Manifestation of Minangkabau Cultural Identity through Public Engagement in Virtual Community

AbstractThis paper discusses the visual communication in Palanta Urang Awak Minangkabau, an active virtual community in Facebook which has 11,319 members by December 2013 and 4,011 photos upload in the groups. This group actively discusses various topics about Minangkabau. This research applies cultural studies approach where social semiotic method is used to search the meaning of images that build cultural identity in a virtual community. The result is the understanding of signification and various ways of using images in the public engagement to shape the cultural identity of the Minangkabau people in cyberspace