Week 4: ANTs and Assemblages

Contemporary media has developed and transformed rapidly since the introduction of print publishing, it is thus essential we understand the theories and methods that help us analyse this shift. Only then can we make tentative assumptions of where we’ll be heading next…although no one can really know. On this note, I introduce to you an“assemblage” (I welcome you to pronounce this word out loud if you desire and feel posh).

Fundamentally, an assemblage is exactly that: an assembling of relating elements. Combined, an assemblage becomes something that has new meaning by influencing each other. Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT for us!) gives us a more in-depth experience of an assemblage by following DeLanda’s associations with a “flat ontology” – one where we are all treated equally, not just all humans, but non-humans too! ANT lends us a way to explore the connections within a network and provides insight to describe how common activities, habits and procedures maintain themselves. Within this is the concept of territorialisation, where there is  a move to organisation, as opposed to deterritorialisation, which disrupts organisation. I found this concept quite difficult to grasp until I related and created practical examples to understand how an assemblage works.

Simply put, an assemblage is something like an ecosystem; it functions on the basis of diverse components, and connections between those components. So how does this relate to publics and publishing? Back in the pre-pubescent years of media (way back before the invention of the printing press), a publishing assemblage could contain the Town Square, people who gather there to learn information, word of mouth, perception, opinions, and more information influenced by these metaphysical notions. Now think about the World Wide Web of today (I like that it’s called “web,” because that’s precisely what an assemblage looks like, for those visual people out there), and all it’s connected to, outside and within it, digitized and non-virtual, human and non-human – all combining into one huge network that acts as our hub of information data and information creation. However, even though the assemblage has changed with time, what hasn't changed are the intertwined paths between author, publisher, technology, and social relations. Yet, the paths and networks inside each of these ideas (think advancing technology, and thus the changing social relations and structures as a consequence of it). What I'm trying to say amongst all this verbiage is that people from the social sphere become authors that use publishing tools and techniques to contribute back into the social sphere, which then influences the ideas floating inside it - and the cycle goes on. This assemblage of media channels works together with each other to provide the modern day consumer with access to data from extensively varying sources – sources that build our social identity and connect us to our social centre of the public sphere.

References:

• ‘Actor Network Theory’ (2013), Wikipedia, 25 Feb [accessed 26/03/2013]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor-network_theory>
• ‘Actor Network Rochambeau’ (2010), any-space-whatever blog, 14 Nov[accessed 26/03/2013] <http://www.anyspacewhatever.com/actor-network-rochambeau/>
• Shaviro, S. (2007), ‘DeLanda: A NewPhilosophy of Society,’ The PinocchioTheory, 15 Jan [accessed 26/03/2013] <http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=541>