Organizational Media Affordances: Operationalization and Associations with Media Use

Abstract

The concept of affordances has been increasingly applied to the study of information and communication technologies (ICTs)

Paradoxical implications of personal social media use for work

“…Finally, this study provides insight into the ICT‐related autonomy paradox in the context of specific uses of personal social media for work. However, social media in particular and ICTs in general exhibit a variety of affordances that may be associated with different positive, negative, and paradoxical outcomes (Rice et al ., ). Future studies should not only direct attention to identify other social media related paradoxes but especially focus on the conditions under which these paradoxes may exist, what direct and indirect outcomes are associated with them and the extent to which different ICTs and their affordances matter.…”

Beyond mandatory use: Probing the affordances of social media for formal learning in the voluntary context

“…The term "affordances" was defined by Gibson (1986) in the field of ecological psychology as action possibilities for animals in relation to the properties of a given environment. With regard to the affordances of social media, it reflects the possible actions that users perceive they could apply social media relative to their needs or purposes (Rice et al, 2017;Treem & Leonardi, 2013). Social media affordances have been applied in different areas.…”

“…Social media enable users to craft and recraft a communicative act before it is viewed by others (Walther, 1993), or to modify or revise content they have already been presented or communicated (Rice et al, 2017).…”

“…To address these issues, we draw from an affordance approach, which is of great utility to understand the various ways users adopt, appropriate, and reinvent the material features of objects to accomplish tasks (Rice et al, 2017). The concept of affordances has been used to explicate the use of a set of technologies, including social media, in organizational communication research (e.g., Rice et al, 2017;Treem & Leonardi, 2013;Lee, Watson-Manheim, & Chudoba, 2014) and educational research (e.g., Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012;Väljataga, Pata, & Tammets;2010). In particular, social media affordances refer to resources offered by social media, or the possible actions that social media enable users to achieve their goals (Rice et al, 2017).…”

“…The concept of affordances has been used to explicate the use of a set of technologies, including social media, in organizational communication research (e.g., Rice et al, 2017;Treem & Leonardi, 2013;Lee, Watson-Manheim, & Chudoba, 2014) and educational research (e.g., Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012;Väljataga, Pata, & Tammets;2010). In particular, social media affordances refer to resources offered by social media, or the possible actions that social media enable users to achieve their goals (Rice et al, 2017). Instead of focusing centrally on features or a particular social media platform, an affordance lens is helpful in explaining why students use different social media in similar ways or the same social media in different ways (Treem & Leonardi, 2013).…”