Visual Semiotics: Da'wah Delivery Solutions and Self-Akhlaq Guards in The Digital Age with Personal Branding

Abstract

The digital era has given birth to various roles and da’wah solutions that are able to break the boundaries of time and space which is very flowing, adjusting with the situation and the netizens’ interests by presenting contents in written, photos/pictures, videos, and audios to be uploaded on social media. Visual semiotics is a new technology-based communication method which maximizes the role of signs in form of writing, photo/picture, video, and audio that is presented in icon setting that implies linguistic message. This research use qualitative method with sociology and phenomenology approach and use analysis descriptive as the analytical technique. This research states that the utilization of visual semiotics in form of uploading content of a variety of sign visualization on social media periodically, with popularity as the outcome of personal branding, has become a da’wah solution, by delivering Islamic knowledge, moral messages, da’wah invitation, and Islamic quotes through the contents, to make oneself as a role model, which is performed periodically, dynamically, and contemporarily in order to gain the netizens’ interest so they can accept the religious teachings and to keep their morals, and not outdated by the current development in the digital era. Keywords: digital era; da’wah; visual semiotics; personal branding