Affordances of social media in collective action: the case of Free Lunch for Children in China

Abstract

This paper studies the socialised affordances of social media in the processes of collective action, exploring the role of technology in the underresearched area of civil society. We examine the case of Free Lunch for Children (FL4C), a charitable programme in China based on the microblogging platform, Weibo. Adopting the perspective of affordances-for-practice, we draw upon the collective action model to better understand the sociomaterial practices and social processes involving social media, and seek to address the 'when' and 'how' questions of affordances. The study generates theoretical and practical implications for understanding the role of social media in social transformation.

A Review of Application of Affordance Theory in Information Systems

“…Affordances evolve through actors' behavior [25]. Studying the socialized affordances of social media and adopting the perspective of affordances-for-practice based on the theory of collective action [9].   Journal of Service Science and Management definition and our review, we can reach the following conclusions: First, affordances are potentials for action.…”

“…However, through the analysis and review of existing literature, we find that most of IS/IT affordances are put forward based on the property of materiality. It is insufficient in understanding the role of technology in organizational and societal transformation [9]. Leonardi (2011) and political processes [9].…”

“…The affordances concept has been used in the related organizational changes [4] [5] [7] and social media use [9].…”

Understanding ICT in ICT4D: An Affordance Perspective

“…The term affordances in the context of ICT4D has recently started to appear in some studies [21,34,35], these studies however focused on use of affordances concepts in analyzing the case. In this paper, we further advocate to apply the theory of affordances in understanding ICT.…”

“…Therefore, the affordances exist independent of the user, but it has an impact only if the user perceives and actualizes it. On the other hand, from the use perspective the relational ontology suggests that affordances emerge in practice in a particular context [21]. Therefore, it is not possible to label a priori attributes as affordances of entities.…”