| dc.description.abstract | In the media landscape a relevant object of study has been the transformation of the audience from passive recipients to active contributors. Concerning digital journalism, different platforms have increasingly involved these increased forms of participation. This has resulted in the rise of participatory journalism. Participatory journalism platforms integrate User-Generated content created independently by users and accommodated on mainstream news outlets. This research investigates this process and examines the extent to which user participation is afforded – or constrained – on GuardianWitness, an example of participatory journalism in mainstream news outlets. An affordance analysis has been carried out. Analyzing affordances let us consider the digital artefact in terms of the actions it makes possible. More concretely, affordance analysis can provide insights to improve the experience of the user on a digital artefact. In order to investigate affordances on GuardianWitness, several steps have been made. First, an overview on the state of research on participatory journalism and on affordance theory has been made. Second, affordances influencing user participation on GuardianWitness have been selected and investigated. It has been found out that no research has been carried out applying affordance theory to participatory journalism platform. This study aims at filling this gap. By understanding how affordances work, it is possible to evaluate the platform and draw a conclusion about the extent of user participation. It has been concluded that the extent of user participation on GuardianWitness is rather limited by its affordances. Therefore, this study draws several suggestions that might increase user participation on the platform. By implementing these suggestions, users might be more willing to actively engage. Moreover, most researches have dealt with the traditional conceptualization of affordance, regarding mostly physical objects, rather than digital. Therefore, this study is innovative as it shows the value of applying affordance theory to a digital artefact in order to answer specific questions concerning its use and features. | |
