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Affordance theory and e-books: evaluating the e-reading experience using netnography

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Abstract

E-books have changed the business of book publishing and the reading experience of the general public. Dedicated e-readers and other smart devices are integral to e-books offering affordances to overcome the physical limitations of print book and to provide the functionality of information technology. Using netnography, comments by online readers to articles in The New York Times and Scientific American were analysed and coded by themes identified in the literature of e-books versus print books. An affordance theory approach was used to provide insights into the readers’ perceptions of real and actual affordances and the value delivered by these affordances. Comments by online readers of two diverse datasets confirm results found in questionnaires and surveys reported in the academic literature. It is the physical attributes and functionality of smart devices used in e-reading that provides the opportunity of affordance. Our study provides support for an affordance perspective of e-books and e-readers. It also highlights preferences for e-books and/or print books in various contexts. To our knowledge, it is the first to consider e-readers as an IT artefact providing information processing capabilities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Systems and Technology Management, The University of New South Wales Sydney, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

    John D’Ambra & Concepcion S. Wilson

  2. Sydney Business School, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia

    Shahriar Akter

Authors
  1. John D’Ambra
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  2. Concepcion S. Wilson
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  3. Shahriar Akter
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Correspondence to John D’Ambra.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 Information systems research on affordances
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Fig. 1
figure 1

Model of affordance perception and actualization from Bernhard et al. [42]

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D’Ambra, J., Wilson, C.S. & Akter, S. Affordance theory and e-books: evaluating the e-reading experience using netnography. Pers Ubiquit Comput 23, 873–892 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-017-1086-1

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