A conceptual update of affordance theory that introduces the mechanisms and conditions framework, providing a vocabulary and critical perspective.
A conceptual update of affordance theory that introduces the mechanisms and conditions framework, providing a vocabulary and critical perspective.
Technological affordances mediate between the features of a technology and the outcomes of engagement with that technology. The concept of affordances, which migrated from psychology to design with Donald Norman's influential 1988 book, The Design of Everyday Things, offers a useful analytical tool in technology studies-but, Jenny Davis argues in How Artifacts Afford, it is in need of a conceptual update. Davis provides just such an update, introducing the mechanisms and conditions framework, which offers both a vocabulary and necessary critical perspective for affordance analyses.
The mechanisms and conditions framework shifts the question from what objects afford to how objects afford, for whom, and under what circumstances. Davis shows that through this framework, analyses can account for the power and politics of technological artifacts. She situates the framework within a critical approach that views technology as materialized action. She explains how request, demand, encourage, discourage, refuse, and allow are mechanisms of affordance, and shows how these mechanisms take shape through variable conditions-perception, dexterity, and cultural and institutional legitimacy.
Putting the framework into action, Davis identifies existing methodological approaches that complement it, including critical technocultural discourse analysis (CTDA), app feature analysis, and adversarial design. In today's rapidly changing sociotechnical landscape, the stakes of affordance analyses are high. Davis's mechanisms and conditions framework offers a timely theoretical reboot, providing tools for the crucial tasks of both analysis and design.
By:
Jenny L. Davis
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 203mm,
Width: 137mm,
Spine: 14mm
Weight: 198g
ISBN: 9780262554107
ISBN 10: 0262554100
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 08 April 2025
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Table of Contents Series Foreword ix Acknowledgments xvii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 A Trolley Problem of a Particular Sort 1 Affordances 6 Operationalizing Affordances: The Mechanisms and Conditions Framework 11 How Afforances Matter 14 Situating the Text 15 Outline of the Book 21 Chapter 2: A Brief History of Affordances 25 Origins in Ecological Psychology 27 Afforances Spread 29 Objects, Subjects, and Contexts 34 Sustained Critiques 39 Pathways Forward 41 Chapter 3: Politics and Power 45 The Medium Is the Message: McLuhan on Technologies as Objects of Study 47 Actor-Network Theory: Overcoming Technological Determinism 50 The Politics of Artifacts 53 Technology as Materialized Action: Technological Efficacy and Human Agency 56 Chapter Summary 60 Chapter 4: Mechanisms of Affordance 63 Requests and Demands 66 Encourage, Discourage, and Refuse 71 Allow 80 Chapter Summary 83 Chapter 5: Conditions of Affordance 87 Perception 91 Dexterity 94 Cultural and Institutional Legitimacy 96 Chapter Summary 100 Chapter 6: Affordances in Practice 105 Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis 108 The Walkthrough Method and App Feature Analysis 110 Values Reflection 116 Adversarial Design 118 Chapter Summary 121 Chapter 7: Conclusion 123 Big Question 1: How Do We Identify and Equalize Digital Inequalities? 128 Big Question 2: How Do Social Media Affect Sociality and Psychological Well-being? 129 Big Question 3: How Do Information Economies Affect Political Life? 130 Big Question 4: How Will Driverless Cars Affect Urban Infrastructures? 130 Big Question 5: How Do Medical Technologies Afford Embodied Relations to Health? 131 Moving Forward 132 Notes 135 Bibliography 161 Index 181
Jenny L. Davis is a sociologist at the Australian National University.
