Marshall McLuhan, Affordance, Mapping, and Human Computer Interaction in Interactive Media

Abstract

This chapter ties together media and human computer interaction (HCI) theories to work toward an understanding of how people interpret, gain meaning, and engage with interactive media. The concepts of media richness, social influence, and media genre proliferate the information systems literature, and in HCI a parallel can be found in the theory of affordance as it relates to the perception of material and computer ‘objects’. However, little has been done to make connections between these theory sets. In this discussion, a theory developed by Marshall McLuhan is described that can be used as an explanation to make connections between these media theories and the culture to context continuum of affordance, and can help us understand how this then affects cognitive processes. Interactive media can then be thought of as having properties of materiality, beyond; representational, temporality, conceptual, and episodal. Further elaboration around the cultural and contextual aspects, of interactivity allow for a deeper exploration of the framework and the implications for ambiguity, equivocality, and emotional engagement with interactive media.