The value affordances of social media engagement
features
Dublin Core
Title
The value affordances of social media engagement
features
features
Subject
affordances, social media engagement, Instagram, TikTok, platform values, YouTube
Description
Social media engagement is ubiquitous but contested, simultaneously framed as an everyday form of support and an urgent societal risk. To
make sense of these competing claims, we introduce the concept of value affordances, defined as the set of ethical, aesthetic, and relational
principles that emerge from the interaction between different stakeholders and technological infrastructures. We develop a novel method involv-
ing focus groups and value cards to study the value affordances of engagement features and explore how international students attribute values
to the Like, Comment, and Share buttons of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Across platforms, participants agree that engagement features pro-
mote expression, care, and community and hinder privacy, mindfulness, peace, and safety. We discuss how our participants navigate value
tradeoffs, emphasizing individual agency over structural factors when evaluating the design of platforms, using social media creatively, and
assigning responsibility for harm to other users.
make sense of these competing claims, we introduce the concept of value affordances, defined as the set of ethical, aesthetic, and relational
principles that emerge from the interaction between different stakeholders and technological infrastructures. We develop a novel method involv-
ing focus groups and value cards to study the value affordances of engagement features and explore how international students attribute values
to the Like, Comment, and Share buttons of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Across platforms, participants agree that engagement features pro-
mote expression, care, and community and hinder privacy, mindfulness, peace, and safety. We discuss how our participants navigate value
tradeoffs, emphasizing individual agency over structural factors when evaluating the design of platforms, using social media creatively, and
assigning responsibility for harm to other users.
Creator
Rebecca Scharlach 1,*, Blake Hallinan
Source
https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmad040
Date
27 September 2023
Contributor
PERI IRAWAN
Format
PDF
Language
ENGLISH
Type
TEXT
Files
Collection
Citation
Rebecca Scharlach 1,*, Blake Hallinan, “The value affordances of social media engagement
features,” Repository Horizon University Indonesia, accessed October 31, 2025, https://repository.horizon.ac.id/items/show/8752.
features,” Repository Horizon University Indonesia, accessed October 31, 2025, https://repository.horizon.ac.id/items/show/8752.