‘Technology Affordances’. William W. Gaver
Subconsciously or consciously, affordances come to affect every interaction or perception of the world around us; they can shape ideals, taste, even comprehension – depending on the given object and presentation. However, affordances tend to rely on several senses, or at very least are more often than not related to a tangible object. But what of our affordances with technology? Do they in conjunction with our expectations shape what technology is and how we use it today, or does the technology itself shape the affordances surrounding it?
William W. Gaver states that affordances “exist whether the perceiver cares about them or not”; that a ball affords throwing, a pit falling, or a cup drinking. Thus, would this be the reason when we think ‘phone’ one would afford it to a rectangular shape? To present someone with circular smart phone would be potentially jarring. Forfeiting the capabilities and actual use of the device, we can see how this may unnerve certain people, as that it has immediately gone against expectations, and in doing so has taken the user outside of their comfort zone of their affordances in relation to smart phones. But again, this falls in line with affordances to physical objects and not of a digital nature, software, layout, use or otherwise. Gaver continues to go on to discuss this very subject with the digital ‘object’ of choice being the scroll bar. Whilst yes, this differs between PC and smart phone devices, the affordances of the PC, being the phones predecessor have come to greatly affect how operating systems have evolved. Changing the format of ‘choosing next page’, the scroll bar changed how we have interacted with content, creating a greater ease of use, and since the mechanic has not changed apart from cosmetically. This has continued on to affect how we use mobile phones; despite having an easy chance for side swiping, which is still prevalent in many applications, the majority of sites and apps will opt for a scrolling mechanism in the form of a vertical swipe, mimicking the scroll action people are accustom to in using the PC’s scrolling action.
The exact same circumstance has affected many other icons, e.g. save button – universally known despite being a representation of an obsolete technology, but has remained due to our affordances surrounding it.
From this we can see that other than its format and presentation, technological affordances do not differ in nature to their physical counterparts. The user must still interact with them, and thus has expectations, and to change them could bring about consequence. Affordances are merely a game of expectation and association; being the subconscious mental hyperlinking within the human mind. We are creatures of habit, and affordances are the habit of expectation, shaping how we engage with our environment and the nature of any objects discourse.
‘Network Literacy: The Path to Knowledge’. Adrian Miles
Network literacy is relatively new in terms of modern skills and has quickly become widespread and necessary to the point of being mandatory to navigate online platforms. Whilst being far from computer literacy or book literacy, networked literacy remains the same in nature; being the ability/knowledge to connect and cross digital platforms, sites, and sources in order to increase reach and access to information and media.
An example of network literacy would be a student completing a research essay: They are given their topic, in this case the history of England, and so they decide to google search it. the first result is on Wikipedia and they click on it, but their teachers don’t credit Wikipedia as a legitimate source, so rather than defy their teacher or give up a source of information, they scroll to the bottom of the page and check the references Wikipedia used. Suddenly, without having to search article after article and book and book, the student now has tenfold the sources, all relevantly on the topic, and legitimate credited sources. This is just one case of networked literacy; they have used the sites own networking to benefit themselves.
But this is just our own network literacy. Network literacy also exists within the computers programming, and autonomously hyperlinks relevant sources.
Programme services of XML and RSS allows sites to automatically connect, communicating with one another and allowing linking and the sharing of information. Not only does this apply to websites but also servers, so that information stored all over the world in various places can be linked to form one or many cohesive compilations of data, seemingly making a singular hub for storage, accessibly from any point: moreover also being the basis for how peer to peer (P2P) sharing operates.
Such categorising and actions are not unique to these services, as that we do the same. This enacts as the season for having various accounts across different social medias and platforms and linking them together. This segmenting of relevant information can be prevalently seen in media and social media platforms, such as using Soundcloud for audio, FlickR/Instagram for images, Vimeo/YouTube for video projects, and WordPress/Twitter/Facebook for thought collection or promoting. What this achieves is the creation of a succinct and ordered network. Rather than blend several mediums together and creating a jumbled platform in which all information is stored, a user can separate them, creating an easy to use linked network for those wishing to view their content, as well as creating an easy sorting system for them to remain organised. To be able to do this successfully demonstrates the user/owner to be network literate. Additionally a useful aspect of high network literacy is that it encourages and increasing the skill of network literacy in people that navigate said networks. If someone were to access a network literate content creators YouTube page, they will see multiple links to various other accounts, thus promoting the same level of organised and literate thought within the consumer, of whom may them go on to promote the same to their own peers. Such could explain the reason as to why network literacy has become so widespread as a common skill among those more engaged in technology, particularly youths who are brought up usind said technology in their education.
‘Understanding New Media’. Eugene Siapera
Understanding new technologies and media has always been important as that it allows us to expand our current knowledge on the matter and utilise available tools to their maximum potential. But at what point do we begin the study in the lifecycle of an emerging medium, and is it worth deeming as a change, thus affecting its merit/worth to be studied? Whilst it is certainly helpful to catalogue and study something since its inception, it could prove as a waste of time if it doesn’t go anywhere or offer change. To vivisect it while it’s in its adolescence could yield the same result or worse due to a lack of information, and to dissect it after development could be too little too late. It all depends on the subject itself. Whilst technology has exponentially increased over the last century, newer emerging mediums have seemed to slow down, with current ones progressing more rather than newer ones coming about, thus begging the previous dilemma as whether it is worth studying in such detail. However we cannot deny the invaluable profit of recording all information possible, and so we do tend to choose the first option.
But what is making current media new, and how is it new? New media can be partially defined by its ever-growing shift from a solely digital platform, to online. (online be a sub-category. All online is digital, not all digital media is online, e.g. not all broadcast television is online). While old digital forms still exist and thrive today, their dominating shift to online is undeniable; with a large shift in music from radio to Spotify, and film and television shows shifting from broadcast television to Netflix, YouTube, and Stan, etc. New media it seems is coming about due to the increasing demand for content to be on demand, allowing viewers to consume entertainment in their own time rather than adhere to the scheduled time of programmes. Thus, rather than ‘new media’ being entirely new mediums, it is more a shift of how media is consumed; further developing what already exists, and evolving the media itself – merely shifting platform rather than adopting new forms entirely. This may be due to the affordances we hold in relation to said mediums: we are accustom to 22-24 minutes shows in 30 minute timeslots and 48-52 minute shows in 1 hour timeslots thanks to broadcast television, yet despite moving away from broadcast to be on demand, we still adhere to these time guidelines out of habit and people’s expectations, (to air a 37 minute episode of a show may jar a viewer due to expectations of narrative flow).
Technology has always had a close relationship with society, and so to track the evolution of media and its technological affordances can be beneficial in an anthropological aspect, in recording our progress as a whole, and how we define ourselves. It is for this reason why new media is recorded and studied intensely, often being the forefront within media coverage; for how new media affects us, will inevitably go on to affect how we conduct ourselves, direction of technological progression, and subsequently affect new media yet to come.
READINGS:
Gaver B 1991, ‘Technology Affordances’, Proceeding CHI ’91 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 79-84.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cv4VW54jvL9wPkSthwoUj61B9YqAy8FQ/view
Miles, Adrian. Soft Cinematic Hypertext (Other Literacies). RMIT University, 2012. (Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge 201-208)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fu237fq7szXX-yy_VvvjtWFWCQobTfUs/view
Siapera, Eugene. Understanding New Media. SAGE Publications, London 2013.(pp.1-16 )
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y_1hqJsCQg6owP0qFMSw6GRGQgT1j_yL/view
BLOG POSTS:
http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cody-nelson/2018/07/24/some-notes-from-week-2-networked-media/
http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cody-nelson/2018/08/10/week-3-networked-media-blog-post/
http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cody-nelson/2018/08/07/week-4-networked-media-workshop-notes/