As we already discussed,
what is the group communication within the social media,
and how we can think,
and how we can interpret the drivers for
the user engagement within the online communities.
Let's now move on to the social media and the affordances which it provides to us,
as for users and the framework which can be helpful to understand
the nature of social media through the research as we are doing research here.
Now let's go online and let's take a look on the Facebook for example.
What do we see there, first of all,
it's updates from the online communities we are following,
these are updates from people we are following,
and from those who are part of our social network and the friend list.
But as for my personal experience,
I'd never get enough of likes from people who are part of my previous workplace.
When I post some stuff,
a ball was going on at the University,
which pisses me of, f honestly,
and then I come to this people,
they would just tell me that they never saw
this news online and they never seen this post,
that's why, they did not reacted to it somehow.
This is the algorithm of the Facebook and
this is the algorithm how it structures our news line,
what should we see first,
what should we see next,
and what we should never see.
And these can be considered as one of
the affordances of a particular social media, this hidden algorithm.
But there are many more.
What can we do, what are the possible actions which we
can perform on the particular social media?
Can we post pictures,
can we upload videos,
can we share information, can we like?
Or there can be different sorts of like,
for example we can super like something.
Let's take a look at the concept of affordances.
Initially, the concept of affordances was brought by Gibson back in the late 70's.
And it does not really apply to the world of
social media or the world of human-computer interaction whatsoever.
And nowadays, we define affordances as the clues to
the ways that people understand and negotiate technology in everyday lives.
These are the possible actions which I can
perform and the way how do I perceive these possible actions,
as a part of this sudden technology.
Originally, it was the term or the concept itself was founded in
ecological psychology and it was based on the perceived properties to perform actions.
How do I see myself or how do I see my surrounding performing
certain sort of action and how will I interpret these actions?
Norman, Donald Norman, in 1980s
appropriated the term into the context of human-computer interaction.
He defined the affordances as it perceived in actual properties of the thing,
preliminary, those fundamental properties
that determine just how this could possibly be used.
Norman was concerned with what people saw rather than simply what environment can afford.
Is this like is just like or it can be something else?
How do I interpret the post?
Is it for me a part of the sole disclosure or is
just the update which I want to provide to my friends and surrounding?
While affordances according to Gibson were latent with the environment,
Norman argued that if these were not perceived,
they could not be classed as affordance because they could not be acted upon.
If I don't understand what I am doing with that technology,
it cannot be seen as affordance.
First, we can come to the realization how and why do we
utilize the particular technology or the particular tool in the social media,
in our context with the Facebook example.
So while Gibson's original concept of affordances emerged out of visual perception,
Norman's affordances were grounded in human-computer interaction
and particularly in the design elements of the online spaces.
This is why the concept of affordances is particularly interesting
for us in order to interpret what's going on in this field,
and in order to understand how we can perceive different media and social media websites.
If we want to dig deeper in the concept of affordances,
we need to understand this initial difference between what was first
and how do we adapt the term to the mediated environment.
As for Gibson, affordances were one of action possibilities, for Norman,
affordance is more about the users' perception of the action possibilities.
So basically, here, it was quiet reflective function
in a Gibson point of view, in the Normanian,
affordance would be linked to actor's past experience, knowledge,
culture and other variables which might appear within the communicated framework,
and within the communicative system the individual exist in.
If we apply the concept of affordances in our research or in our routine research,
without being a scholarly research,
we need to keep in mind all past experiences that might
influence the understanding of affordances and the perception of this.
What are the types of affordances that can be distinguished in academic literature?
First of all, we can see the action possibilities and the perceptions.
This is what we've already discussed.
Actions do not have to be performed and actions can be perceived differently,
which can be very important for us as we are doing our marketing strategy,
as we are thinking how to integrate social media platforms in our campaign.
How would users perceive these actions and how would they react to that?
Would it be this game,
would it be some other sort of activity,
which will make them engaged and integrate into the whole communicative campaign?
The next thing is distinction between
social affordances and the technological affordances.
Once again, the same post on Facebook would be perceived differently by
the technological structure of the social media and
what is the social meaning of this action which I perform.
And the last distinction is perceived affordances versus real affordances.
What are the perceived affordances?
They can vary from individual to individual,
and the real affordances combine the social and
technological simultaneously at the same time.
Summarizing here, let's make it clear what affordances are.
Affordances are the possible actions and the perceptions of this actions
which we can perform over the social media and their particulars surrounding.
It can vary from the human to human and
all the people perceive these affordances in a different way,
but still we can find the common understanding within some social groups.
And now from this point,
let's move on to the certain example and see
how the research in the affordances can help business
or how it can help to enhance the computer-mediated communication between customers and,
in our particular case, business.
Olga SolovyevaLecturer
Maria MordvinovaHead of BA Program in PR and Advertising
