Innovation and Technical Transformations in Living Technology

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-42
Author(s):  
Rachel Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Natural Computing ◽  
Laboratory Findings ◽  
Cultural Shift ◽  
Industrial Age ◽  
Production Platform ◽  
The World ◽  
Far From Equilibrium ◽  
The Impact

This essay proposes that humans are in the midst of a cultural shift from the Industrial Age to an Ecological Era, which demands that one re-conceptualize the world and operate within it differently. It discusses the opportunities raised by Actor Network Theory (ANT) in helping one navigate the transition from an object-centred view of reality, towards one that also engages with process-oriented concepts. In particular, the impact of the convergence of these worldviews on technological innovation is explored through recognising a different material framework that engages with nonlinear systems. ANT offers a unique opportunity to deal with matter at far from equilibrium through the notion of assemblages, which act as a new kind of operating system that behaves in remarkably lifelike ways. Empirical evidence is provided for such an ANT-based, production platform through laboratory findings in an emerging field of computation called ‘natural' computing. A range of models and prototypes are discussed. The resultant lifelike technologies require unique infrastructures that facilitate the movement of elemental fabrics (earth, air, heat, water). While much evidence for their existence is propositional and qualitative, as they are in their earliest stages of development, these lifelike technologies have the potential to radically alter the impact of human development and transform it from being harmful to beneficial to the environment.

Institutionalized Education: Journalism and Mass Communication Education in Pakistan

2021 ◽  
pp. 1326365X2110096
Author(s):  
David Bockino ◽  
Amir Ilyas
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Communication Education ◽  
Organizational Field ◽  
The World ◽  
Mass Communication Education

This article uses an examination of journalism and mass communication (JMC) education in Pakistan as a case study to explore the consequences of increased homogenization of JMC education around the world. Anchored by a qualitative method that relies heavily on actor-network theory, the study identifies key moments and people in the trajectory of five Pakistani programmes and explores the connection between these programmes and the larger JMC organizational field. The study concludes by questioning the efficacy of the current power structures within the supranational JMC organizational field before discussing how these influences could potentially be mitigated moving forward.

scholarly journals The Managing of Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Technologies’ Network Effect: An Adaptation of Actor-Network Theory

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-44
Author(s):  
Kobra Elahifar
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Music Industry ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
File Sharing ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Network Effect ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
P2p File Sharing ◽  
The Impact

Peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing technologies have impacted the music industry, including its strategies for the distribution of the musical products, for more than a decade now. As a result, music labels have delayed full digitization of their industry in fear of “online music piracy”. The present paper reviews the historical context of the evolution of the music industry from 1999 to 2012. Using Actor-Network theory, the paper examines the strategies that helped the music industry to translate new actors’ effect in order to sustain music labels’ business on their path to digitize music distribution. I will discuss the impact of new digital policies and methods of governing online behavior including the business concept of “entrepreneurship” as they may potentially affect the future of public domain within the framework of consumer rights.

scholarly journals Multiple, connective intellection: the condition for invention

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
C S De Beer
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
Multiple Reality ◽  
Great Hope ◽  
The World ◽  
Dynamic Perspective ◽  
Ultimate Condition ◽  
Scientific Endeavour

Since this article involves invention, the conditions for inventiveness become the issue: assuming multiple reality; thinking in a special way; transgressing boundaries; acknowledging networks (in the terms of Michel Serres: communication, transduction, interference, distribution, passages between the sciences. There are, however, misplaced expectations: technology should work wonders in this regard while forgetting that humans, redefined though, remain the key to establish connections and networks between people, paradigms, disciplines, sciences and technologies.Against this background, Michel Serres’s emphasis on invention and “thinking as invention” and his a-critical anti-method – ‘connective, multiple intellection’ which is a special kind of thought – are desperately needed.Guattari’s articulation of the three ecologies and the ecosophic views he developed in this regard provides a significant amplification of the approach of ‘multiple connective intellection’. These insights can be enlightened and strongly driven home through the views of Latour with an anthropological and socio-dynamic perspective on the scientific endeavour with the articulation of the actor-network theory inherited from Serres. The thoughtful beyond-methodology of Edgar Morin with his strong noological position as the ultimate condition for inventiveness, and Gregory Ulmer with his special emphasis on invention and inventiveness, especially with the help and assistance of electronic means (video and internet), and with his work with the architect Bernard Tschumi on invention and inventiveness, are of special significance in the sphere of inventiveness, the real and final guarantee for a spirited re-enchantment of the world as well as the final demonstration that the battle for intelligence as opposed to ignorance, stupidity and barbarism can be fought with great hope to succeed.

The Impact of Network of Actors on the Information Technology

2011 ◽  
pp. 234-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiko Iyamu ◽  
Arthur Tatnall
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
It Strategy ◽  
Web Portal ◽  
Computing Environment ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
The Impact

Organisations’ reliance on Information Technology (IT) is rapidly increasing. IT strategy is developed and implemented for particular purposes by different organizations. We should therefore expect that there will be network of actors within the computing environment, and that such network of actors will be the key to understanding many otherwise unexpected situations during the development and implementation of IT strategy. This network of actors has aligned interests. Many organizations are developing and implementing their IT strategy, while little is known about the network of actors and their impacts, which this paper reveals. This paper describes how Actor-Network Theory (ANT) was employed to investigate the impact of network of actors on the development and implementation of IT strategy in an organisation. ANT was used as it can provide a useful perspective on the importance of relationships between both human and non-human actors. Another example: design and implementation of a B-B web portal, is offered for comparison.

scholarly journals I feel my wrist buzz. Smartbody and performative sensibility in Fitbit devices

2017 ◽  
pp. 5-17
Author(s):  
André Luiz Martins Lemos ◽  
Elias Bitencourt
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
User Community ◽  
Central Thesis ◽  
The World ◽  
Community Forum ◽  
Body Care

Abstract This paper discusses the concepts of performative sensibility and smartbody. The central thesis is that performative sensibility highlights the instrumental nature of sensations in which objects act on the world. We show how the prescriptions of this new sensibility associated with wearables affect the body and subjectivity that we propose to call a smartbody. There were one hundred testimonials analyzed from the oldest thread with the greatest number of comments in the Fitbit user community forum. Quantitative tools and actor-network theory were used as a guide to assemble and analyze the corpus. The preliminary findings show that Fitbit users demonstrate particular changings in body care. Extreme behaviors, physical limits defined by system goals and quantification habits without utilizing the device are some of the examples found. These findings appear to indicate that the performative sensibility of wearables mobilizes new body performatic patterns and practices oriented by data.

scholarly journals Reassembling Heritage after the Disaster: On the Sungnyemun Debate in South Korea

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 3903
Author(s):  
Seunghan Paek ◽  
Dai Whan An
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
The South ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Meanings ◽  
Post Disaster

This article explores the changing values of heritage in an era saturated by an excess of media coverage in various settings and also threatened by either natural or manmade disasters that constantly take place around the world. In doing so, we focus on discussing one specific case: the debate surrounding the identification of Sungnyemun as the number one national treasure in South Korea. Sungnyemun, which was first constructed in 1396 as the south gate of the walled city Seoul, is the country’s most acknowledged cultural heritage that is supposed to represent the national identity in the most authentic way, but its value was suddenly questioned through a nationwide debate after an unexpected fire. While the debate has been silenced after its ostensibly successful restoration conducted by the Cultural Heritage Administration in 2013, this article argues that the incident is a prime example illustrating how the once venerated heritage is reassembled through an entanglement of various agents and their affective engagements. Methodologically speaking, this article aims to read Sungnyemun in reference to the growing scholarship of actor-network theory (ANT) and the studies of heritage in the post-disaster era through which to explore what heritage means to us at the present time. Our synchronic approach to Sungnyemun encourages us to investigate how the once-stable monument becomes a field where material interventions and affective engagements of various agents release its public meanings in new ways.

Mobile Myanmar: The development of a mobile app culture in Yangon

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorian Leong
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Mobile App ◽  
Smartphone App ◽  
Network Infrastructure ◽  
Mobile Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Access Model

This article looks at the unfolding smartphone app adoption culture in Yangon, Myanmar with insights from 18 informant interviews, 3 informal interviews, and nonparticipant observation. Through the domestication framework and actor-network theory, findings showed a unique overlay of actors influencing acquisition and adoption of apps, including: dependent users, “warm-gatekeepers,” mobile phone shops, and Facebook. Mediators such as Android skins, language skills, and other factors (mobile data pricing and network infrastructure) impact the relationships between these actors. Together, the impact of mediators on actor relationships highlighted a filtered means many users adopted to acquire new apps, a “two-step access” model of acquisition. This article traces how users acquire apps given this network of actors, following their journey and how they overcome challenges and limitations in their social and technological landscape.

scholarly journals Networking in the #BEAVegas

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-76
Author(s):  
Yerodin L. Carrington
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Las Vegas ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Intergroup Communication ◽  
The World ◽  
Basic Understanding ◽  
Education Association

Networking in the #BEAVegas is a basic understanding of the Network Theory, and its properties. This theoretical framework investigates the intergroup communication of individuals within other group systems. Networking in the #BEAVegas also explores Littlejohn's methodologies of connectedness, group networks, and organizational networks along with Actor-Network Theory (ANT). However, the original elements of the Network Theory were given to the world in 1385 through the Wycliffe Bible. I applied the participant-observation inquiry, as Poster Presenter, during the 2019 Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Annual Conference in Las Vegas using the Network Theory.

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