Uncertainties Revisited

In this chapter, the authors use actor-network theory (ANT) to explore the relations between uncertainties in co-design processes and the quality of participation. To do so, the authors investigate Latour's discussion uncertainties in relation to social processes: the nature of actors, actions, objects, facts/matters of concern, and the study of the social. To engage with the discussion on uncertainties in co-design and, more specific in infrastructuring, this chapter clusters the diversity of articulations of the role and place of uncertainty in co-design into four uncertainty models: (1) the neoliberal, (2) the management, (3) the disruptive, and (4) the open uncertainty model. To deepen the reflections on the latter, the authors evaluate the relations between the role and place of uncertainty in two infrastructuring processes in the domain of healthcare and the quality of these processes. In the final reflections, the authors elaborate on how ANT supported in developing a “lens” to assess how uncertainties hinder or contribute to the quality of participation.

Adoption of ICT in Primary Healthcare in the 21st Century

This chapter looks at the use of ICT by medical general practitioners in the Australian eHealth and the Virtual Doctor Program. It discusses introduction, adoption, and use of information and communication technologies in primary healthcare and investigates reasons for adoption, or non-adoption, of these technologies. For a new technology to be put into use, a decision must be made to adopt it, or at least some aspects of it, and this chapter makes use of innovation translation informed by actor-network theory to explain this.

Playing With Auditory Environments in Audio Games

Audio games highlight audio as the major narrative, ludic, and interactive element in the process of gaming. These games enroll the players in the process of gaming and distribute agency by translating auditive cues into interactive “pings” and provide a potential for an auditory virtual space. Designed for either blind persons or as “learning software” for hard-of-hearing people, audio games dismiss graphical elements by using the auditory ludic elements and foreground auditory perception as a main condition for playing the game. Spöhrer demonstrates this by using the example of 3D Snake, which needs to be played with headphones or surround speakers. The game uses verbal instructions and different sound effects to produce an auditory image of a snake that can be moved with the computer keyboard. In this auditory environment, the relation of both human and non-human elements (e.g., controller devices, the arrangement of speakers, cultural practices of gaming, aesthetic devices, and software configurations) produce and translate a specific mode of auditory perception.

The Socio-Technical Arrangement of Gaming

This chapter focuses on the home console dispositive of the Sony Playstation in relation to digital games. The concept of the “dispositive” functions as a basis for the conceptualization of video games as an actor-network or a socio-technical arrangement, respectively. This allows for an analysis and a description of various actors and their reciprocal relationships as well as the mutual process of fabrication of these actors in such video game networks. The historical development of the Sony Playstation system will serve as the primary example for these heterogeneous ensembles, whereby the main focus will be placed on one single-player game series, Grand Theft Auto, and one multiplayer game series, the soccer simulations of the FIFA series.

Negotiating the Material Logics of Religious Learning

The chapter explores the material spaces and logics of religious learning processes. A discrepancy between religious educators and the 14-year- old confirmands was evident during a year of ethnographic fieldwork. A material semiotic approach provides important perspectives on the dynamics between material and human actors in religious learning context. The findings suggest that different notions of space with different logics of religious learning were established during the confirmation program. The spaces and logics were constituted by the interplay with material objects, pastors, catechists, and confirmands. The chapter points to how materiality is part of religious learning and how materiality can open up different ways of practicing and conceptualizing religion.

Consumer Culture Theory and the Socio-Cultural Investigation of Technology Consumption

Consumer culture theory helps us take note of the cultural forces and dynamics in which technology consumption is entangled. It enables us to articulate the cultural processes (e.g., ideological, mythic, ritualistic) through which cultural meanings become granted to or denied to technological innovations, thus shaping the value of technologies as cultural resources sustaining consumer identities. In its urge to shed light on these aspects, CCT tends to reinforce the gaps and asymmetries between the “socio-cultural” and the “techno-material,” leaving plenty of room for further study. The authors outline the strengths and limitations of CCT to offer several tentative suggestions as to how ANT and CCT might draw on each other to enrich the understanding of technology consumption.

Rise of the Non-Human Actors

The internet of things (IoT) involves connections of physical things to the internet. It is largely about the relationships between things, or non-human actors. In the past, it was rare for non-humans to interact with each other without any involvement by humans, but this has changed and the “things” sometimes seem to have inordinate power. Where does this leave humans? Are the things taking over? As a consideration of interactions like this must be a socio-technical one, in this chapter, the authors make use of actor-network theory to frame the discussion. While the first applications for IoT technology were in areas such as supply chain management and logistics, many more examples now can be found ranging from control of home appliances to healthcare. It is expected that the “things” will become active participants in business, information, and social processes, and that they will communicate among themselves by exchanging data sensed from the environment, while reacting autonomously.

Applying 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.

3D Printing in Dialogue With Four Thinkers

Although public awareness of the implications of 3D printing has been growing at a steady clip, prominent philosophers have barely begun to take stock of what this emerging technology might mean. This chapter starts by considering an important cautionary article on 3D printing by Rachel Armstrong. After giving an account of the materialist and relationist suppositions of Armstrong's approach, the author compares it with possibly different approaches illuminated by the thought of three prominent thinkers: Bruno Latour, Marshall McLuhan, and Timothy Morton.

Tracy Kidder, Media Pundits, and the Academe

This chapter critically examines how Tracy Kidder's story The Soul of a New Machine was received over the past three decades by the academic community as against the non-academic media punditocracy. Bruno Latour, upon examining Tracy Kidder's story, observes that the heroic tale of engineers who worked on Eagle, a 32-bit minicomputer, was actually inspired by a machine! Over the years, however, this Latourian viewpoint seems to have been ignored. The chapter exposes how these two different viewpoints of the story reinforce the assumptions about how we approach narratives about technology. The arguments indicate that non-academic reviews focused largely on heroism, whereas in the academy, the story was approached in light of the prevailing academic discourses in management theory per any given decade of the book's journey, thus making the Latourian viewpoint an important voice of reason.