Affordance Theory in Social Media Research: Systematic Review and Synthesis of the Literature

Abstract

Social media technologies continue transforming various dimensions of social and organisational life through possibilities they present for goal-oriented actions of diverse users/user groups. The notion of affordances that explains these possibilities has witnessed popularity among IS scholars to study these technologies. However, since the concept itself has been under ongoing development, its use in studying social media technologies has been focused on identifying technical affordances, perception and actualisations of these affordances, or the social and organisational implications of such affordances.

In this research-in-progress paper, we present our attempt to systematically review and synthesise the literature to examine the effects of social media affordances. In addition, we aim to systematically review the existing literature to explore how the concept of affordance has been employed in social media research, to uncover the effects of social media affordances and present a comprehensive framework of these affordances effects and identify areas for future research.

Keywords: Affordances, Affordance, Social Media, Literature Review, Systematic Review