INF5210 Information Infrastructure Class #2 Actor Network Theory Ben Eaton Dan Truong Le 04/09/2013
Overview • Review: ▫ ANT concepts taken from ▫ Cha 5. From Control to Drift - Monteiro - Actor Network Theory and Information Infrastructure • Background to ANT • Introduction to ANT • Key ANT concepts for II ANT will enable you to describe and understand how your II is or is not aligned with the aims of your organisation
Towards a Theory of Information Infrastructures A Theories of Information Infrastructures (Evolution & Design) Process Strategies Architecture Governance Assemblage Theory Complexity Actor Network Reflexive Science Theory Modernisation
ANT Background
Our research needs • Problems of the development, introduction and use of an II concern: ▫ social-technical processes affected by characteristics of both technology & society ▫ processes of negotiation and interaction between different actants ▫ IIs contain multiple layers Drop Box (SaaS), AWS (IaaS), Internet, Physical Networks • The need for an analytical tool that: ▫ facilitates the analysis of IIs to address the concerns above ..... Actor Network Theory
The Management of IIs in the organisation: A traditional view • A key concern: ▫ Alignment of technology and business strategies ▫ Alignment => bringing order (through a process of control) ▫ to technology in an organisation and what employees do ▫ So that the organisation works efficiently to fulfill its objectives • Organisational change concerning IIs: ▫ Adoption of II by people ▫ Integration with other technology, work processes and practices ▫ Evolution of IIs, organisational structure and function, work processes and practices • Driven through a top down process imposed by senior management ▫ A predictable process driven by rational decision making ▫ A steady state where everything is under control can be maintained
A common perspective to this traditional view: Technological Determinism • The way technology is developed: ▫ Predictable, can be controlled ▫ Not influenced by social concerns such as politics or cultural context • Any changes that arise to society through technology ▫ Are due to the inherent characteristics of the technology ▫ Social concerns such as politics or cultural context have no part to play in these changes • Extreme View • Dominant view in IS pre 80's
Opposite view: (Strong) Social Constructivism • The way technology is developed: ▫ Entirely shaped by social concerns such as politics or cultural context ▫ The constraints of technology have no impact on the design process • Any changes that arise to society through technology ▫ Entirely due to social concerns such as politics or cultural context ▫ The inherent characteristics of any technology have no impact on this process • An opposite extreme view • Influencing IS in 80's/90's
The Non Technical in IS Research: Science & Technology Studies • Research agenda moving away from Technological Determinism towards Social Constructivism, e.g. • Sociology of Scientific Knowledge ▫ Questioning the robustness of scientific method through anthropological studies ▫ Laboratory Life (1979) Bruno Latour & Steve Woolgar ▫ What we might consider scientific fact isn't necesarily the result of the scientific method ▫ Rather it is the result of social processes such as politics and infighting • Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) ▫ E.g. Pinch & Bijker (1984) - The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other. ▫ Interpretive Flexibility: different actors develop different meanings for the same technology
Introduction to ANT
Actor Network Theory • Has its roots in Science & Technology Studies • Avoids extreme views of technological determinism and strong social constructivism • Characteristics of technology and a social setting interact with each other • Provides a framework for understanding how change is enabled and constrained in orgs • Increasingly used as a means of interpreting qualitative data to explain processes of IS change in organisations
ANT takes view • Both: ▫ Alignment of technology and business strategies ▫ Organisational change concerning IIs • Driven by both chr$ of technology & social concerns like power & politics • Stability can be reached sometimes, but is often only temporary • (Control to drift) • Not strict top down process, components parts of system align through • Influence of top down - negotiation, buy in, pursuasion • Also bottom up - aligning interests with peers etc • Do you think this is more realistic?
What is an Actor Network? Pt1 • Any activity or action is enabled by ▫ different elements ▫ and factors that influence the way these elements behave • These elements are known as ACTANTS and may be ▫ social (e.g. individuals or institutions) ▫ as well as technical (computer, network etc) • Factors that influence the way that these actors behave individually and as a group may again be ▫ Social (law, social norms, experience) ▫ and technical (processing speed, bandwidth etc) • Actants and factors taken together form an actor network (a network of actors) ▫ The way that they join, leave and behave in a network ▫ Explains how an activity is conducted over a period of time.
What is an Actor Network? Pt2 • ANT views society as a completely interwoven socio-technical web • It is the study of how order is built (and falls apart) - (study of semiotics) • An actor network can be thought of as the context, or the conditions, ▫ necesarry to be in place for a particular activity or set of actions to occur.
How to build and describe an Actor Network • Identify the story in your case about how ▫ Actants and conditions come together (or don't) in order for something to happen ▫ map out the set of actors anf condition, as a network, that describe your case ▫ Use ANT terms - described shortly - to analyse how this situation came into being (or not) • How much detail do you go into? ▫ practice judgement to identify (and argue) key elements that are critical context from mere background ▫ ie what is relevent
An example for us to discuss: YouTube taken from http://sgunadjaja.wordpress.com/ Note - just for illustration only, we could add to it significantly
ANT Key Concepts
ANT concept: Inscription • Inscribe= ▫ "write or carve (words or symbols) on something, especially as a formal or permanent record" ▫ Oxford English Dictionary • Inscription: process by which patterns of use are designed into technical artefacts ▫ Enabling & constraining particular behaviours ▫ e.g. My ability to file research expenses on UiO SAP ... and my work arounds for fields that don't exist • Designers have particular assumptions and beliefs about the needs and behaviours of users, which are "baked" into the technology they design ▫ A program of action is inscribed into a piece of technology ▫ Technology then becomes an Actant in its own right imposing its program of action on its users • This can affect how other actants in an actor network "buy into" an Actor Network for it to succeed .. hence
ANT concept: Translation • The process by which stability or order is reached (temporarily) in an actor network. • Social process of aligning interests amongst different actors as a negotiation • Actants - buying into the network (or not) • Different actors have different interests and different levels of power to assert those interests • Describes how different actors translate or re-interpret others interests to their own - and buy into the the actor network
ANT concept: Irreversibility • The concept that when translation has occurred - the actors have "bought into" the Actor Network - the network becomes increasingly ▫ accepted ▫ institutionalised ▫ hard to change - irreversible • a means to explain how some information infrastructures become hard to change • The positions of actants in the actor network have become fixed so that it becomes hard to evolve the II • the establishment and adoption of standards increases this irreversibility • e.g. Internet IP v4 - IP v6
ANT concept: Blackboxing • Note black boxing is described here in the sense that ANT is used in II research • ANT offers flexibility in the granularity of analysis • Important in IIs as they are both: ▫ Micro-phenomenon detailed design (code), protocols, patterns of local use ▫ Macro-phenomenon - actual infrastructure cutting across different user groups, large actors such as companies, industries, governmental regulators. • ANT treats both large and small phenomenon equally and is suited to analyses of both • So to prevent over analysis at the macro level and to avoid having to go to very micro levels of detail, it is possible to abstract or black box areas.
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