Taking a stance with laptop stickers

The article explores the semiotic practice of using laptop stickers as a means of social, cultural and political stance-taking. To shed light on this communicative practice, it discusses the mobility of laptop devices as the prerequisite for the indexical meanings of stickers in ever-changing situational contexts. Compared to unauthorized stickers in public spaces, laptop stickering not only differs in mobility and materiality but also constitutes a specific genre, as stickers are tied to the personal device as a resource for indicating affiliation with distinct social collectives. Drawing on the Bakhtinian notion of the chronotope, social semiotics and stance-taking theory borrowed from interactional linguistics, the article analyses photos of stickered laptops and corresponding questionnaires collected among university students in German-speaking Switzerland and in Germany. The data set provides valuable insights into the communicative functions, discursive constructions and individual motives of adding stickers to laptops. Through our analysis, we identify recurring themes and visual arrangements that are commonly found on stickered laptops, and demonstrate how different types of stickers are deployed for a range of social, cultural and political stance-taking practices that must always have the potential for mobile recontextualization.