Platform affordances: Twitter & Mastodon
Joseph Reagle
Our question(s)
How does the design/affordances of a platform affect its conversations and communities?
Affordances
Gibson
The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. (Gibson 1979/2015, p. 119)
[invented by the perceptual psychologist Gibson] to refer to the actionable properties between the world and an actor (a person or animal). To Gibson, affordances are a relationship. (Norman 1999)
Norman’s definition
the term affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used. […] Affordances provide strong clues to the operations of things. (Norman 1989, p. 9)
Norman’s examples
Plates are for pushing. Knobs are for turning. Slots are for inserting things into. Balls are for throwing or bouncing. When affordances are taken advantage of, the user knows what to do just by looking: no picture, label, or instruction needed (Norman 1989, p. 9)
What other affordances do you encounter in daily life??
Physical or online?
Have you seen an a desire path?
Affordance loops
Communities shape tools that shape communities, surrounded by everything happening in the world around us (Kisane 2023)
Origins of hashtag
Origins of quote retweet
Mastodon’s origins
QICs
“Go around”: share your question, insight, or connection.
From Twitter to Mastodon
How does Mastodon differ?
- chronological order
- 500 character limit
- stats are hidden
- anti-abuse features
- no quote retweet
- federated
- content warnings
- no global search (Chayka 2022)
How does this affect community??
- chronological order
- 500 character limit
- stats are hidden
- anti-abuse features
- no quote retweet
- federated
- content warnings
- no global search
- less ads, less manipulation
- fewer one-liners
- less gaming/preening
- safer
- less virality
- wide-spread block lists
- less stress/provocation
- more private, less viral
Affordances of social media
by affordances I mean the resources, the tools, the very structure of the website—things like hashtags, retweets, quote tweets, and so on. The ways that a given community forms by means of the affordances of a digital platform structures some of the nature of that community.” (Flowers in Kisane 2023)
Power of black Twitter
The offline events and media coverage of #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen point to an interesting phenomenon: Black Twitter’s participants becoming gatekeepers for information, setting an agenda for mainstream media publications and their consumers (Clark 2015, “Black Twitter”, p. 214)
Would Mastodon support Black Twitter?
Whatever the destination, Black Twitter will be increasingly difficult to recreate. “The infrastructures of places like Mastodon and TikTok, which are wildly different from one another, of course, are too segmented to create the feeling of a truly public square,” Jackson says. “They require a learning curve many will resist, are algorithmically designed toward narrowing content, and are ephemeral. I expect many folks will rely more heavily on Instagram, but it will never be the same.” (Parham 2022)
ex. Alternatives??
In groups of ~4–5, identify the different features and affordance of other social media platforms and their likely consequences for their users and communities.
Conclusion
Wrap up
Predict: what will the social media landscape look like in 5 years?
Review
Predict: what will the social media landscape look like in 5 years?