Formalisms of digital technology affordances
Date
2020
Authors
Mahlangu, Samuel
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Abstract
The extant literature does not sufficiently problematise the underlying structural elements and causal mechanisms of ‘feature’ and ‘ability’ constructs in the emergence of affordances. An explanatory, concrete critical realist artefact-based case study involving a smartphone digital device was conducted. The study sought to explore the underlying structural elements and causal mechanisms of ‘feature’ and ‘ability’ constructs in the emergence of affordances. The study was limited to the Chemero (2003) and Şahin et al., (2007) relational feature-ability conception of affordances (i.e. agent affordance perspective), with particular focus on digital technology affordances.
Eight plausible causal explanations were retroduced from the underlying structural elements of the feature and ability constructs, in the affordance actorartefact relation. Out of the eight, two causal explanations were found to be atypical of affordance causal logic, in the traditional IT sense of the elementary interaction loop. However, in the context of digital technologies, these atypical causal mechanisms were found to be plausible. This is because digital technologies can support advanced actor-artefact communicative interactions, transcending space, time, actor, and artefact dimensions (e.g. chronemics, proxemics, kinesics, oculesics, vocalics, textual, verbal, etc.).
The study showed through retroductive causal explanatory logic, that affordances are emergent constructs of the underlying conditional-causal-structure relations of ‘feature’ and ‘ability’ constructs and their combined feature-ability mechanism elements. Furthermore, a typology of digital technology affordance causal mechanisms, as well as the revised affordance formalisms were proposed.
Description
A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in the field of Digital Business to the Faculty of Commerce, Law, and Management, Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2020
Keywords
Ability, affordance, digital technology, direct causality, experiential computing, feature, mechanism