BCP Education & Psychology CEPC 2022 Volume 8 (2023) 335 An analysis of the application of affordance theory in new media advertising-- Take interactive advertising as an example Yiying Liu School of Arts, Zhuhai College of Science and Technology, Zhuhai, China Abstract. In this 21st century full of opportunities and challenges, revolutionaries with forward- looking visions are breaking the limitations of traditional media in advertising and various fields, actively exploring and pursuing innovation and expansion. And while traditional media cannot fully meet the needs of society at large, new media advertising is developing rapidly yet still has many limitations, but advertising creativity should not be limited on the box. Under the general conditions of the rapid development of the times, the study of affordance theory for new media interactive advertising can make innovations and suggestions. Keywords: Affordance Theory, New Media Advertising, Interactivity, Communication. 1. Research background With the development of society, communication media are gradually being integrated into new technologies such as Internet technology and big data technology. Meanwhile, along with the growing consumer groups of post-90s and post-00s, new media such as Xiaohongshu, Kwai and TikTok have emerged and developed at a high speed, which marks the increasing recognition of new media as the fifth media, and new media advertising with interactivity and wide dissemination has become the trend is towards interactive and widespread new media advertising [1]. However, new media advertising also has limitations and drawbacks. Since the 21st century, "affordance theory" has gradually aroused the attention of all walks of life and attracted the research of many scholars in the communication field. "Therefore, this article will discuss how to use "affordance theory" to develop and innovate new media advertising. 2. Research method 2.1 Literature research method Using Internet resources, we searched relevant literature through databases such as "China National Knowledge Infrastructure", and used the books in the university library to read literature related to the topic of the dissertation and grasp the current status of research on the topic. Use the search engine on the Internet to search for relevant articles and journals at home and abroad, as well as consult relevant information and the latest developments on communication and new media technology forums and academic exchange websites, and collect an appropriate amount of academic reviews and some academic papers related to new media advertising and theories of affordance, etc [2]. 2.2 Survey research Conduct an in-depth investigation into the current problems of domestic new media advertising and how to reasonably apply the theory of affordance by means of individual interviews and online surveys to provide an effective basis for the study of this topic. BCP Education & Psychology CEPC 2022 Volume 8 (2023) 336 3. Theoretical basis and development status of affordance theory and new media advertising 3.1 The theoretical basis of the affordance theory Affordance theory has many different explanatory perspectives at different levels, and James Gibson, an American psychologist of the 20th century, proposed that "the affordance of an environment is the possibility of action that this environment offers to the animal, and affordance is neither a purely objective nor a purely subjective property, but both". And when the sense of affordance was introduced into Chinese communication science through Pan Zhongdang, a framework of media affordance was developed: the three elements of message generation affordance, social affordance, and mobile affordance, and the 13 other available forces by them. The Chinese communication community has been influenced by this framework as a way to assess the "newness" of "new media," i.e., "the higher the level of the three types of affordance, the more 'new' the media tends to be. ' media [3]." From the conclusion of various aspects, the findings from various sources suggest that the theory of affordance is a theory that describes the reciprocal relationship between the actor and the environment, that is, the possibilities that the environment can offer (according to the actor itself) to the actor. For example: in a space with a person and a glass of water, if the person feels thirsty, then what the glass of water offers is the affordance of being drunk, i.e. this affordance is determined by the objective property that the water can be drunk, and the competent property that the actor feels thirsty: but if the person cannot stand to have his hands become dirty and needs water to clean them, then the affordance of the water is clean, the same This is determined by objective properties such as the cleanliness of the water, and the subjective property of the actor using it to clean his hands. For the actor, external objects provide a variety of affordance, and the subjective factors of the subject are different when the object provides different affordance. 3.2 The development status of the affordance theory "Affordance" began to gain traction in communication in the 21st century. It was first introduced by James Gibson, whose central theory was "the possibility that environmental attributes enable individuals to perform certain actions. In 2003, the theory of "affordance" was introduced into communication by Barry Wellman, who defined "affordance" as "the multifaceted structure of the relationship between a technological object and an actor [4]."In 2017, Rice further proposed media affordance, which refers to the relationship between an actor's perceived potential to use a medium to carry out an action in a particular context and the potential characteristics, capabilities, and constraints of the medium. Rather than studying technology in isolation, this relational perspective emphasizes the interactive practices of technology, context, and actors, linking our observations of new technologies to relationships at the individual, group, and organizational levels involving technology and is very explanatory for understanding current new media communication practices. 4. New media advertising 4.1 The theoretical basis of new media advertising New media is an emerging product of the current era of big data, as an emerging media different from the concept of traditional media, which not only accommodates the basic factors such as text and images that traditional media has, but also is a technical means to widely disseminate in video images, interactive design or other forms based on the Internet and using existing technologies in many aspects. New media has a stronger innovation compared to traditional media, which can cause a higher dissemination rate and a higher coverage in modern society [5]. In the new media era, advertising has gradually become more diverse and interactive. In terms of form, new media advertising has abandoned the single expression method in the past and become BCP Education & Psychology CEPC 2022 Volume 8 (2023) 337 more diversified; in terms of participation, new media advertising pays more attention to interactivity and changes from a single output to customers to the pursuit of gaining user feedback, and the profit model is also richer; in terms of placement perspective, new media advertising is more adept at using Internet technology, big data technology and so on for accurate crowd placement. 4.2 The development status of new media advertising Due to the diversification of access to information channels and the development of big data technology, domestic new media technology is widely recognized and concerned by the public, and the scale of China's new media advertising market is also growing steadily, as shown by the survey data of iiMedia Research (Ai Media Consulting), the FMCG industry, online clothing and e- commerce, and culture and entertainment are the top three new media advertising in China in 2019, and The users of new media are mostly young and middle-aged, with over 70% of users aged 26-40. And through the network information survey found that in recent years, new media advertising in any form is more focused on the interaction with customers, and the market share of this kind of interactive-shaped new media advertising that can get good feedback with lower investment is showing an increasing trend. 5. Analysis of existing problems in new media interactive advertising 5.1 Analysis of the development advantages of new media interactive advertising The content and form of advertising are more diversified nowadays, and consumers have more freedom of choice. Interactive advertising is more adept at using big data technology and other network technologies to effectively deliver accurate information to fixed groups of people, which is more diversified and targeted compared to traditional advertising, based on consumers' interests, pursuing the interaction between advertising and them, and attaching importance to the fluency and efficiency of communication. With the new media platform as the carrier, not only for the user has broader coverage, the core value is the user experience degree, it contains a variety of media information such as images and videos, word charts, animation music, etc., to receive the information transmitted by advertisers in a multi-sensory way, the active undertaking of the information is more likely to obtain good advertising results. 5.2 Analysis of the disadvantages of new media interactive advertising 5.2.1. There is a gap between theory and reality Although interactive advertisements have entered into placement on a large scale, not all advertisements can resonate with consumers in real life. The interactive effect of many advertisements is not obvious, and most of them show the interaction in surface form, without realizing their ultimate purpose of getting the interactive value from consumers. As a new form of advertising, due to the lack of a large number of cases, they lack individuality and uniqueness in the form of interaction, which can easily lead to aesthetic fatigue among consumers, which in turn leads to interaction fatigue and reduces their attention and interest in interactive advertising. 5.2.2. The audience's aesthetic and discerning abilities continue to improve Following the development of the times, the public is no longer satisfied with receiving information passively and unilaterally alone, but more often looks forward to interacting with advertisers and various media to satisfy their own psychological demands through interactive forms. However, due to the fact that the creation system of interactive advertising is not perfect and the current technology level is limited, interactive advertising often brings the audience a sense of incomplete interaction. This also directly leads to the fact that although the prospect is great, the effect of some advertisements is not as good as traditional advertisements. As a new industry in the past few years, the new media has not formed a complete scale, the industry is more confusing, and it is characterized by rapid environmental changes, the birth and placement of advertising ideas may not BCP Education & Psychology CEPC 2022 Volume 8 (2023) 338 be able to catch up with the tide of the trend, and will not be able to reach the expected effect. The birth of advertising creativity requires a lot of preliminary work to be settled and accumulated, which is contrary to the rapid development of new media platforms. Even if there is enough time for creativity to be formed, it may be replaced by a brand new hit before it receives attention. 5.2.3 The threshold of the platform is too low to be effectively regulated For new media interactive advertising, the best platform for growth is the Internet, but the threshold of the Internet is low, there are no clear restrictions and terms, and because of its huge and complicated information can not be strongly supervised. On the new media platform, irregular interactions and advertisements are endless and easily spread, and if there is negative impact, it is irreversible image damage for both brands and advertisers. Because of the prevalence of poor information on the Internet, this makes the originality of the work also cannot be effectively guaranteed. Some new media ads deceive audiences on the web, which can hinder the positive increase of audience acceptance of interactive ads and easily generate a negative comments and emotions, hindering the development of new media interactive ads. 6. The application of Affordance theory in new media interactive advertising 6.1 Suggestions on the practice and development of Affordance theory for interactive advertising in new media After Pan Zhongdang introduced the concept of "affordance" to the communication community in China, he developed a method to evaluate the affordance of information production, social affordance, and mobile affordance, and the higher the level of affordance of these three types of media, the more "new" the media is, as shown in Table.1. Table. 1. Classification of indicators of media affordance Production Affordance Social Affordance Mobile Affordance Editable Salutable Portable Reviewable Accessible Accessible Reproducible Coordinatable Locatable Scalable Connectable Compatible Relatable This has led to a more mature analysis of the impact of the use of new media technologies on the transformation and change of information dissemination from the perspective of the relationship between individuals and technologies, and has been widely recognized and applied in the discipline, thus promoting the possibility of using media affordance theory to analyze content production practices in the mobile Internet era [6]. 6.2 Production Affordance Media can use 5G, cloud storage, and other technologies to store, flexibly manage and efficiently transmit material resources in large quantities, and then process the same material according to the communication characteristics of the platform and user habits to achieve deeper interpretation and more diverse presentation, making the content reviewable, replicable and scalable in the cloud, so that The collected content resources can be more fully utilized and disseminated. 6.3 Social Affordance Corresponding to the four elements of mobile affordance in the original framework of carrying, acquiring, positioning, and compatibility, the primary need of interactive advertising is to enhance the fun of interaction and solve the problem of interactive fatigue caused by interactive advertising being too single. With the progress of science and technology, it is hoped that the form of interactive BCP Education & Psychology CEPC 2022 Volume 8 (2023) 339 advertising can be broadened and interactive technologies such as 3D and VR can be widely applied to bring users a more in-depth and real interactive experience while realizing its convenience, and with the support of technology and techniques, thus realizing social affordance. 6.4 Mobile Affordance The four definitions of mobile affordance can be understood as follows: portability, which refers to portable use in commuting, home, workplace, etc.; accessibility, which refers to the multiplicity, high frequency, and directness of user use and dissemination; locatability, which refers to the monitoring and coordination of relevant information based on location characteristics; and compatibility, which refers to the provision of multi-screen sharing and simultaneous transmission of graphic and audio-visual elements. 7. Conclusions Although new media advertising is developing rapidly in the new era, the restrictions are also difficult to break the circle. This paper tries to find a new method to break the circle with the addition of affordance theory, so that the new media interactive advertising can be updated and spread more widely. And after the research and extension of the two theories, the framework of community affordance, interactive affordance and content affordance is formulated, and suggestions are made for the development of new media advertising. In this regard, we suggest that the communication innovation of new media advertising must be mainstreamed, distinctive and effective, and that the development of new media advertising practices should be promoted in a multi-dimensional, multi- level and multi-faceted way from content production, social interaction and mobile communication, starting from innovation of expression, enhancement of emotional attributes and strengthening of communication with users as well as conforming to the development trend of mobile communication technology, so as to open up a new situation in which the communication power, influence and competitiveness of new media advertising itself can be continuously and steadily improved. The new situation of continuous and stable improvement of communication power, influence and competitiveness of new media advertising. Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from xxx funds. References [1] Flew, T. New media: An introduction. 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