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This post is based on Andy Lapham’s publishing session, including McLuhan’s book The Medium is the Message and Norman and Donald’s book The Psychology of Everyday Things and some other resources.
In the beginning publishing was about printing information on paper, making books, newspapers and magazines so that information could be conveyed to people. The medium at that time was paper only. With the advent of electronic technology, there was a revolutionary change in the publishing method. Information was uploaded to the Internet, which became the new way of publishing. The medium also became digital media. This change in medium is a change of environment, and the effect of this change on human beings is as subtle as the effect of massage on muscles.
As the medium changes, it is a certain consequence that its affordance changes. The affordance of digital media is clearly different from that of paper media in that it is procedural, participatory, spatial and encyclopaedic. Digital media can provide a presentation with a process, for example through animation or video. At the same time, the media can interact with the user or allow interaction between users to increase their social engagement. Digital media can also provide a three-dimensional space, such as AR, although I think that paper media can also achieve 3D effects.But I have to admit that the 3D effect of digital media can provide more interactive functions. Lastly, the familiar encyclopedia is a BOOK, but nowadays digital media can provide more encyclopedic knowledge with less physical space because the information is stored in bits.