Editing Actor–network theory (section)

==Impact of ANT==

=== Contributions of nonhuman actors ===
There are at least four contributions of nonhumans as actors in their ANT positions.<ref name="Sayes">{{Cite journal |last=Sayes |first=Edwin |date=30 December 2013 |title=Actor–Network Theory and methodology: Just what does it mean to say that nonhumans have agency? |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0306312713511867 |journal=Social Studies of Science |language=en |volume=44 |issue=1 |pages=134–149 |doi=10.1177/0306312713511867 |pmid=28078973 |s2cid=21514975 |issn=0306-3127|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

# Nonhuman actors can be considered as a condition in human social activities. Through the human's formation of nonhuman actors such as durable materials, they provide a stable foundation for interactions in society.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Littlejohn |first1=Stephen W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aRMoEAAAQBAJ |title=Theories of Human Communication: Twelfth Edition |last2=Foss |first2=Karen A. |last3=Oetzel |first3=John G. |date=2021-05-07 |publisher=Waveland Press |isbn=978-1-4786-4710-2 |language=en}}</ref> Reciprocally, nonhumans' actions and capacities serve as a condition for the possibility of the formation of society.<ref name="Latour1996">{{Cite journal |last=Latour |first=Bruno |date=1996-10-01 |title=On Interobjectivity |url=https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327884mca0304_2 |journal=Mind, Culture, and Activity |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=228–245 |doi=10.1207/s15327884mca0304_2 |issn=1074-9039|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Sayes" /><ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Latour |first=Bruno |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1260345015 |title=Nous N'Avons Jamais Ete Modernes |date=1993 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-07675-4 |location=Cambridge |oclc=1260345015}}</ref>
#* In Latour's ''[[We Have Never Been Modern]]''<ref name=":5" />'','' his conceptual "parliament of things" consists of social, natural, and [[discourse]] together as hybrids. Although the interlocks between human actors and nonhumans effects the modernized society, this parliamentary setting based on nonhuman actors would eliminate such fake modernization, and changes the [[dichotomy]] between modern society and premodern society.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Pickering |first=Andrew |date=1994 |title=We Have Never Been Modern (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/22993 |journal=Modernism/Modernity |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=51 |doi=10.1353/mod.1994.0044 |issn=1080-6601 |s2cid=142859856|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
# Nonhuman actors can be considered as mediators. On the one hand, nonhumans could constantly modify relations between actors.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last1=Latour |first1=Bruno |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RMu6wbzVrVkC |title=Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies |last2=Latour |first2=Centre de Sociologie de L'Innovation Bruno |date=1999-06-30 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-65335-1 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Latour |first1=Bruno |last2=Venn |first2=Couze |date=December 2002 |title=Morality and Technology |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/026327602761899246 |journal=Theory, Culture & Society |language=en |volume=19 |issue=5–6 |pages=247–260 |doi=10.1177/026327602761899246 |s2cid=144144309 |issn=0263-2764|url-access=subscription }}</ref> On the other hand, nonhumans share the same features with other actors not solely as means for human actors.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Latour |first=Bruno |date=1996-10-01 |title=Pursuing the Discussion of Interobjectivity With a Few Friends |url=https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327884mca0304_6 |journal=Mind, Culture, and Activity |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=266–269 |doi=10.1207/s15327884mca0304_6 |issn=1074-9039|url-access=subscription }}</ref> In this circumstance, nonhuman actors impact human interactions. It either creates an atmosphere for humans to agree with each other, or lead to conflict as the mediators.
#* It is noticeable that the status of mediation is more affiliated with [[#Intermediaries and mediators|intermediaries]] or means as a stable presence in the corpus of ANT,<ref name=":6" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kochan |first=Jeff |date=14 April 2010 |title=Latour's Heidegger |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0306312709360263 |journal=Social Studies of Science |language=en |volume=40 |issue=4 |pages=579–598 |doi=10.1177/0306312709360263 |s2cid=145685585 |issn=0306-3127|url-access=subscription }}</ref> while mediators function more powers to influence actors and networks.<ref name="Sayes" /> Technical mediation exerts itself on four dimensions: interference, composition, the folding of time and space, and crossing the boundary between signs and things.<ref name=":4" />
# Nonhuman actors can be considered as members of moral and political associations. For example, noise is a nonhuman actor if the topic is applied to actor-network theory.<ref name="Sayes" /> Noise is the criteria for humans to regulate themselves to morality, and subject to the limitations inherent in some legal rules for its political effects. After nonhumans are visible actors through their associations with morality and politics, these collectives become inherently regulative principles in social networks.<ref>Latour, B. (1992) 'Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts', in Bijker, W. E. and Law, J. (eds) Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, pp. 225-58.</ref>
# Nonhuman actors can be considered as gatherings. Alike nonhumans' impacts on morality and politics, they could gather actors from other times and spaces.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last=Callon |first=Michel |date=May 1990 |title=Techno-economic Networks and Irreversibility |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1990.tb03351.x |journal=The Sociological Review |language=en |volume=38 |issue=1_suppl |pages=132–161 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-954X.1990.tb03351.x |s2cid=109998444 |issn=0038-0261|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Interacted with variable ontologies, times, spaces, and durability, nonhumans exert subtle influences within a network.<ref name="Latour1996" />