Actor Network Theory (ANT), developed in the 1980s by scholars like Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, explores the interconnectedness of technology, society, and power relationships. It employs a material-semiotic method to analyze social complexity and innovation, focusing on the roles of human and non-human actors in networks. While ANT provides a comprehensive framework for understanding technological developments, it faces critiques concerning the agency of non-human actors and implications for social consequences.

1. Actor Network Theory (ANT)‏ by Angel Brown

2. Power Law Institutions Thinking about technology and people Organisational theory Political economy Technoeconomic paradigm Regulation Social Construction of Technology (SCOT)‏ Science and Technology Studies (STS)‏ Structuration Technological determinism ANT

3. How to model social complexity?

4. How ANT began Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (CSI) of the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris in the early 1980s Michel Callon, Bruno Latour (staff) also John Law (British)‏ Came out of Science and Technology Studies (STS) Laboratory Life, Science in Action (in opposition to heroic accounts)

5. Conceptual origins French semiotics Power relationships and innovation Ethnomethodology Paradigm shift (Kuhn 1962)‏ Concern with how to talk about things within a constructivist paradigm - does matter matter?

6. Methodology and framework Sociology of Translation (of needs/goals)‏ Problematisation (obligatory passage point)‏ Interessement Enrollment Mobilisation

7. Trace networks of associations

8. Vocabulary Material-semiotic method Irreversibility Symmetry of humans and non-humans Black boxing Inscriptions Agency and intentionality - performing Mediators, intermediaries

9. Popular but controversial

10. How is it used? Most commonly to analyse large scale technological developments in an even-handed manner to include political, organisational, legal, technical and scientific factors. SAP implementation at government agency Norsk Hydro

11. How’s it used?

12. Critiques Can things really have agency/intentionality? How useful is identifying a network of some aspects of some associations? Doesn’t really tackle weighting in terms of power It is amoral - no regard to social consequences of technological choice

13. Implications for UX? When using an ethnomethodological approach to understand an innovation within a community (WoW, intranet)‏ Drive strategic thinking to understand success and/or failure (effectiveness)‏ Can inform process within an organisation

14. Latour on the acronym ANT “ perfectly fit for a blind, myopic, workaholic, trail-sniffing, and collective traveller"