Applying the Actor-Network Theory in Media Studies

Spöhrer, Markus · Ochsner, Beate

Aug 2016 · IGI Global

About this ebook

Actor-Network Theory (ANT), originally a social theory, seeks to organize objects and non-human entities into social networks. Its most innovative claim approaches these networks outside the anthropocentric view, including both humans and non-human objects as active participants in a social context; because of this, the theory has applications in a myriad of domains, not merely in the social sciences.

Applying the Actor-Network Theory in Media Studies applies this novel approach to media studies. This publication responds to the current trends in international media studies by presenting ANT as the new theoretical paradigm through which meaningful discussion and analysis of the media, its production, and its social and cultural effects. Featuring both case studies and theoretical and methodical meditations, this timely publication thoroughly considers the possibilities of these disparate, yet divergent fields. This book is intended for use by researchers, students, sociologists, and media analysts concerned with contemporary media studies.

About the author

Markus Spöhrer studied American Cultural Studies, German Studies and English Literature at the University of Tübingen, Germany and also Film Production, Film History and Popular Music at the University of Miami, Coral Gables. He did his Ph. D. at the University of Konstanz, Germany (Media Studies). Currently he is a Postdoctoral researcher in the DFG project “Mediale Teilhabe” (Media and Participation). Also he is working as a lecturer of contemporary German film, theory of media, culture and film. His research interests are film production, media philosophy, philosophy of science and Science and Technology Studies, human enhancement, and participation cultures of the cochlear implant.

Beate Ochsner is a professor for media studies, University of Constance (Germany). His research areas are Media and participation (www.mediaandparticipation.com/); audiovisual production of dis/ability; practices of hearing and seeing; monster and monstrosities; mediality/intermediality. His recent publications include Monography: DeMONSTRAtion. Munich 2010. Collected volume: Andere Bilder: Zur medialen Produktion von Behinderung (Other Pictures. On mediatic production of disability), B. Ochsner/A. Grebe (eds.), Bielefeld 2013. Periodical: AugenBlick. Konstanzer Hefte zur Medienwissenschaft 58 (2013). Themenheft: Objekte medialer Teilhabe (Objects of medial participation), Beate Ochsner/Isabell Otto/Markus Spöhrer (eds.). Articles: Together with Robert Stock:”Translations of Blind Perception in the Films Monika (2011) and Antoine (2011)”, in: Invisible Culture. Special Issue: Blind Spots (Peer Reviewed Journal) 19 (2013), http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/portfolio/translations-of-blind-perception-in-the-films-monika-2011-and-antoine-2011/. Together with Robert Stock: “Schnittstellen zwischen Hören und Mehr-Hören – das CI als Quasi-Objekt” (Interfaces between hearing and better hearing – the CI as a quasi-object), appears in: Sybille Nikolow et al. (eds.): Superabled. Technisches Enhancement durch Prothetik (Superabled. Technical enhancement through prothetics). Together with Robert Stock und Markus Spöhrer: Human, Non-Human, and Beyond: Cochlear Implants in Socio-Technological Environments.” In: NanoEthics 9.3, 237-250. Mapping the Brain: Neuropolitics and the design of Cochlear-Implant-Activation-Videos, in: Documentary and disability, ed. by Catalin Brylla and Helen Hughes, Palgrave McMillan (forthcoming). [Editor]