You might find Rick Iedema's (Latour-inspired :) article on
resemiotization wortwhile checking. He is looking at the changes in
meaning-making resources (in situ/durable) in a planning project.
Iedema, R.A. 2001, 'Resemiotization', Semiotica: journal of the
international association for semiotic studies, vol. 137, no. 1/4, pp. 23-39.
On Thu, 23 Apr 2009, Jurgen Faust wrote:
> Thanks to all of you,... I have a lot to think again,... also about ants and billard balls...
>
> I already started to read more about actor network theory, whether it is useful or not. It
> will be anyway useful to expand my writing about design discourse, also about discourse
> on object level!
>
> Now my question expanded again:
>
> ...what terms could I use to differenciate the various discourse levels,... discourse
> media...the media the discourse is conveyed in?
>
> as I stated in the beginning, I am researching the discourse at the
> level of objects which get produced to varify other productions...
>
> but we can also see other discourse... in drawings,... images,... photography
> therefore I am also looking for an adeqaut term, I also proposed
>
> (discourse) conveyance matter...
>
> because textual matter which was the original term
> or object matter...
> seems all to be too fuzzy?
>
> Jurgen
>
>
> On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:11:54 -0400, jeremy hunsinger <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >Usually sequence is part of the narrative of the description of
> >events, which is part of the write up. it is usually handled by the
> >methods of analysis you use, such as ethnography, which keeps track
> >of its own time. however, you can see how that becomes a problem when
> >you start talking about atemporal methods like semiotics, there you
> >probably wouldn't use time, because it isn't really part of the
> >method's normal analysis. but in discourse analysis time is also
> >present as one tracks the changes (actions) in the discourse over
> >time. now here's a trick that i've proposed and i blame terry
> >pratchett for the idea, but time... can also be accounted for as an
> >actor in actor-network if you plan on doing that. i could see how
> >time could become an actor if you were analyzing say an emergency room
> >where time acts in all kinds of relations to all kinds of things.
> >however, for the most part, people don't seem to use time as an actor,
> >and they just use the temporal relations common to the method they are
> >using.
> >
> >the problem might be with your construction below (and my prior loose
> >speaking)... which represents an actor/action divide. some actor-
> >network take the term actant from semiotics, Griemas i think, but
> >maybe propp before. they use actant to resolve the issue where people
> >assume there is an actor without action. There is no necessary divide
> >between actor/action; the 'actor' does not become apparent until the
> >'action'. That is to say, that there are actions which are relations,
> >and actants acting, but without the action, we have no relations, and
> >thus no actor. Actants are things acting, there is no actor, without
> >the action, and thus no temporal divide.
> >
> >In my prior example below, i posited the existence of an actor without
> >acting, the way we would do that would be to have actions ongoing
> >(which almost always happens) from that actant. usually any given
> >actant is doing many things in the system and the problem is sorting
> >it out.
> >
> >On Apr 22, 2009, at 9:52 AM, Terence Love wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Jeremy,
> >>
> >> Thank you. That is really helpful and clarifies a lot.
> >>
> >> Wondering how in ant you handle information about sequence and time
> >> when an
> >> action happens?
> >>
> >> I can see how you correlate an action to an actor and identify
> >> classes of
> >> relationship between actors but identifying the sequence of actions
> >> and how
> >> they relate to identified actors, actor relationships and actions I'm
> >> unclear on.
> >>
> >> Best wishes and thanks,
> >>
> >> Terry
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: jeremy hunsinger [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> >> Sent: Wednesday, 22 April 2009 8:52 PM
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Cc: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: Re: actor-networks Re: Discourse on object level
> >>
> >> reasons and causes are described after the analysis is finished.
> >> you look
> >> at the system of relations and you can then describe what happened
> >> and can
> >> infer whatever cause fits the described data. let's keep in mind that
> >> actor-network theory is not a method, it is a standpoint about how
> >> to treat
> >> research and how to gather that data
> >> using methods, such as semiotics, discourse analysis, or ethnography.
> >> it's primary use is to mould the data collection and to provide
> >> insights into data analysis.. it doesn't assign reasons so much as
> >> track actions and relations in networks. reasons and causes are
> >> things to
> >> be very skeptical about because frequently we have less than a cause
> >> and
> >> more of a conjunction or constant conjunction according to hume,
> >> so... actor
> >> network would note that x did y, but when y then immediately did
> >> things it
> >> would not note that x caused y, because as you can imagine y may
> >> merely have
> >> been waiting until time z to act, and action y was incidental. one
> >> can only
> >> find out these relationships through time.
> >>
> >> now after the analysis is over and you have your data and you see
> >> that every
> >> time x is in proximity of y, y acts somehow, you may be inclined to
> >> hypothesize a causal relation, and others over time may support that
> >> or deny
> >> that.
> >>
> >> one thing to note here is that mental models, 'reasons' can be
> >> 'actors' in
> >> actor-network. a good idea can 'act', recruiting people
> >> through people, etc. latter theories might call this unification of
> >> actors a mess or an assemblage. but it is very useful to be able to
> >> track
> >> an idea as an actor.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Apr 22, 2009, at 8:23 AM, Terence Love wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi Jeremy,
> >>>
> >>> How do you deal with the reasons and causes for actions in ant?
> >>>
> >>> Best wishes,
> >>>
> >>> Terry
> >>>
> >>
>
>
Dr Pirkko Raudaskoski Associate Professor :www.hum.aau.dk/~pirkko
Department of Communication and Psychology :www.kommunikation.aau.dk
University of Aalborg :www.aau.dk
Kroghstraede 3 :kort.aau.dk/aalborg/540620
DK-9220 Aalborg OE :www.aalborg.dk
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