Talking about Associations and Descriptions or a Short Story about Associology

In 1999, Bruno Latour advocated for “abandoning what was wrong with ANT, that is ‘actor,' ‘network,' ‘theory' without forgetting the hyphen.” However, it seems that the “hyphen,” which brings with it the operation of hyphenating or connecting, was abandoned too quickly. If one investigates what something is by asking what it is meant as well as how it emerges, by (re-)tracing the strategy in materials in situated practices and sets of relations, and, by bypassing the distinction between agency and structure, one shifts from studying “what causes what” to describing “how things happen.” This perspective not only makes it necessary for us to clarify the changing positions and displacements of human and non-human actors in the assemblage, but, also question the role (the enrolment) of the researcher him/herself: What kind of “relation” connects the researcher to his/her research and associates him/her with the subject, how to prevent (or not) his/her own involvement, and, to what degree s/he ignores the relationality of his/her writing in a “sociology of association?”

On Habit and Fiction in Latours' Inquiry and Fictional Knowledge on Habit in Proust's Recherche

Latour's Inquiry into Modes of Existence undertakes a re-evaluation of both modern ontology and ANT: Adding qualitative differentiation to quantitative network analysis is tantamount to the outline of a pluralist ontology distinguishing a variety of different modes of being in the world. The aim is to make more space in order to provide proper accommodation for all enti-ties, especially for those a monist ontology could not account for. Both [HAB], habit, and [FIC], fiction, are modes that deserve a particular amount of space; [HAB] due to its all-pervasiveness in everyday courses of action, [FIC] due to its crucial role in anthropogenesis and its vital importance for many other modes. Nonetheless, there is an opposite tendency to restrict the possibilities of these modes. This is elucidated first by comparing [HAB] with other philosophical assessments of habit and [FIC] with Serres' readings of works of art and literary texts, and second via a confrontation of [FIC] and [HAB] with Proust's In Search of Lost Time, a work of fiction inquiring deeply into the workings of habit.

Anaphoric Trajectories of Creative Processes

This chapter critically questions the strategy of applying the Actor-Network Theory to media studies. Arguing that an application of a fixed ANT-approach fundamentally opposes the ambition of Actor-Network Theory, this chapter outlines a different way of drawing inspiration from ANT. Based in the writings of the French cultural sociologist Antoine Hennion, who has been a pioneer in developing a cultural sociology inspired by ANT, and the recent writings of Bruno Latour addressing cultural production, the chapter suggests investigating the “anaphoric trajectories” of creative development processes. To illustrate this approach, the chapter analyzes the case of a failed film project and considers how the content of creative production processes may be incorporated into cultural production studies.

The End of Media

In the network society and the age of media convergence, media production can no longer be isolated into channels, formats, technologies, and organizations. Media Studies is facing the challenge to reconceptualize its foundations. It could therefore be claimed that new media are the last media. In the case of digital versus analog, there is no continuity between new media and old media. A new and promising proposal has come from German scholars who attempt the precarious balance between media theory and a general theory of mediation based on Actor-Network Theory. Under the title of Actor-Media Theory (Akteur-Medien-Theorie) these thinkers attempt to reformulate the program of Media Studies beyond assumptions of social or technical determinism. Replacing Actor-Network Theory with Actor-Media Theory raises the question of whether exchanging the concept of “network” for the concept of “media” is methodologically and theoretically advantageous.

ANTi-Human

In his writings on the gunman, Bruno Latour (1994) paraphrases the anti-human ideology of the National Rifle Association of the USA. Amongst a long list of stances one can find nonsense such as: “One is born a good citizen or a criminal. Period.” I will not suggest that Latour is an advocate in favor of the NRA's strange cause or in favor of their ideology. Nevertheless, will I use this example to point out the biggest flaw in the so called Actor-Network Theory – or at least Latour's version of ANT: The absolute ignorance to ethical doubts towards that specific approach of describing our world and what ONE calls society. I will bring forth this argument using not much more than this one example, this absolute negation of ethical philosophy and humane thought. I will therefore use a very fundamentalist approach to ethics, as it was developed by Emanuel Levinas (1988). Within this framework it will become obvious why ANT may be a good tool to describe technical processes within a society, but will always fail to explain the human side of things.

The Subject of Media Studies

On the basis of the banal example of the rise of “the selfie”, this chapter critically considers the issue of the Subjects of (and in) Media Studies and argues that the reason why Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has thus far not been widely accepted within this field has been its adherence to the Principles of Generalized Symmetry and Free Association. That is to say: ANT categorically refuses subsuming properties of entities to abstractions such as nature, society or technology. On the contrary, Media Studies have doggedly adhered to privileging “the Human” as its subject of analysis. On the basis of a critique of transcendental phenomenology, which has been specified by a critical discussion of McLuhan's famous edict “media are extensions of man”, the chapter exposes the empirical fallacy of granting the human subject a status of exception and instead proposes an empirical metaphysics based on ‘prehension' as an alternative. This, it is argued, will enable forms of media analyses that can be both radically empirical and politically engaged.

Applications of Actor-Network Theory in Media Studies

The chapter offers an international research overview of the possibilities and problems of applying Actor-Network Theory in Media Studies and media related research. On the one hand the chapter provides a summary of the central aspects and terminologies of Bruno Latour's, Michel Callon's and John Law's corpus of texts. On the other hand, it summarizes both theoretical and methodological implications of the combination of Actor-Network Theory and strands of Media Studies research such as discourse analysis, Production Studies and media theory.

What Critical Media Studies Should Not Take from Actor-Network Theory

While supportive towards a certain rapprochement between media studies and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) this chapter identifies three main characteristics of the Latourian enterprise that critical media studies should avoid if it wants to remain its critical edge: 1. a methodological descriptivism that relies on the victor's account, 2. a rejection of the notion of structure, and 3. an innovative yet limited notion of intellectual work. The chapter next articulates a perspective on how a “weak” version of ANT can augment critical media studies while retaining the latter's strong dedication to changing an unjust social order.

Mind the Gap

This chapter discusses similarities of and differences between the epistemological premises of ANT and “German Media Theory”. The applicability of ANT for media investigations and the compatibility of ANT concepts in Media Studies have been discussed intensively for several years now. The profound similarities as well as the critical differences in the study of the material conditions of human culture have also stimulated current reconsiderations and reformulations in “Cultural Media Studies,” as German Media Theory is most commonly called in Germany. The following article gives a brief overview on most recently published approaches to cultural techniques and intersections of media and techno-philosophy that are increasingly being translated into English and therefore also internationally accessible, alongside with the discussion concerning their compatibility with ANT.

A Critique of Operativity

The concepts of “operation” and “operational sequences” are central for Actor-Network Theory. They have also become key-terms for cultural and media studies and in specific the so-called German Media Theory. However—this is the thesis of the article—whoever starts with the assumption of operativity or privileges operational sequences in the context of cultural practices is already treading on the ground of the technical and thus has accepted what they set out to prove: the interpretation of culture solely on the basis of technical approaches and the prerequisite of an a priori of technique. Instead the article insists on the difference between operation and practice which serve as a criterion for a cultural analysis beyond any universalization of technology.