Interfaces, Efficiency, and Inequality

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Nikolay Rudenko
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Mobile Application ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Technical Support ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Support Unit ◽  
Technological Artifacts ◽  
The Uk

In the article the author claims that the digital technologies today continue to be good topic for Actor-Network theory (ANT) research because they exemplify many famous Latourian ideas about the role of technological artifacts in moral and political life of society. By drawing upon some key insights from ANT and science and technology (STS) in general, the author tells three stories about how commercial digital application work. The stories are based upon participant observation experience of the author during his 16 months of work at the technical support unit in the UK mobile application. Firstly, the author tells about different digital interfaces in the work of the technical support that vary in how they mediate the communication with users. Second, the author shows that an inequality in the commercial app has a complex and unpredictable nature. Finally, he shows how the efficiency of the app is determined by the multiplicity of actors' ontological models that differently frame and enact their activity. After the (auto-)ethnographic experience of the author it remains open how to conjoin ANT and human-centered position of an ethnographer.

How Artefacts Do Leadership: A Ventriloquial Analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 089331892199807
Author(s):  
Jonathan Clifton ◽  
Fernando Fachin ◽  
François Cooren
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Communication ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Distributed Leadership ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Human Actors

To date there has been little work that uses fine-grained interactional analyses of the in situ doing of leadership to make visible the role of non-human as well as human actants in this process. Using transcripts of naturally-occurring interaction as data, this study seeks to show how leadership is co-achieved by artefacts as an in-situ accomplishment. To do this we situate this study within recent work on distributed leadership and argue that it is not only distributed across human actors, but also across networks that include both human and non-human actors. Taking a discursive approach to leadership, we draw on Actor Network Theory and adopt a ventriloquial approach to sociomateriality as inspired by the Montreal School of organizational communication. Findings indicate that artefacts “do” leadership when a hybrid presence is made relevant to the interaction and when this presence provides authoritative grounds for influencing others to achieve the group’s goals.

Deconstructing Professionalism

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 22-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Tummons
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Professional Knowledge ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Professional Standards ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
The Uk

The problematisation of the professional standards for teachers in the UK lifelong learning sector tends to focus on the discourses that the standards embody: discourses that are posited as being based on a restricted or technicist model of professionalism, that fail sufficiently to recognise the lived experiences of teachers within the sector both in terms of professional knowledge and competences, and professional development. This paper takes a different approach, drawing on a branch of material semiotics – actor-network theory – in order to shift the locus of problematisation away from what the standards might mean, to how the standards are physically assembled or instantiated. The paper concludes by suggesting that a first point of problematisation rests not in the discourses that the standards embody, but in the inherent fragilities of any material artefact that has the intention of carrying meaning across spatial, institutional or temporal boundaries.

scholarly journals What makes human–animal relations ‘organizational’? The de-scription of anthrozootechnical agencements

Organization ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 761-780 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Doré ◽  
Jérôme Michalon
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Performance Test ◽  
Dairy Farm ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Relational Properties ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Human Animal

Questions concerning animals’ role in society have received little attention from Organization Studies. This article develops and tests some theoretical and methodological propositions aimed at contributing to the elaboration of an analytical framework for interpreting our organized relations with animals and furthering our understanding of what makes human–animal relations ‘organizational’. First, examining the role of animals in the ‘non-human turn’ that has been emerging, especially with the Actor–Network Theory and the Symmetrical Anthropology project, it adresses the limits of the ‘non-human’ category to analyze situations of coordination of collective action involving animals. It then develops the concept of anthrozootechnical agencement to envisage the role of animals in the course of action through the lens of their relational properties and applies the notion of script to propose an operational formulation of the specifically organizational trials to which these particular agencements are subjected. Based on three case studies (the role of the leash in the organization of human–dog relations, the management of wolves’ return to France, and the production of milk on a dairy farm), this article shows that two main types of operation make human–animal relations ‘organizational’: first, the organization of anthrozootechnical relations is constituted by and constitutive of the combination of three types of specifically organizational test to which these particular agencements are subjected (the performance test, the coherence test, and the dimensioning test); second, the work of organizing anthrozootechnical relations then consists in elaborating, executing, and transforming heterogeneous scripts that are never strictly indexed on the nature (human, animal, technique) of the entities they concern.

scholarly journals Discursive Contextures of Science: Euro/West-Centrism and Science and Technology Studies

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amit Prasad
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Embryonic Stem ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Knowledge And Practice

Science and Technology Studies (STS) by the very act of showing the multiplicity, contingency, and context-dependence of scientific knowledge and practice, provincialized modern science. Postcolonial interventions within STS have pursued this goal even further. Nevertheless, Euro/West-centrism continues to inflect not only scientific practices and lay imaginaries, but also sociological and historical analyses of sciences. In this article, drawing on my own training within STS – first under J.P.S. Uberoi, who was concerned with structuralist analysis of modernity and science, and thereafter under Andy Pickering, when we focused on material agency and temporal emergence and extensively engaged with Actor Network Theory - I emphasize the continuing role of Euro/West-centric discourses in defining the “self” and the “other” and in impacting epistemological and ontological interventions. More broadly, building on a concept of Michael Lynch’s, I call for excavation and analysis of discursive contextures of sciences. In the second section of the article, through a brief analysis of embryonic stem cell therapy in a clinic in Delhi, I show how with shifting transnational landscape of technoscience certain discursive contextures are being “deterritorialized” and left “stuttering.”

scholarly journals Art&science. Autoetnografia artystki realizującej projekty w laboratoriach biologicznych

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 103-126
Author(s):  
Karolina Żyniewicz
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Art And Science ◽  
Science Field ◽  
Actor Network

The aim of the text is to present the use of the analytical autoethnographic method in studying the “art&science” phenomenon. It is attempt to show that the role of the artist can combine with the role of the ethnographer. The objects of study are the multilevel relations emerging during the realization of artistic projects in biological laboratories. These relations concern both humans (the artist, the scientists) and non-humans (laboratory organisms, equipment). On the basis of actor-network theory, the author presents how the liminal status of ethnographic research is modified when it connects with art. The form of conducting the research is both an example of activity in the art and science field and a new methodological proposal for the study of science and technology.

Consumer Creativity as a Prerequisite for the Adoption of New Technological Products

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
Marianne Harbo Frederiksen ◽  
Stoyan Tanev
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
New Product Adoption ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Value Perception ◽  
Potential Consumer ◽  
Adoption Research ◽  
Consumer Creativity ◽  
Technological Products

Creativity is often conceptualized as actions and outcomes related to the creation of novel and useful ideas within the context of the development of new products. It is usually positioned in the activities of designers who play the role of “the creator”. In this paper the authors suggest “changing the subject” to consumers by claiming that creativity plays a key role in the adoption phase when they attempt to address their needs and preferences by appropriating the use value of everyday technological products. They emphasize that the product value perception which makes a potential consumer buy is the result of this consumer's own activities and efforts. Thus, the intensity of consumers' creative activities becomes a critical adoption factor. The authors suggest that activity-based approaches such as actor-network theory and activity theory could be quite appropriate in studying the dynamics and the design of new product adoption, and offer a comparative analysis indicating that actor-network theory has a greater potential to contribute to the interplay between consumer creativity and technology adoption research.

The Effects of Digitalization on Professional and Amateur Astronomy Considered Through the Categories of Identity and Attachment

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-52
Author(s):  
Ivan Tchalakov ◽  
Irina Popravko
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Professional Culture ◽  
Knowledge Communities ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Time Observation ◽  
Heterogeneous Coupling ◽  
Real Time Observation

Applying the notion of identity, the article analyses the role of real time observation of professional and amateur astronomers in the context of ongoing digitalization of research. Unveiling the importance of materiality and immediate relationships with instruments, we took a critical stance to the established research approaches to this subject, in particular the ethnography of profession and the actor-network theory (ANT). Bearing on of Julian Orr studies of professional culture and our own ANT notion of ‘heterogeneous coupling', an attempt was made to introduce a new language for analysing the two knowledge communities, based on the sociology of taste and attachment of Antoine Hennion and sociology of regimes of worth of Luck Boltanski, which allows to grasp both similarities and differences in the astronomers' identities.

Critical theory of technology and actor-network theory in the examination of techno-empowered online collaborative translation practice

Babel ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Szu-Wen Kung
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
Interactive Relationship ◽  
Critical Theory Of Technology

Abstract While “turns” in translation studies have long been embracing the theoretical complexity integrated into the discussion of various translation phenomena, the theorisation of the use of technology and its impact on translation remains under-represented in scholarly literature of the field (O’Hagan 2016). This article considers the influence of technology on translation and reflects on the question as to how the interactive relationship between technology and translation may be theoretically conceptualised. Taking an approach informed by sociological theory, this article combines critical theory of technology (CTT) and actor-network theory (ANT) to examine the relationship between technology and translation, as well as the translation players involved. With the advent of Web 2.0, techno-empowered collaborative translation in the online TED Talks environment using Amara subtitling platform becomes a useful locale for discussion. Through a participant-observation approach, that is, with the author’s experience in the online translation environment, this article aims to explore how the technological elements in translation often described as “emergent property from new forms of translation practice” (Cronin 2010, 1) may offer critical insights from an epistemological perspective, especially the reciprocity between technology and its users.

The Role of Gossip in the Creation and Miscreation of Company Identity from the Perspective of Actor-Network Theory

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 40-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Bielenia-Grajewska
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Organizational Environment ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Informal Communication ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Creation

In this paper an attempt will be made to show how the grapevine shapes the relations between companies and stakeholders. To narrow the scope of the research, attention will be focused solely on one type of colloquial corporate socializing, namely gossiping. The company, its organizational environment and its relation with gossip are studied by implying the notion of company identity. The interrelation between gossiping and company identity has not been discussed by many researchers, although informal communication as such spans a number of disciplines. Consequently, in this work the author will try to show both the negative and positive sides of gossip in forming corporate communities and their character. Taking into account the growing role of networks in creating and sustaining different types of communication, gossiping is studied through the perspective of Actor-Network Theory that facilitates an understanding of how human beings and non-living entities shape the way company identity is constructed and maintained.

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