Promotional Information

A conceptual update of affordance theory that introduces the mechanisms and conditions framework, providing a vocabulary and critical perspective

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: A Brief History of Affordances
Chapter 3: Power and Politics
Chapter 4: Mechanisms of Affordance
Chapter 5: Conditions of Affordance
Chapter 6: Affordances in Practice
Chapter 7: Conclusion

About the Author

Jenny L. Davis is a sociologist at the Australian National University.

Reviews

“How Artifacts Afford is nothing short of magical! Jenny Davis describes what technologies can do in social life. The writing is crisp and clear and the work is groundbreaking. This book will teach—both scholars and students alike—a socially informed framework for thinking about how technologies shape our world, and I predict it will have a field-defining impact.”
—Gina Neff, Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor, University of Oxford
 
“How Artifacts Afford offers a clarifying survey of the relationship between humans and technologies via the filter of affordance theory. Attentive to detail and always aware of the importance of the mundane, Jenny Davis provides a schematic for understanding how people make, and are made by, objects.”
—Nathan Jurgenson, author of The Social Photo; Cofounder and Cochair of the Theorizing the Web Conference; Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Real Life magazine; and Sociologist at Snap Inc.