scholarly journals Understanding and designing sociotechnical scenarios: a multi-theoretical approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Alysson Prado ◽  
Cecilia Baranauskas
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Real World Problem ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

Technology evolution is pushing the limits of our comprehension of the world and of ourselves, blurring the boundaries between people and objects. To understand this interweaving of ubiquitous computer systems and their dynamic social relations different theoretical sources are necessary. Socially Aware Computing provides a deep understanding on how information systems emerge from and interact with the social context, whereas Actor-Network Theory represents a promising referential to explain how people and artifacts mutually actuate to render social structures. In this paper, we assess the paradigmatic compatibility of these two theories, proposing a blend that provides a single basis to enrich the understanding of complex scenarios for designers of sociallyaware technology. In the sequence, we present an application of such proposal in a real-world problem. Finally, we discuss how this approach can be further extended to model nondeterministic interactions involving people and devices in social situations.

Beyond ANT

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Till Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Theoretical Design ◽  
The Social ◽  
Actor Networks

Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) offers an ‘infra-language’ of the social that allows one to trace social relations very dynamically, while at the same time dissolving human agency, thus providing a flat and de-centred way into sociology. However, ANT struggles with its theoretical design that may lead us to reduce agency to causation and to conceptualize actor-networks as homogeneous ontologies of force. This article proposes to regard ANT’s inability to conceptualize reflexivity and the interrelatedness of different ontologies as the fundamental problem of the theory. Drawing on Günther, it offers an ‘infra-language’ of reflexive relations while maintaining ANT’s de-centred approach. This would enable us to conceptualize actor-networks as non-homogeneous, dynamic and connecting different societal rationales while maintaining the main strengths of ANT.

Information Systems and Actor-Network Theory Analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiko Iyamu ◽  
Tefo Sekgweleo
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
User Requirements ◽  
Theory Analysis ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
The Social ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
Operational Issues

Evidently, based on studies which have been conducted over the years, there exist lots more complexity than technical in the development and implementation of information systems in organisations. The complex issues are socio-technical in nature, which require a refresh examination, from social context, if different results are to be achieved. Some of the complexities which are encountered include operational issues, environmental trends, processes flow, communicative scheme, and actors’ relationship. The unpredictable nature of business and rapidly changing user requirements makes it even more difficult to develop and implement systems within budget and timeframe. Other challenges are within the social context, such as politics and culture affiliations. Through the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) understanding of the social context of how information systems are developed and implemented is gained. Although ANT has been employed in many studies, it is of significant important to establishes and clarifies the factors, from the social perspective, which influences the development and implementation of information systems in organisations.

Actor–Network Theory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annelies Kamp
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Data Generation ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Social Studies Of Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Moment

Actor–network theory (ANT) is an approach to research that sits with a broader body of new materialism; a body of work that displaces humanism to consider dynamic assemblages of humans and nonhumans. Originally developed in the social studies of science and technology undertaken in the second half of the 20th century, ANT has increasingly been taken up in other arenas of social inquiry. Researchers working with ANT do not accept the unquestioned use of “social” explanations for educational phenomena. Rather, the social, like all other effects, is taken to be an enactment of heterogenous assemblages of human and nonhuman entities. The role of the educational researcher is to trace these processes of assemblage and reassemblage, foregrounding the ways in which certain entities establish sufficient allies to assume some degree of “realness” in the world. Aligning most closely with ethnographic orientations, ANT does not outline a method. However, it could be argued that a number of propositions are shared in ANT-inspired approaches: first, that the world is made up of actors/actants, all of which are ontologically symmetrical. Humans are not privileged in ANT. Second, the principle of irreduction—there is no essence within or beyond any process of assemblage. Actors are concrete; there is no “potential” other than their actions in the moment. Entities are nothing more than an effect of assemblage. Third, the concept of translation and its processes of mediation that transform objects when they encounter one another. Finally, the principle of alliance. Actants gain strength only through their alliances. These propositions have specific implications for data generation, analysis, and reporting.

Visualization in analysis: developing ANT Analysis Diagrams (AADs)

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Payne
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Analytical Investigation ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Social Data ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
The Individual

This article presents a novel diagramming approach which employs aspects of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) in the creation of ANT Analysis Diagrams (AADs). ANT is a socio-material approach which allows for the consideration of both human and inanimate entities in a social context. AADs provide a novel method for the analytical investigation of social situations, thereby both operationalizing elements of ANT and generating a visualization of a domain. It is the process of creating an AAD which is crucial, focusing attention on the characteristics of the entities involved and the nature of the relationships between them, thereby supporting the analysis of qualitative social data. As this article illustrates, AADs can be usefully applied to a wide range of social contexts and across scales, from the individual person, to groups through to broad social concepts.

scholarly journals Actor-network theory in studies of the nation and nationalism: the methodological aspect

KANT ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 281-291
Author(s):  
Konstantin Maltsev ◽  
Artem Alaverdyan
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
Empirical Generalizations ◽  
Constructivist Approaches ◽  
The Relationship

Methodological provisions of B. Latour's actor-network theory: methodically grounded doubt in the conceptual reality and reality of the social, the need to distinguish between the social in social relations and the social in associations, the methodological requirement of "symmetry in the interpretation of nature and society" and the related new understanding of the social actor, are essentially close to the influential constructivist (R. Brubaker) approach in understanding the nation and the national. The article analyzes the relationship between "categorical" and "network" concepts in the study of the nature of "national", methodological problems of "compatibility" of actor-network and constructivist approaches to building the concept of "nation"; the conclusion is drawn that the permissibility of "methodological syncretism" is limited to the area of practical-oriented "empirical generalizations" that guide the political practice of nation-building and the regulation of national conflicts.

scholarly journals Digitale forbindelser og nye fornemmelser. Et etnografisk studie af Facebook

2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-26
Author(s):  
Nina Charlotte Schiøtz ◽  
Sophie Bo Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Social Network Sites ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Society Today

Artiklen bygger på en undersøgelse af den sociale netværkstjeneste Facebook, som vi foretog i efteråret 2008 i forbindelse med specialeskrivning på Sociologisk Institut, KU. I nærværende artikel argumenterer vi først og fremmest for, at Aktør-Netværk-Teorien kan være et givtigt sted at starte, når vi skal forstå menneskets samspil med digitale teknologier, og vi vil fremlægge de metodiske udfordringer og muligheder, som et felt som Facebook byder på. Dernæst vil vi give en karakteristik af de nye tekno-sociale praksisser, som vi ser opstå med unges hverdagsbrug af Facebook og vise, hvordan disse praksisser betyder, at mennesker i stigende grad knyttes sammen via fornemmelsen for hinanden. Søgeord: Sociale netværkstjenester, ANT, sociologi, Facebook, digital etnografi. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Nina Charlotte Schiøtz and Sophie Bo Schmidt: Digital Connections and New Awareness: An Ethnograhpic Study of Facebook This article explores the characteristics of the new kinds of social ties between people that are emerging with the use of Social Network Sites. The article builds on the results of an ethnographic study of young Danish Facebook users in late 2008. First we argue that Actor Network Theory is a useful strand of theory for studying technological phenomena. Then we describe two general techno-social practices that emerge from users’ engagement with Facebook. Finally, we argue that the substance of the social relations that emerges with the use of Social Network Sites is relations of awareness. This form of connectedness does not replace traditional social relations, but is rather a new dimension in the way people relate and make ties in society today. Key words: Social Network Sites, SNS, Facebook, ANT, sociology, digital ethnography.

Social Glocalisation and Education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Hobelsberger
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Practical Theology ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Local Effects ◽  
Local Identities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Work Health

This book discusses the local effects of globalisation, especially in the context of social work, health and practical theology, as well as the challenges of higher education in a troubled world. The more globalised the world becomes, the more important local identities are. The global becomes effective in the local sphere. This phenomenon, called ‘glocalisation’ since the 1990s, poses many challenges to people and to the social structures in which they operate.

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.

Post-Yugoslav Serbian Literature and Its Roots in the Social and Political Changes

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-118
Author(s):  
Milan Orlić
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Discourse ◽  
World Language ◽  
Cultural Paradigms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post Modernism ◽  
The World ◽  
Socialist Realist ◽  
The One

Post-Yugoslav literature and culture came out of the stylistic formations of Yugoslav modernism and postmodernism, in the context of European cultural discourse. Yugoslav literature, which spans the existence of “two” Yugoslavias, the “first” Yugoslavia (1928–1941) and the “second” socialist Yugoslavia (1945–1990), is the foundation of various national literary and cultural paradigms, which shared the same or similar historical, philosophical and aesthetic roots. These were fed, on the one hand, by a phenomenological understanding of the world, language, style and culture, and on the other, by an acceptance of or resistance to the socialist realist aesthetics and ideological values of socialist Yugoslav society. In selected examples of contemporary Serbian prose, the author explores the social context, which has shaped contemporary Serbian literature, focusing on its roots in Serbian and Yugoslav 20th century (post)modernism.

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.

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