STS Lectures
Lecture 6: Q&A session mid-term
No difference between components and artefacts. Elements that make up the system and
contribute to the aim of that system. All the components or elements are interrelated and
heterogenous.
Interpretative flexibility different meanings from different relevant social groups to a technology
lead to different design criteria
ANT
Nonhuman components do not have agency, when looking at the definition of agency. Structures
(e.g. environment, certain conditions) can limit or constrain the way people behave.
However, in ANT it is thought that the agency an actor (human and nonhuman) has, is a function of
the network relational networks (characteristics of an actor are the features of the part they fulfill
in a network)
Different views on agency in perspective of LTS, SCoT and MLP:
- LTS: more emphasis on agency systems builders that are creative enough to come up with
certain solutions
LTS: Structure momentum
- SCoT: more emphasis on agency some individuals contributed to a specific meaning
- MLP: Regime more emphasis on structure
MLP: Niche more agency
MLP: Landscape more structure
ANT’s flat and multiple ontology (and also LTS with technological style): there are no
essential/inherited features or characteristics of an actor, they behave differently in different
environments or networks.
- A technology is a certain technology because of its network and context.
- There is no true or false it all depends on its context and network, however the main
question in ANT is why is the context of the laboratory so much articulated
The bigger the network, the stronger the technology or the claim.
A network is stronger when there are more actors enrolled in it. The stronger the actor-network’s
internal relations, the stronger the ability to act (agency), since the ability to act emerges from and is
distributed across an actor’s relations within its actor-network.
1
, The differences between the frameworks:
Theories use different concepts that highlight different things of the phenomenon to explain the
same phenomenon.
LTS:
- Strengths: heterogeneous nature of problems
and solutions, each phase in development
comes with different solutions and problems
- Understand how systems grow and evolve
- Different phases through which a systems goes
MLP:
- Current problems have to be overcome
(everything is very difficult to change MLP
explains how change occurs)
- Understanding big changes over long periods of
time (ST-transitions)
ANT:
- Take a technology and describe the network and
the actors within the network and what function
they fulfill and how the actors behave
- A certain technology only has a function in the
particular network it is in. when the technology
travels to another context and network, it will be
embedded in a different set of relations,
therefore the technology will behave in a
different way
SCoT:
- Which relevant social groups are
included/excluded in the incorporation of a
design of a technology
- Meanings attributed to a technology
- How controversies emerge
- The technological design matters
- The more meanings are incorporated into a
design, the more democratic it is
2
Lecture 6: Q&A session mid-term
No difference between components and artefacts. Elements that make up the system and
contribute to the aim of that system. All the components or elements are interrelated and
heterogenous.
Interpretative flexibility different meanings from different relevant social groups to a technology
lead to different design criteria
ANT
Nonhuman components do not have agency, when looking at the definition of agency. Structures
(e.g. environment, certain conditions) can limit or constrain the way people behave.
However, in ANT it is thought that the agency an actor (human and nonhuman) has, is a function of
the network relational networks (characteristics of an actor are the features of the part they fulfill
in a network)
Different views on agency in perspective of LTS, SCoT and MLP:
- LTS: more emphasis on agency systems builders that are creative enough to come up with
certain solutions
LTS: Structure momentum
- SCoT: more emphasis on agency some individuals contributed to a specific meaning
- MLP: Regime more emphasis on structure
MLP: Niche more agency
MLP: Landscape more structure
ANT’s flat and multiple ontology (and also LTS with technological style): there are no
essential/inherited features or characteristics of an actor, they behave differently in different
environments or networks.
- A technology is a certain technology because of its network and context.
- There is no true or false it all depends on its context and network, however the main
question in ANT is why is the context of the laboratory so much articulated
The bigger the network, the stronger the technology or the claim.
A network is stronger when there are more actors enrolled in it. The stronger the actor-network’s
internal relations, the stronger the ability to act (agency), since the ability to act emerges from and is
distributed across an actor’s relations within its actor-network.
1
, The differences between the frameworks:
Theories use different concepts that highlight different things of the phenomenon to explain the
same phenomenon.
LTS:
- Strengths: heterogeneous nature of problems
and solutions, each phase in development
comes with different solutions and problems
- Understand how systems grow and evolve
- Different phases through which a systems goes
MLP:
- Current problems have to be overcome
(everything is very difficult to change MLP
explains how change occurs)
- Understanding big changes over long periods of
time (ST-transitions)
ANT:
- Take a technology and describe the network and
the actors within the network and what function
they fulfill and how the actors behave
- A certain technology only has a function in the
particular network it is in. when the technology
travels to another context and network, it will be
embedded in a different set of relations,
therefore the technology will behave in a
different way
SCoT:
- Which relevant social groups are
included/excluded in the incorporation of a
design of a technology
- Meanings attributed to a technology
- How controversies emerge
- The technological design matters
- The more meanings are incorporated into a
design, the more democratic it is
2
