Visual Metonymy in App Icons of Social Media: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates the use of visual metonymy in social app icons within a highly competitive global app market. While previous research has mainly focused on surface-level visual traits such as color, shape, and aesthetics, the cross-cultural symbolic and rhetorical dimensions of app icons remain largely understudied. This study takes metonymy as its central object of analysis and explores how this particular type of visual rhetoric is deployed across diverse cultural settings and how it manifests within various national marketplaces. We conducted a quantitative content analysis on 800 social app icons from four national markets: China, India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. The findings reveal that visual metonymy is widely used in social app icons. This trend highlights its importance as a visual strategy for conveying broader meanings through concrete elements. Cross-national variation, however, reveals distinct usage patterns across the four markets. This empirical divergence indicates that metonymic design is influenced by the interplay among functional communication, global design conventions, and local cultural contexts. This study deepens our understanding of the semiotic mechanisms in digital visual communication and provides practical insights for cross-cultural app icon design.