Weaving network maps through Actor-Network-Theory

About the Contributors

When designing, it can be difficult to keep track of all of the complex and varying relationships that exist. This paper is intended to persuade designers to consider using Actor-Network Theory (ANT) in order to gain insights about the existence and the nature of complex relationships occurring within a usage scenario. ANT allows for the creation of network maps that may offer insights about future interactions that are useful for gauging the appropriateness of a particular technological intervention. Guidelines are offered for using ANT for design. Future work is being done to further establish and validate methodologies for creating ANT network maps.

Illustrated with the case of Pharrell William’s global hit Happy and its life on the internet, this paper looks into how audience participation can be scripted and how scripted forms of participation can morph. Positioned in participatory culture studies, originating from cultural and media studies, this paper proposes a perspective inspired by actor-network theory that highlights the script entail in planned participation and the ways in which this script may sometimes be followed and sometimes also be used as a repertoire to improvise over. Based in empirical examples from Happy the paper outlines four ways of making audiences participate: as cast in well-defined productions, as interactive audience participating by clicking, liking and commenting, as crew conducing a set assignment in a larger production, and as re-producers making their own versions of an original format. With these four forms participation, the paper suggests seeing participatory culture as a multiple and on-going phenomenon where planners aim to configure users and users contribute with re-configurations that planners may take up.

The UN’s ‘recover better’ (UN 2020a) statement of attaching climate mitigation to COVID-19 recovery plans and the desire of much of the UK public to ‘build back better’ through support for a more climate-friendly, green economy (Vaughan 2020) has yet to be fully materialized in policy and has seemingly lost traction in efforts to fast-track the opening up of global economies. For example, the UN has teamed up with Futerra and other environment and development consultancy groups to develop the ‘good life goals’ as an accessible entry point for the public to engage with the SDGs at the level of the everyday. See https://www.goodlifegoals.org/ for their strategy and approach. https://www.academia.edu/43531525/An_Address_to_the_Corporales_of_the_Republic_of_Sunlight Boykoff M (2011) Who speaks for the climate? Making sense of media reporting on climate change. 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Environ Plan A 42:1273–1285 Article Google Scholar Sullivan R (2020) The geography of the everyday. University of Georgia Press, Athens Google Scholar United Nations (2020a) Climate change and Covid-19: UN urges nations to ‘recover better’. https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/un-urges-countries-‘build-back-better’ Accessed 24 Jul, 2020 United Nations (2020b) The Sustainable Development Goals. https://sdgs.un.org/ Accessed 15 Jul, 2020 Vaughan, A (2020) UK citizens' assembly shows big support for green covid-19 recovery. New Scientist https://www.newscientist.com/article/2246693-uk-citizens-assembly-shows-big-support-for-green-covid-19-recovery/ Accessed 24 Jul, 2020 Download references This Special Issue arose out of a workshop held at the University of Reading in 2016 entitled ‘Practicing Everyday Climate Cultures’ that was generously supported by the following funders and individuals at Reading: the Walker Institute (Ros Cornforth); the Global Development Research Division (Rosa Freedman); the Climate, Culture and Society Research Cluster (Alex Arnall and Hilary Geoghegan); the Human Geography Research Cluster (Hilary Geoghegan); The Reading Centre for Climate and Justice (Catriona McKinnon); and the Prosperity and Resilience Research Theme (Dominik Zaum). Additional funding support came from the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) and the Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community, Bournemouth University. We wish to thank all of the authors in the Special Issue for their hard work and patience in producing the excellent work here, but also the additional workshop participants of Alexandra Sexton, James Painter, Alex Arnall, Lydia Messling, Alison Anderson, Jo Hamilton, Melanie Rohse, Lucy Veale, Jo Littler and Martin Mahony. A special note of gratitude goes to Sabine Mayeux for her invaluable work on and support of the workshop. Many thanks to Alex Sexton, David Evans, Dave McLaughlin and Max Boykoff for reading earlier versions of our editorial introduction to the Issue. Finally we...

Actor-network theory, which emerged from science and technology studies in the 1980s, regards everything in the social and ecological systems as a continuous result of the network of relations where they are located. Social-ecological resilience, with its origins in systems ecology, focuses on the non-linear changing dynamics of social-ecological systems and their governance. Among them, social-ecological resilience study integrates different disciplines, backgrounds, and themes, which inevitably leads to the vagueness of its concept. Both actor-network theory and social-ecological resilience emphasize human-nature relationships and view social-ecological systems as dynamic and unpredictable "networks". Therefore, this paper explored the potential conceptual or theoretical underpinnings that actor-network theory can provide in social-ecological resilience through interdisciplinary research. Specifically, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 30 fishing households from Chang-shan Archipelago in Northeastern China. The obtained interview data were analyzed through thematic analysis, and three main themes were generated, including "heterogeneous networks", "agency", and "translation", which facilitated a reconceptualization of the three components of social-ecological resilience, namely, "linked social-ecological systems", "changing dynamics" and "the ability to maintain resilience", and also provided a new theoretical perspective on the adaptive governance of social-ecological systems.

Making an Impact: Cultural Studies, Media and Contemporary Work

BEYOND THE EVERYDAY Ben Highmore, Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday, London, Routledge, 2010, 208pp; paperback, £20.99Ben Highmore edited die 2002 andiology The Everyday Life Reader (Roudedge) that first brought him to the attention of readers on bodi sides of the Atlantic. That collection was among a handful of books highlighting the importance of everyday life in studies of culture, and Highmore's capable editorship introduced readers to the most influential positions on the myriad ways that everyday life simultaneously functions as the terrain of the taken-for-granted as well as die experiential realm in which struggles over meaning, selfhood, belonging, and politics are actively waged. In contextualizing the work of a very wide range of figures - all the way from Sigmund Freud, Georg Simmel, Leon Trotsky, \NA ter Benjamin, and Siegfried Kracauer, to Kristin Ross, Erving Goffman, and Mary Kelly - the 2002 collection provides an indispensable archive of statements about the everyday that informs any work done today on the topic. For this reason, his recent single-authored monograph taking up some of the same issues surrounding ordinary life - this time exclusively in his own voice - is once more of interest to readers drawn to the 'stuff' of daily existence.Between the earlier andiology and his new work, Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday, Highmore has written three other monographs on related subjects; so perhaps the current study constitutes something of a summary position on the everyday, an attempt both to take its measure conceptually and to promote its legitimacy as a properly aesthetic object. The book reflects his long-standing focus on die everyday and there is a good deal to learn from it; by the same token, there is also much with which to take issue.If we first consider its strengths, Ordinary Lives reprises the question of experience, looking to sharpen its status as an analytic category: how to think it, how to value it and, above all, how to situate it in relation to aesthetics (as a disciplinary mode of knowing and also as a form of being-in-the-world). Highmore does this by usefully situating historical and philosophical conceptions of the aesdiedc - and aesthetics - from Alexander Baumgarten's eighteenth-century ideas to the propositions spread across several volumes of Jacques Ranciere's contemporary writings. In between, Highmore is assiduous in citing the scholarship on aesthetics that bears on concrete studies of daily experience and its theorization in the discursive registers of cultural and media studies, symbolic anthropology, psychoanalysis, architecture/urban studies and, of course, philosophy. I say 'of course' because in Baumgarten's time aesthetics was only understood as a subset of philosophy per se, but also because aesthetic considerations are today a common feature of philosophical discourse at large, whether in political philosophy (Heidegger, Arendt, Ranciere) or its socio-cultural counterparts (Adorno, Benjamin).What Ordinary Lives elaborates most successfully is the texture and richness of the aesthetic as an epistemological and experiential concept. So, for instance, it is refreshing to be reminded via Michel de Certeau that a classical conception of aesthetics would have subsumed the senses within it - such that 'leading the good life' would include in its meanings passion as much as reflection. This emphasis allows Highmore to promote a return to an earlier conception of the aesthetic, one that rests on everyday experience and ordinary activities rather than on that which has categorically been separated from necessity, feeling, and practicality. In this sense, the project Highmore pursues makes its bid against Immanuel Kant's proposition of 'disinterested contemplation' as well as the epistemological priority given in the Kantian system to 'pure intuition' as appearance (Anschauung).With that said, the author's engagement with Kant is glancing at best, although he does provide a fuller discussion of the ideas of Kant's Scottish interlocutor, David Hume. …

By contrasting the approaches of neutralization theory (NT) and actor-network theory (ANT), we argue that research using NT can contribute to stigmatizing people with substance use problems as 'liars,' 'irresponsible,' and 'incapable.' In contrast, ANT can help us become more sensitive to the participants' realities and produce non-stigmatizing results. The data consists of 22 life stories in which participants describe the concerns their substance use caused for their parenting and how they addressed them. With ANT, we analyze what kinds of mediators in our participants' parenting assemblages increased or decreased their capacities to mitigate the negative effects of substance use on their children. In our analysis, we identified four parenting assemblages. The assemblages of 'displacing substance use' and 'keeping up ordinary family life' increased the participants' capacities to move substance use away from encounters with children or to use it to strengthen their engagement with everyday life parenting practices. The assemblages of 'losing oneself to the dominance of substances' and 'being moved by a traumatic past' decreased the participants' parenting capacities by weakening their connections to good enough parenting, or by allowing the connections from the past to dominate and mediate their present action, leading to relapse in drug use and the loss of a child. Our study suggests that by shifting the perspective from doubt and criticism (NT) to empathy and care (ANT), research can transcend mere critique and serve as a tool for empowerment, advocacy, and meaningful change.

This chapter provides tools on how to conduct consumer research through cookbooks and cooking shows from a linguistics perspective informed by cultural and media studies. Three methodological approaches: multimodal discourse analysis, narrative studies, and critical discourse analysis are described and related to consumer research. Cookbooks and television cooking shows influence consumers’ lifestyle habits and food choices from—what and who should cook, why, when, and how—to what comprises high/low cuisine, everyday/luxury, local/global, and traditional/modern. Understanding the sources and reflecting on these values give insight to consumer research. To succeed in the market, a product has to function well, taste good, or promise to fulfill an aspiration. Consumer research seeks a deep understanding of the needs and desires of consumers, an understanding that is guided by a humanities approach as outlined in this chapter.

The goal of this paper is to argue for the concept of social communication that we identified with the idea of innovation and almost always to technological innovation. The starting point is the hypothesis that innovation is a valuable tool in the service of the greater good. The paper has four sections. First, it briefly reviews concepts and methods in Actor Network Theory, a social theory that is useful in framing the (theoretical) approach and implications of e-service (e-care, e-health, etc … ). Second, it examines the implication of social innovation and e-service and discusses the prime agents involved in its creation. Third, it assesses the role of social communication and initiative’s benefits and risks to society. Finally, the paper concludes by exploring the broad implications of e-service for evolution of national-state conventional communication.

Visual culture is an area of study focused on practices of looking and the role of visual representations in the arts, popular and alternative media cultures, institutional and professional contexts, and everyday life. Art history, film and media studies, → cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology are some of the fields in which visual culture study is conducted. Forms of → visual representation studied include → museum display, fine art, film and → Television, old and new media, computer and → video games, digital culture, medical images such as X‐rays and sonograms, and advertising (→ Art as Communication; Painting; Cinema; Film as Popular Culture; Television, Visual Characteristics of; Video; Digital Imagery; Advertisement, Visual Characteristics of).

This article proposes complementing actor-network theory (ANT) with Niklas Luhmann’s communication theory, in order to overcome one of ANT’s major shortcomings, namely, the lack of a conceptual repertoire to describe virtual processes such as sense-making. A highly problematic consequence of ANT’s actualism is that it cannot explain the differentiation of economic, legal, scientific, touristic, religious, medical, artistic, political and other qualities of actual entities, assemblages and relationships. By recasting Luhmann’s theory of functionally differentiated communication forms and sense-making as dealing with different types of virtual attractors calling for actualizations in concrete assemblages, I propose a symmetrical understanding of societal differentiation processes as based on the co-production of virtual attractors and actual assemblages.

The change brought about by new technology in the television newsroom has become a key aspect of the development of the television industry in Iraqi-­‐ Kurdistan; since the newsroom has begun to adopt a new automated system, it has particularly shaped journalists’ practice and the method of news production within their workplace network. This change has led to the creation of a new form of journalistic practice, particularly with regard to multi-­‐skills, multi-­‐ media and multi-­‐tasks within the newsroom network. Hence, these technological changes have provided the news practitioner with more opportunities to obtain a detailed understanding of their practices, interactions and actions. This research project provides an ethnographic account of newsroom culture and journalists’ practice using automation and non-­‐automation systems (see, chapter two distinction) in two Kurdish news channels in Iraqi-­‐Kurdistan. It draws upon in-­‐depth interviews with journalists; non-­‐participant observation and collected documentation related to the research questions. The current research project is based upon two models: One is Community of Practice (COP)(see chapter 3), developed by Etienne Wenger (1998) and Jean Lave (1991). The COP approach provides a focus on subjects related to the workplace culture, mutual engagement, identity of the members, shared history of learning, exchange of information, experience and shared knowledge. The other is the Actor-­‐Network Theory (ANT) (Bruno Latour, 1992. Michel Callon, 1992. John Law, others), which offers a better means of carrying out an examination related to socio-­‐technical phenomena in the newsroom network (see chapter 3). The ANT approach is suitable for discovering the interactions and relationships between heterogeneous actors (human and nonhuman) in the workplace network. The research project examines how Kurdish newsroom practice and culture and journalists deal with new technology within the framework of the workplace. Alongside this, the project addresses the key characteristics and compared automation and non-­‐automation systems when conducting news practice in the newsroom. In this context, the research investigates the roles of journalists in each system and their everyday interactions and practices in their particular circumstances. This study examines journalists’ relationships and involvement in their workplace learning, their interaction within their community, their understanding of their practice and the shaping of their production in the newsroom network. In addition, this study looks at the extent to which new technology has a role in improving the skills that journalists need to conduct their profession. To achieve this, the researcher has conducted in-­‐depth interviews newsroom journalists and news workers working for two TV channels, GK and KNN. The findings show that the use of new technology in the KNN newsroom has had a big impact on the news practice and everyday life of journalists in the workplace, particularly, in comparison with the findings from the non-­‐ automation system used in the GK channel. The overall responses to these questions in the interviews reveal that the automated newsroom has impacted on news management production, and has increased the amount of news production, interaction of news workers, and exchange of experience and knowledge within the framework of their environment. However, there was no increase in news production associated with the non-­‐automation system used in the GK newsroom network.

This chapter reflects historically on the field of media and communication theory in Africa, paying specific attention to the evolution of the field in local contexts and arguing against the imagined binary between the empirical and the interpretive in approaches to research methodologies. The chapter explores the intersections of communication studies, mass communication and media studies, and suggests that we rethink media research in an African context, given Mitchell and Hanson’s (2010) call to consider media as a “prosthesis of human agency”, highlighting the social and cultural agency of media research. In particular, the chapter argues that media studies on the continent has the potential to be more than just a spin-off from English departments’ literary studies approaches (as has been argued by Tomaselli & Tomaselli, 2007 in the case of South Africa); or an amorphous loosely associated set of approaches versus a unified field (Mitchell & Hansen, 2010). Instead, media studies, the chapter argues, is a hybrid, interdisciplinary and dynamic field where humanities, social science and potentially other disciplines such as computer science come together.

This chapter brings into dialogue a number of materially astute theories and methodologies in the humanities and social sciences to consider how we might conceive of the lives of objects in international law. It begins with everyday lives—the way law and objects are woven into daily existences, drawing on ethnographies of the lived experience of law. Second, it considers the social lives of objects and biographical approaches to the lives of things, making reference to anthropological ideas, museum studies, and history, as well as ‘life writing’ and biography. Third, it considers objects as vibrant, agentive actants, drawing on ideas from Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) and science and technology studies (STS), thing theory, and also recognizing the long legal history of objects as agents. The chapter deliberately seeks to unsettle the legal and ontological categories of subject and object, to provoke reflection on how they are constructed and contested in international law.