[Air-l] Latour, ANT, and Internet Research

[smork at itu.dk]

Dear Christian

I have made an attempt and it will be published in the Februar issue of
Convergence 2007. Abstract:

Mundane cyborgpractice – material aspects of broadband internet use

This article is about the use of broadband internet access in the home.
Special attention is given to different material aspects of the internet.
Inspired by Actor Network Theory and Cyborgtheory, a concept of a mundane
cyborgpractice is developed, to outline how the internet is integrated
into the everyday life and related to other technologies. This concept is
used in mapping the everyday life through ethnographic participant
observations and qualitative interviews. Raymond Williams’ concept of flow
is used to map how the internet is integrated into the everyday life and
hereby becomes a mundane technology that bends time and space. This aspect
is underlined by the materialization of the internet. It is concluded that
when looking at the internet we have to take into consideration all the
mundane aspects of internet use and sometimes conceive of the users as
mundane cyborgs.

Best,
Søren

> Dear colleagues,
>
> I am curious to find out if there are scholars who have used Latour's
> Actor Network Theory for describing the internet as a network of human
> and non-human (technical) actors.
>
> I think that such an approach were fundamentally flawed, but would like
> to know if anyone has already attempted and published such a description?
>
> Christian
>
> _____________________________
> Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs
> ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research in
> Information and Communication Technologies & Society
> http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at
> University of Salzburg
> Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18
> 5020 Salzburg
> Austria
> christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at
> Phone +43 662 8044 4823
>   Fax +43 662 6389 4800
> Information-Society-Technology:
> http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/
> Managing Editor of tripleC - open access online journal
> for the foundations of information science:
> http://triplec.uti.at
>
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