In the current work is presented the strategy of the “inverted semanteme” to analyze the lack of veracity of the financial information in the Spanish websites, which have a ISO certification. A set of real examples accompany this semiotic analysis of the interactive design to indicate an inappropriate use of the certification quality of logos in the Internet. An inappropriate use which breeds discredit towards the human team of small and middle size technological firms which have ceased their activities. Besides, the social factors are researched of the damage towards the communicability and the online credibility stemming from the promotion of false information in the financial context.
TopIntroduction
The global financial crisis of the new millennium has made apparent the need to resort constantly to the new technologies to enlarge the institutional image of Banks, credit institutions, government bodies and so on. Thanks to the democratization of the internet in the 90s, currently the banks, savings banks, etc., offer a myriad enticements to carry out financial operations from the home or the working place, counting with a maximun of online safety and speed in the transactions (Zhong, Liu, & Yao, 2007; Andriole, 2010; Cipolla-Ficarra, 2012; Cipolla-Ficarra, 2014). Those automation services have economic costs, and these vary in view of the relationships between the customer and the financial institution with which he/she is interacting (Chandramouli, et al., 2010; Pons, 2006). Within those services there are eventual aids offered to the potential customers who decide to open a small or middle size business. That is, a kind of promotional help with a cost equal to zero from the financial point of view at the moment of starting the entrepreneurial activities. Activities which may be aimed or not at the goods and/or services in the ICT (information and communication technology) sector, for instance (Begel, 2013).
Figure 1. Virtual firm of online services to find out the financial information of real firms
Figure 2. Website where by paying a small figure in euros (42, 24, etc.) one has access to the confidential information of the directors of a firm
Now, how can it be that a firm that has totally ended its activities at the start of the global financial crisis, that is, at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, currently appears in one of those websites as an active commercial institution and invoicing in-between a million and a half-three million euros per year? (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Into the Spanish website “Axesor” there are falses financial and commercial information online
The Figure 3 depicts an example of what we call in the current work inverted semanteme. Semanteme is a unit of meaning, a linguistic element that it self expresses a concept and, in turn, is combinable with other such elements (Colapietro, 1993). In the current work one of those elements is the transparency of meaning, which constitutes a quality attribute of the online and/or offline multimedia information. An attribute of quality whose origins are related to the notions of linguistics and semiotics (Saussure, 1983; Eco, 1977), but which influence each one of the design categories of a multimedia system. In the current study aimed at online financial information.