The Mechanics‐Conditions Framework as a Tool for Critical Social Media Affordance Analysis

ABSTRACT Affordances, described as action opportunities emerging from the relationship between a technology and its user, are a popular framework for understanding how people engage with social media platforms. Scholars have proposed this framework as a tool for performing critical analyses of technology, arguing that drilling down on affordances can help us understand how power shapes technology use. This conceptual analysis builds on the affordance mechanisms and conditions framework by Davis. Davis proposed to think of affordances in terms of mechanisms (request, demand, encourage, discourage, refuse, allow) and conditions (perception, dexterity, and cultural and institutional legitimacy). This framework sheds light on to whom and under what circumstances technologies afford certain actions to its users. I apply this framework to social media and provide examples that illustrate the framework's components. For each component, I include a set of suggested questions that a researcher interested in a critical social justice‐oriented analysis of social media affordances might ask. Asking these questions, I argue, can support a researcher in dissecting the biases, stigmata, and discrimination embedded in social media.