one, as it could be on Facebook’s posts, but a legal identity, not concerning the singularity of the individual. The traces left in the non-places function thus in the same way as digital traces work in their logic of collecting data from users: their target is the “average man,” possibly a consumer, whose behavior is detected and subsequently solicited through messages and advertisements. Every individual must be reduced to a consumer model - as the trace here is not meant to lead to the singular identity Latour and the other scholars describe in their aforementioned theory, but to an individual already socialized, thus fostering the sense of anonymity of the man lost in a multitude of individuals similarly lost in the same habits and actions.

This sense of anonymity offered to users after their entry into non-places prefigures the feeling of invisibility which characterizes the digital arena. When trolls make fun of other users, they experience an intensified impression of being lost in the mass of online identities, taking advantage of this status. The condition of anonymity is what makes it possible for trolls to play their game, as Leone (2020) suggests, and not only because of the feeling that their individual responsibility is weaker in the digital arena, but also because their concealed identity reinforces their position toward the victim and the sense of confusion derived from it. Leone reads this factor, as well as trolls’ indifference toward the content of their posts, as an example of the emergence of insignificance in the digital sphere. In fact, trolls’ discourses usually display a notable discrepancy between the expression and the content of the message, something the author understands as a mark of an almost total indifference toward the topic discussed by the other users. Yet, to interpret the digital traces left by trolls as insignificant remains problematic: it is true that the feeling of confusion and frustration they create often leads to the inability to distinguish between real criticism or simple mockery, or between true and false information, but this is frequently part of a strategy. The aforementioned study dedicated to the Russian trolls is aimed not only at proposing a possible categorization of different groups of trolls, but also at showing how the apparent contradictory nature of their posts is a well-planned strategy for destabilizing Western democracies.

Fostering a sense of uncertainty and suspicion through disinformation is an orchestrated project that is anything but insignificant. Furthermore, besides these more specific cases, in which the significance of trolling is easily predictable, even ordinary (and more “innocuous”) users deploy some strategy in their digital behavior. Firstly, Leone himself recognizes that certain topics of discussion are especially good for trolling, for example when the topic “entails a potentiality for contrasting opinions” (Leone, 2020: 28). The awareness showed by trolls in this regard is possibly understandable in terms of a programmed strategy, as they seem to know which discussions are likely to become “hot” and inflame an emotional tone in the conversation, and consequently how to keep this up. The preference for certain topics and a certain strategic behavior allows trolling to be considered a fully significant phenomenon. Secondly, as already noted by Leone, trolls tend to communicate their messages in a manner which is (and aims to be) explicitly inaccurate, both on the level of the grammar/syntax and on that of the content expressed, which is frequently illogical or openly contradictory, as the study on Russian trolls underlines. Even this second aspect should, however, be taken as relevant and worthy of significance: again, it is plausible to interpret it as a strategic technique used to decrease the quality and intelligibility of the discourse, aiming at confusing the interlocutors.

Finally, it is important to consider how the other users react to trolling, meaning how they understand the phenomenon and interact with it, emotionally and cognitively. The traces left by trolls’ activity are now almost immediately recognized by experienced users, who can, in revenge, turn the situation to their own advantage, becoming the ones who make fun of the trolls or eventually decide to play the same game. This prospect arises from the effect of familiarity with the phenomenon over time, when it is no longer perceived as an oddity: in short, an effect of acquaintance, meaning the recognition of a pattern which is identified as significant. In the case of the traces left by trolls, these are read and acknowledged by other users as a sign of trolling, i.e., of a specific behavior in the digital arena. These traces are thus no longer simple signals, according to Eco’s terminology, since the effect of acquaintance they unconsciously give rise to turns them into proper signs, a significant pattern for other digital subjects.

Final Remarks: A Possible Paradigm of the Trace

Concluding his study with the affirmation of the insignificance of trolling in an already insignificant digital reality, Leone denounces the phenomenon as the symptom of a crisis of mainstream language and morality. This analysis has tried to deny this conclusion, proposing instead the meaningfulness of trolling, and more generally of the wider concept of a digital trace. The (partial) conclusions that can be drawn lead to the proposal of a paradigm in which the concept of trace could be inscribed. On the basis of the notion of intentionality as described above, it is possible to state that every trace is intentional, since even the ones that users leave unconsciously during their digital activities are always part of an established system that collects and processes those same traces. Intentionality (not to be confused with the close notion of intention) is consequently fundamental for any paradigm of the trace, and for any semiotics of the digital.

The second concept to be taken into account is the aforementioned notion of acquaintance. A trace is never recognized in isolation, since it is reminiscent of some pattern, be it an identity, a past event, or a no-longer-existent entity, so that its full “truthfulness” is revealed by an act of acknowledgment, i.e., it requires the receiver to become acquainted with its recurrence. Lastly, the third element of the suggested paradigm can be summarized by the concept of circumstance. The abovementioned actor-network theory applied to digital traces by Latour and the other scholars (Latour et al., 2012) clearly affirms that an identity is the product of the sum of the traces that may be collected and assembled when searching for someone/something on the Internet. This approach centers on the idea of a context, given in the shape of a network, since each trace is related to another one and cannot be considered fully significant unless in relation to other traces. This context is referred to here as the circumstance (“what stands around,” etymologically), liable to modify the meaning of the single trace, a fragmentary sign if taken in isolation. Moreover, a trace always points at something, missing or definitely lost, so that the circumstance in which it is caught is highly significant also in this regard. The hypothetical paradigm proposed, in which the trace can be inscribed, consists thus of the three elements of intentionality, acquaintance, and circumstance, all corroborating its significance.

The analyzed case study of trolling can be read through this paradigm, considering the intentionality behind trolls’ traces, the effect of acquaintance they give rise to in digital communication, and, lastly, the circumstance in which they are received. The latter is intended as both the specific context of the digital arena with its communicative conventions and the network in which each trace is linked with the previous or following ones. On the basis of the suggested paradigm, an insignificant trace would mean one devoid of any possible intentionality, standing for nothing in any possible circumstances and unable to develop any sort of acquaintance in the digital audience. On the contrary, the examined case of trolling, according to Leone an example of loss of meaning, cannot escape the “holding” of sense, and thus proves to be a fully significant (and hence semiotically analyzable) phenomenon. For this reason alone, the province of meaning must be expanded to include the trace and other quasi-signs that might otherwise be placed beyond the scope of semiotic interest. Following from this, the possibility of insignificance is highly problematic, and it seems (in Leone’s perception) to be strictly related to the crisis of values and beliefs sustaining Western (and democratic) discursive practices. Trolling can only and eventually be regarded as an expression of insignificance from such a narrow perspective, and according to a very specific ideological standpoint. The existential, rather than cultural, nuance with which the concept of insignificance is charged, contrary to the one of meaninglessness, seems to disclose in the end a partial outlook on the emergent trends within digital communication.