Affordances

When speaking of affordances multimedia such as video, art, audio, and alphabetic text display just how a website has an affordance in itself rather than only using one form of multimedia. “Gunther Kress has brought the concept of affordances to theories of multimodal communication. Kress uses the term “mode” to refer to the material resources we have available to us as we make decisions about how to communicate with others—alphabetic text, still image, moving image, sound, gesture, etc.

Each of these modes has different affordances and constraints. Kress has emphasized the point that the affordances of the different modes are not just material, but also social.” Kress refers to affordances as the use of different modes and platforms that allow it to not only be seen as a material to help document and explain, but to be used and controlled socially to be taken advantage of in forms of communication. This is a way websites carry affordances towards a social aspect and ethos.

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Affordances appear in our daily lives. Examples of this are simple things such as using a microwave when you are in between classes making your meal much quicker than to use the oven or a stove, or even carrying a laptop with you to finish a final project throughout your day and on the go, rather than designating an entire day to spend 6-10 hours on the computer.