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Affordances for Sense-Making: Exploring Their Availability for Users of Online News Sites

  • Damon Kiesow*
  • , Shuhua Zhou
  • , Lei Guo
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

Abstract

Each medium of news delivery has a unique set of attributes that facilitate or impede consumption and learning. In this article, we examine what affordances of digital news sites are present or absent. Based on the perspectives of Gibson’s ecological psychology and his conceptualizations of affordances, as well as Norman’s theorizing of signifiers, we conducted an exploratory study with loyal digital news readers to query their reliance on a number of affordances. We compared those findings to the affordances realized in print and argued that many signals supporting sense-making of the print news are attenuated in digital. Implications are discussed. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)962-981
JournalDigital Journalism
Volume11
Issue number6
Online published10 Nov 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2023
Externally publishedYes

Research Keywords

  • Affordances
  • digital media
  • ecological psychology
  • media affordances
  • news consumption
  • sense-making

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